AGM 2023

Dec 14, 2023

Slides

Good morning, and welcome to the Helium One Global Limited annual general meeting proceedings. Throughout this recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen-only mode. Questions can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question submitted today. However, all questions will be reviewed with responses published where appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. I'd now like to hand you over to James Smith, Chairman. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Paul. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our AGM for your meeting of your company. It's now gone past 11, and I apologize for the slight delay. We had a few IT and administrative issues here. I, James Smith, Non-Executive Chair of the company, will act as chairman for the purposes of this annual general meeting. As a reminder, anyone without the necessary documentation of letters of representation will be unable to vote for today's meeting. You will be able to ask questions, and once we've completed the formal business, there'll be an informal Q&A session after Lorna Blaisse's presentation. You may wish to follow proceedings by referring to the notice of the meeting document. Explanatory notes on the reason for the meeting are set out in the circular. Before we start, I would just like to introduce all of the colleagues of the board to you. Immediately to my left is Lorna Blaisse, the CEO. To her left is Graham Jacobs, CFO, and to his left is Russel Swarts, Non-Exec Director. To my right, we've got Sarah Cope, Senior Non-Exec, and Nigel Friend, Non-Exec Director. We've also got Nick Owles, who's our Investor Relations, who will be checking for questions and posing those questions to the board during the Q&A session. The quorum necessary to constitute the annual general meeting of the company is two members, in person or proxy. As the requisite quorum is present, I declare this year's annual general meeting open. Voting of the resolutions will be conducted on a show of hands, unless, in my capacity as Chairman, I declare the resolution will be taken on a poll. Each shareholder present and eligible to vote will have one vote each. With your permission, I propose that the notice of the meeting and each of the resolutions set out in that notice are taken as read. Is that agreed? I accept no comment as that is agreed. Prior to putting the resolutions to the meeting, I'd like to advise the meeting of the proxies received by the company in relation to the resolutions. For resolution number one, 13,467,167, against 755,013. For resolution number two, for 13,154,770, against 1,090,483. For resolution number three, for 12,393,730, against 1,851,522. For resolution number four, 12,549,322, against 1,695,930. Finally, for resolution number five, 10,363,662, against 3,527,468. Now each resolution will be taken in turn, and there will be an opportunity for questions on each specific resolution from the floor will be offered. If any questions are arising, I would be grateful if shareholders would state their name and if they're a corporate representative, the name of the company they are representing. For the formal business of the meeting, resolution number 1. This is a resolution to receive and adopt the annual accounts of the company for the financial year ended 30th of June 2023, together with the directors' reports and auditors' report. Are there any questions to this resolution? There being no questions, I now propose to put to the vote of the meeting of the resolution set out as item one in the notice convening this meeting as an ordinary resolution. I now put the resolution to the meeting. Will all those in favor kindly raise their hands? For those against. I declare the resolution carried as an ordinary resolution by requisite majority. Resolution number 2. This is the ordinary resolution to grant the directors the authority to reappoint PKF Littlejohn LLP as the company's auditors to hold office from the conclusion of the AGM until the conclusion of the next AGM, and to authorize the directors through the audit committee to determine their remuneration. Are there any questions relating to this resolution? There being no questions, I now propose to put the resolution to the vote of the meeting set out as Item 2 in the notice convening the meeting as an ordinary resolution. I will now put the resolution to the meeting. Will those in favor kindly raise their hands? Those against? I declare the resolution carried as an ordinary resolution by requisite majority. Resolution number 3. The board recommends the re-election of Sarah Cope as director of the company, who is retiring by rotation pursuant to Article 9.6 of the company's articles of association. Sarah Cope, eligible, offers herself for reappointment. Are there any questions relating to this resolution? There being no questions, I propose to put to the vote of the meeting the resolution set out as Item 3 in the notice convening this meeting as an ordinary resolution. I will now put the resolution to the meeting. Will those in favor kindly raise their hands? Those against? I declare the resolution carried as an ordinary resolution by requisite majority. Resolution number four. The board recommends the re-election of Nigel Friend as director of the company, who is retiring by rotation pursuant to Article 9.6 of the company's articles of association. Nigel Friend, eligible, offers himself for reappointment. Again, are there any questions relating to this resolution? There being no questions, I now propose to put to the vote of the meeting the resolution set out as Item 4 in the notice convening this meeting as an ordinary resolution. I now put the resolution to the meeting. Will those in favor kindly raise their hands? For those against? I declare the resolution carried as an ordinary resolution by the requisite majority. Resolution number five. This is an ordinary resolution to authorize the directors be generally and unconditionally authorized to exercise all the powers of the company to allot up to 315 million equity shares in the company for cash, or to grant rights to subscribe for or to convert any securities into shares in the company as if Article 3.2 of the company's articles of association did not apply to them. Are there any questions relating to this resolution? There being no questions, I now propose to put to the vote the resolution set out as Item 5 in the notice convening this meeting as an ordinary resolution. I will now put the resolution to the meeting. Will those in favor kindly raise their hands? Those against? I declare the resolution carried as an ordinary resolution by the requisite majority. There being no further business, that concludes the formal business of the meeting. On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I'd like to thank you for attending. However, we now propose that Lorna will continue the informal part of the meeting with a presentation, and then following that, a question and answer session will be conducted. Over to you, Lorna. Thanks, James. Good morning, everybody. To those of you in the room here in London and for those of you who have joined remotely online, I will now take you through a short operational update for the company. as James has alluded to, we'll accept Q&As at the end. Those Q&As will be a mixture of pre-submitted Q&As through the Investor Meet platform and also questions from the floor in the room. I'm aware that obviously a number of you are existing shareholders and very familiar with our story and our corporate overview. I won't go through the details on this slide, but the right-hand side is there for you to review. It's been a busy year for Helium One. We had a slow start to the year in trying to secure our rig for our Phase 2 drilling campaign. In the middle of the year, we overcame the number of hurdles that we were faced and actually acquired our own drilling rig. This is an oil and gas spec rig, an Epiroc Predator 220, that we have been using for our Phase 2 drilling program in the Rukwa Basin. We recently completed the drilling of our Tai-3 well. That well was successfully drilled and data was acquired. The well itself encountered a number of repeated helium shows at multiple levels up in the Tertiary lakebed section, through the Galula, and into the Karoo Group and the top of the basement. Those helium shows increased in concentration the deeper we went, in particular as we tagged the top of the basement at total depth, and encountered a faulted and fractured zone. We were then able to successfully recover a downhole sample of helium, which you'll recall from our phase 1 drilling campaign in the Tai-1 well, we were unable to do so. This downhole sample was then transferred under PVT conditions and recorded a 0.8% concentration of helium from the Lower Karoo. The well has subsequently been suspended. By that I mean the casing has been run. It's not been P&A'd, it's not been cemented up. The reason for this is that in the future, we would like to return to this well and deepen it, so we can drill into that basement play. That was a target we were unable to achieve from phase one with the Tai-1 well and the limited capabilities of the rig. This time round, unfortunately, due to issues with the rig, we weren't able to drill ahead there and then, but also because we've run the casing, subsequently deepening that well would be in a smaller hole size diameter, and we currently do not have the equipment to do that. That is why we are not deepening Thai 3 now. Our primary focus going forward is to repair the rig. I'm delighted to say that the replacement Iron Roughneck is now on site as of this morning. Once that is reinstalled and we're rigged up, we anticipate drilling our second well on the Itumbula prospect in early January next year. In addition too, we are obviously still operating as a clean, low carbon, sustainable resource. Helium in this part of the world is not associated with hydrocarbons. It's very much a helium nitrogen mix, which makes it very globally unique. We also have a low CapEx development, and when we make that all important discovery, we are confident that the commercialization of this will be sufficient to move forward at a low cost. You'll see the share volume chart on the lower right-hand side there. Some key milestones this year. In July, we had the acquisition of the Predator rig. We then spud the Tai-3 well at the end of September, and we announced the results of that well in the middle of November. The year in review, on a single slide in a timeline. I think despite, obviously, there are some degrees of frustration and disappointment in the progress we've made. However, I think when we view it from a month by month basis over the last 12 months, it has been an incredibly busy year for the company, and we have overcome a number of hurdles and issues to get to where we are today. The first half of the year following my appointment was frustrating. We were faced with a series of setbacks with losing subsequent rigs from various drilling contractors. In the meantime, we were always working through a plan B and a plan C option in order to fulfill that phase two drilling campaign later this year. As a new CEO, that was something that I felt compelled and committed to deliver before year-end. Earlier in the year, we completed a CPR for the Tanzania prospect that was always ranked high up in our internal portfolio for prospects that would be must drill. We announced the results of those, which are subsequently on our website. Not long after that, in July, we were delighted to announce that we had successfully acquired the Predator rig out of Kenya. That was a challenge. That was not something that happened overnight. I'd like to thank the team and the board for their support in order to fulfill this. In parallel, like any drilling campaign, particularly in this remote part of the world, operations are always a challenge and always present uncertainty and hurdles. I'm not sure anyone who's drilled wells in this room can probably say a well's gone according to plan. There are unfortunately always challenges along the way. In parallel with securing the rig, we also had to make sure that our civils work was complete, and we had contracts signed up with our third-party well services. There's a lot more to just having a rig on the ground. There is a lot that has to go on in the background in the run-up to that all important spud date. In August this year, we had a board restructure, a replacement of our chairman. Not long after that, we were in a position to move forward into appointing a full drill crew for the Epiroc rig. As you're aware, we're quite unique in that having purchased a rig to fulfill our drilling campaign now and for the future, which I still believe puts us in a very strong position as an exploration company. We are now also a drilling contractor, which is, as I said, unique and does come with its challenges. In the long term, I'm confident it will also come with its reward. It's saved us a significant amount of money in terms of mobilizing and demobilizing a rig in and out of this part of the world. Moving forward will give us huge optionality in moving quickly into an appraisal and development scenario. In September, we announced a fundraise and successfully completed that fundraise. The reason for that is that after acquiring our own rig, we were in a very strong position to drill not just the Tai prospect, but another follow-on well, by the end of this year. That was for the drilling of the Itumbula well. In parallel to the ongoing work out at site, again, there was a lot of precursor preparation that had to go into that. Commencement of civils was started at the end of September. Then eventually come November, we finally spudded. Middle of September, we spudded the Tai C well, which is now Tai-3. It's a letter pre-drill and a number post-drill. As I mentioned, I'll go through the results of that well in a bit more detail shortly. That was a very positive well for the company, notwithstanding the issues and challenges we faced with the rig. In parallel, we commenced the preparation of the Itumbula site. The results of the Tai-003 well led us to a slight change to the location of the well on that Itumbula prospect, which is now complete. We've successfully moved the rig to the Itumbula site and the camp. We're mindful of the wet season around the corner, and from an HSE exposure perspective, I very much would like all of our equipment and people in one location. Once the rig is up and running again, we will be in a position to be spudding that second well in our campaign in a few weeks' time. This is an overview of the basin. I'm sure many of you are very familiar with this already, but just to get your eye into where we're drilling currently. This is where the Tai prospect sits, over in the central southern part of the Rukwa Basin. The Itumbula prospect is about 20 kilometers to the southeast, away from Tai-003. That prospect, again, like Tai, has always stacked quite highly in our portfolio of prospects. It also sits very close to the most prolific active surface helium seep in the Rukwa Basin. Historically, that basin has measured repeated concentrations in excess of 10% helium with a nitrogen mix, which again, is a very globally unique, active seep globally, not just in Africa, but in the world. Given the proximity of the Itumbula prospect to that seep, and the fact that the seep geologically is up-dip of where we intend to drill, we are reasonably confident that this is a must-drill prospect in this portfolio for this part of this phase two drilling campaign. Just highlights on the Tai-003 well and why it's pushed us towards shifting the location slightly at Itumbula. As I mentioned at the beginning, there were increased helium shows while we were drilling the Tai-003 well. They increased substantially with depth, in particular as we encountered those fractured and faulted zones down near the basement. That all-important downhole sample at surface at 0.8% helium from the Lower Karoo was encouraging. The well came in deep to prognosis. It was nearly 400 meters deeper than prognosed, but it was drilling that new section of Lower Karoo stratigraphy that gave us the best chance of achieving this downhole sample to surface and yielding the helium. Unfortunately, by deepening the well, it did add cost to the campaign, operational costs, and subsequently spread costs, which we'll come onto later. As I mentioned, that last point on there, the well is currently suspended. It is not P&A'd. As I mentioned, the rig is, you can see the photo is at the bottom on the left-hand side. The rig has been moved to the Itumbula location, and we have a planned spud for January. This is an overview of the Tai-003 delivery. The drone shot at the top of the slide just illustrates the extent of the footprint that we have from our well sites. I think those of you who were invested in the company in phase one will acknowledge that it is a much more robust drilling campaign than the company first embarked. This is very much more of a conventional oil and gas setup. We've got the rig set up on the pad, and then we've got our camp on site as well. As I mentioned in the beginning, that is really important to have personnel and crew on site or as close to site as possible, especially while operating in such a remote area. The Tai-003 well drilled to 1,448 meters. That was the total depth. At that point was when we tagged the top of the crystalline basement and encountered a fracture zone. We did subsequently encounter losses, which is not unusual in fractured rock. However, as I mentioned, that is where those helium shows did increase in concentration. We are confident that when we come back and deepen this well subsequently, that there is potential there for a fractured basement play, which is a proven play elsewhere in the world for helium exploration and development. There are a number of successful commercial projects in North America and Canada that are chasing a very similar play. Also in this part of the world, in this basin, we know from working with academics in the past, and the groundwork that the co-founders of Helium One put in in the beginning with the likes of professors from the University of Oxford and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, that these concentrations of helium are originating from the craton, from the Tanzanian craton, and that therefore the basement is actually acting as a source. The closer we get to that primary source, the more chance we have of securing a commercial flow of helium. As I mentioned, unfortunately, we're not in a position to deepen that well immediately. We will because it's going to be in a narrower hole size. There are a number of long-lead items that would need to be brought into country to fulfill that. In the short term, it's in the best interest of the company and our overriding strategy to move to Itumbula and get the second prospect drilled first. This is a seismic view of the Tai-003 well. Projected on here, the well path. These colorful horizontal reflectors represent the different stratigraphic intervals within the well that we drilled. The pink reflector at the bottom is the top of the basement. This is the top of the Karoo. This will be the Galula section, and up here is the Tertiary lakebed section. You can see that the blue circles represent where we encountered helium shows, not too dissimilar to the Tai-001 well. The blue star at the top of the Lower Karoo section there is where we successfully recovered the downhole helium sample from. Unlike phase one, adopting a conventional oil and gas approach here, we were drilling reservoir section an 8.5-inch hole compared to 3.5-inch hole that we did with the minerals rig. That gave us much greater clarity and certainty of being able to run our wireline logging program, and we've successfully recovered a series of logs from this well, and that has yielded a huge amount of subsurface information. I think I've said in IMC earlier this year, a well with no data is of no value to anybody. Those logs were good quality. We've been able to perform a full petrophysical analysis of those logs, and subsequently we're able to run in hole with our downhole sampling tool and recover that surface helium sample, which has always been an objective of our wells, even in phase one, and unfortunately for the phase one campaign, we were unable to fulfill that. In addition to taking downhole samples, we also take pressure data, and that helps us to understand in a free gas scenario where we may have barriers and work out where we may have potential pay zones as targets. That downhole sample was associated with water, and the key thing here you can see from this slide, as I mentioned, the faults and the fractures in the intervals. This black marker here represents the fault that we drilled into where those helium concentrations increased. There's also another major bounding fault here on the Tai prospect. I'd like to draw your attention to those faults and the yielding of the helium concentrations out of them, and why that's led to us shifting the focus at Itumbula for our second planned well. The next two slides will just talk you through that process. The first point is just reiterating what I've just said on the previous slide. The key message here is similar to Tai, the Itumbula structure is a prospect, is a large structure, it's bounded by a large, deep-seated fault on the western side that taps deep into the basement rock, and that is where the helium is being sourced and is most likely being liberated up the faults and the fracture zones. Now, we know that helium comes to surface, not just at the active seeps, which you can see represented by these triangles in the bottom right-hand corner of this slide, but also these colorful green and red zones overlying on the satellite imagery here represent the results of the remote sensing work we did a couple of years ago that capture where there's helium in the atmosphere at surface above ground. You can see there's a very large anomaly overlaying the Itumbula prospect. The prospect itself sort of covers this whole area. We know that as we move to the south, everything shallows and rises up, and that is the point of leakage where we have the seep. A number of these surface helium anomalies are also associated with surface fault expression. You can see that captured on here by these white dashed stippled lines. This is a very active rift present day. There is a lot of surface fault expression across the East African Rift System, and the Rukwa Basin is no exception to that. It is rifting apart present day. However, it is that active rifting that is pulling the helium out of the system from depth and bringing it to surface. It's very much our hope that if we can target one of those faults along that main migration pathway, particularly that's associated with not only a seep but also repeated helium anomalies, that we stand a good chance of understanding how that helium's coming out of the system and therefore ultimately, hopefully, discovering it and making it commercial. The pictures on the lower left-hand corner just illustrate what we've done over the last couple of weeks. We've now moved the camp to the Itumbula area. This is the rig, about a week ago, set up at the original Itumbula site. As you recall, we've been doing some repair work on the rig, the hydraulics, and the electronics. That's now rigged down and moved to. That was this site, the original site here. We've now moved it a couple of 100 meters to the west on the new location at Itumbula West. It is this location that will be targeting that fault, and this dashed line here is where that fault comes to surface. On a seismic section, this is a southwest-northeast seismic section across the prospect. This map on the right-hand side illustrates the structuration at the top Karoo level. The warmer colors represent the geology shallowing. The cooler colors represent the geology deepening. Everything deepens to the north in the Rukwa Basin. As we come shallower to the south, this is where we see the active surface helium seeps. The basement is outcropping at surface, and the helium is seeping off into those ponds. This is the large regional fault, and that is deep-seated on the seismic section. This comes all the way down into basement and keeps going. The white stippled path, vertical path here represents where that well will be drilled, and these are the two faults that we will be targeting with that well. It must be noted that we're not taking a complete shift. It's not suddenly discounting the conventional approach and targeting the lakebeds and the Karoo and the basement. They still very much remain primary targets for us for this well, but we want to be able to attempt two bites of the cherry, and therefore we will be targeting these faults as we deepen the well towards the Karoo and basement targets. What does rig ownership mean for us? Aside from a number of headaches that I appreciate you have all been exposed to, and I can assure you that they have affected myself and the team significantly as well. However, this is part of the process of owning a piece of heavy plant machinery or any machinery. I liken it to the team of going to look at a classic car you want to purchase. It's been sat in someone's garage for a few years. It looks great. You bring your friend along who's a mechanic, he kicks a few tires, looks at the engine and says, "Great." We've obviously done more than that. We did complete a full audit on the rig. However, it didn't obviously drill any wells in that audit. By the time you start putting it under pressure and drilling a well or taking the car out of the garage and driving it around the M25, unfortunately, it's going to be inevitable that things do unfortunately go wrong. As I said at the beginning, now being a drilling contractor as well as an operator, it's exposed us to those problems more than conventionally a normal operator would've been exposed to. However, I think it can't be denied that the team has successfully overcome every hurdle that's been thrown at us over the last few months. We have a very dedicated team on site. They're always thinking outside the box and resolving these issues as quickly as possible. It is an oil and gas spec rig. There is no reason why this rig is not capable of not only completing this drilling campaign, but also future drilling campaigns of ours. We very much view this as a longer term investment to the project and the company. As I said earlier, in a success case scenario, it will certainly be able to fast-track any appraisal and development scenario for us, as well as offer other revenue options. We have been approached by other people, other operators in country who are interested in the rig, and I'm confident that in the longer term, it will be something that we will be in a position to lease out. In terms of current status, as I mentioned and was put out in this morning's RNS, the Iron Roughneck was on its way to site. It did arrive this morning. I had that confirmed prior to the start of this meeting. The team will be working very quickly and efficiently to get that installed. Over the next few weeks, we will get the rig fully rigged up so that we are in a position to spud in January. We will be remobilizing personnel. During this downtime, we have obviously sent crew back in order to save cost. However, we do have equipment still there. We have third-party service equipment still there waiting to get going again. On the financials, just a couple more slides. I think at this point, I'll just hand over to Graham, who will talk through the audited results from the year-end this year. Last year, sorry, and then I'll pick up again. Thanks, Lorna. Just a few bullet points on this that come out of the accounts. I'm sure all the shareholders here have received their copy. Loss attributable to shareholders is $2.6 million. As Lorna already said, we don't generate any revenue. We are a cost-incurring company only at this point in time, but we are hopeful that with utilization of the rig, we will be able to generate third-party revenues as we move forward. That's the plan moving forward. But at this point in time, clearly the rig's focus and our focus on drilling the wells that we need to. Net assets at the end of the year were GBP 27.2 million. Non-current assets of GBP 16.7 million. Our cash at the end of June was GBP 9.9 million. As everyone's aware, we did raise some further funds in September of this year. Post year-end, we also acquired the Predator rig. Both of those and since we drilled the well as well have had an impact obviously on our current cash position. That's it, Lorna. Thanks, Graham. Okay, so last couple of slides. Again, working in a remote part of the world, we're working very closely with our local communities out in Rukwa. I was fortunate to spend some time out at site while we were drilling Tai-03. We have a very good, strong community liaison team in the field who work exceptionally hard in ensuring that the community is kept well-informed. That's not just in terms of land management and compensating them for the use of their land, but even to the level of informing them of progress of the project, raising awareness in the community of movement of trucks. We've moved a phenomenal number of trucks through the region. Educating the children at the schools. A lot of these children here haven't seen such big machinery before. It's very exciting. They're very keen to run out in front of it. All of that takes a lot of time to build the trust in the communities and educate them on what we, as a company, are trying to achieve here. We have incredibly strong relationships. We're very supportive to the communities for supporting the work that we are doing moving forward. Similarly, for our stakeholders in country, and the governments, always having good productive meetings, and always having their support, which is very encouraging. Like all companies, we're very committed to the environment, again, particularly in these remote areas. Anything that we touch, we do restore. For Tai-1, for example, we P&A'd that well, that site has been fully restored, and if you were to walk over that land, you would have no idea that a well pad was ever there in the past. As CEO, I'm very much committed to that as well and work hard with the team both in country and in here in the U.K. to fulfill those commitments. Last slide, just a summary. We are very much focused on securing a helium discovery, and we see ourselves as becoming one of the leading producers of green helium. Green helium being, again, globally unique project, not associated with hydrocarbons. We're in a very unique province in the world, and currently do own 100% of our three projects, not just in Rukwa, but also in Nyati and Balangida. We're all aware of those active surface helium seeps that are yielding those helium concentrations, and I'm very hopeful that the drilling of the Itumbula prospect close to one of these seeps is going to yield some very encouraging results. We're very much focused on fulfilling the campaign and future campaigns. Despite the headaches it has caused for all of us, I still very much believe that purchasing a rig was the right move for the company. I look forward to utilizing that rig as best we can moving forward to commercialize the project and ultimately, potentially create some revenue as well. That is all I have. Thank you, Lorna. Graeme, I guess we will now proceed with a Q&A session, and I'm going to ask Nick Owles to lead the questions. There've been some pre-submitted on the IMC. I think some will be coming in as we have been going through the presentation. I'm going to ask Nick to kick off the first questions, and myself, Lorna, and Graham will attempt to answer those as you present them. Brilliant. Thank you, James. We'll start with the pre-submitted ones, and then we'll come to the room, then we'll have a look and see if there's anything else that hasn't been covered that's come in online. The first question is: why did you announce that you needed funding prior to getting the funds in? Yeah, this is a really important question and a really important topic. Funding situation that we've found ourselves in has come about due to a number of factors. It had to be announced without delay because of the AIM and the Market Abuse Regulation in order to avoid creating a false market in the company's shares. We had no choice. It is part of the regulatory environment that we operate in. While it would have been preferable to announce a completed fundraise at the same time, it wasn't possible, and the funding situation that will be required will be announced in the future. I would also add that for any investors that are here in the room, we have our Nomad here. Scott is here and will happily answer any questions regarding the regulatory environment that we're operating in. Second fair question, how much funding do you need? How long will it last, and what are the funds for? The amount of the funding required is still being decided and dependent on the work program going forward. The initial funding will look to ensure that we can successfully deliver a completed well at Itumbula. We would like to return to Tie-3, and deepen that well, as Lorna has explained, but that will completely depend on the funding available. Are you currently running a fundraise direct marketing roadshow, and when will it be completed by? Well, as you can imagine, this is a very sensitive topic. We announced on the 5th of December, as I've just alluded to, that we've been approached by a number of interested parties who would like to invest. Since then, we've had a number of conversations with them and our Nomad, as well as other potential investors as to how to best raise funding for the future. As such, and right now, those conversations remain ongoing. Are you planning to offer this to existing investors? Well, as in the last raise, we would certainly hope to offer that to existing investors. It depends on the opportunity, and it depends on the chosen mechanism that goes forward. It is our desire and our intention of offering it to all existing shareholders and investors. What is the group's cash position? Graham, I'll ask you to Yeah, sure. expand on that. As I've just alluded to, we had $9.6 million at the end of June of this year. We raised a further $7.9 million gross in September. Since then, as I've said, we have drilled a well. Unfortunately, I'm not able to say anything more than that, other than the fact that we do still have cash, but we are looking and seeking to raise further funds as has been announced. How much did the rig cost? I'll take that. I will. We haven't disclosed that amount. It is obviously a commercially sensitive number, and we are subject to conditions in the sale and purchase agreement. However, as I alluded to in the presentation, we have saved substantial cost on mobilizing and demobilizing a rig from outside of Africa by securing our rig. We will continue to save those costs every time we do require another rig, and that's a very important part. Why did you buy the rig? Yeah. Again, probably already answered. It's a longer-term strategy here. I'd hope that everyone in the room and online will acknowledge that if we hadn't bought the rig when we did, again, despite the problems it's caused us, we potentially still wouldn't have a hole in the ground and data out of it. We'd potentially be sat here waiting to use another rig off the back of someone else or still trying to secure a rig with the budget we had available. Again, at the time, it certainly was the right decision, and as I mentioned in the presentation, it gives us optionality going forward. Is Lorna really the right CEO for the job? Okay. I think I better answer that. Absolutely, Lorna is the right person to be CEO for this company. Her performance, her dedication, especially over the last few months, has been second to none. As we all knew it would be. I've known Lorna for a decade now, and I've seen her commitment to the work that she undertakes and her commitment to our company, Helium One, is no different to other companies that I've seen her work in. She has the technical expertise. She has the understanding of the assets. Operationally, she's very strong. While she's not been a CEO before, she's got the full backing of the board as well as the board's expertise, which is wide-ranging. Another one. Why did you not team up with Noble Helium? Surely, that would've led to significant cost synergies. Lorna. Yeah. We had a cooperation agreement in place with Noble. We are certainly not enemies. Quite the opposite. We've supported one another during both recent campaigns, and both companies have helped each other out. We did talk to them about potential synergies of a rig share. Unfortunately, at the time, both companies went their separate ways on a solution because both companies had to fulfill their individual strategies. I just touched on earlier, they secured the Marriott rig. Yes, we could have come in off the back of that, but as I said, that's only just finished drilling their wells, and we'd probably only be spudding our first well now, which was not something that we wished to go down. Having our own rig certainly will offer us an option in the future, and hopefully fast-tracking any discovery into development. What are you doing about improving your communications? me answer that, or? Well, I'm happy to answer that. Okay. All right. ... James. We both can. Obviously over the past few months, we have communicated to and updated the market in all aspects. As James already touched on, we are Nomad regulated, as I'm sure those of you in the room here in London will appreciate. We got updated on aspects of the rig acquisition through to the drilling campaign. Obviously, those updates are supplemented by PR and IR interviews where appropriate. We also have our social media platforms where we update accordingly. We feel that we do keep the market well appraised. We do get mixed messages. Some feel that we under-communicate, others feel that we over-communicate. It is about adopting that balance. Personally, I work very closely with our PR company, Tavistock, and we believe that we are communicating appropriately. As a sign of confidence to shareholders, are the Board willing to purchase more shares themselves? Well, this is something we will obviously be looking at individually. It's something that all board members will consider. I'd like to point out that all board members in the previous funding round participated. As you know, it's dependent on every individual's personal circumstances, and they'll have to make that decision at the time. On October 17th, the Tanzanian government tweeted about working with Helium One to work together in overlapping licenses at the Eyasi-Wembere block. Why was there no company RNS at the same time? Do you want to do that? Yep. Those licenses are licenses that we applied for earlier in the year. They have not yet been ratified, and because they have not yet been ratified, we have not announced them. As and when they are, we will certainly be making an appropriate announcement. Why did the company establish East Africa Holdings Limited on 21 November 2023? Okay. That's actually linked to the previous question. That is as a result of those applications. East Africa Holdings is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of Helium One Global, and that was set up in advance of these applications in order for us to secure them as new licenses, as actually under Tanzanian law, each subsidiary is only allowed a certain number of licenses, and they cannot exceed a certain square kilometerage. As I said, we will update the market accordingly as and when that is appropriate. Will the board be taking salary reductions due to this tough financial period? Well, this is something that is constantly under review. We have embarked on a cost-cutting exercise. We have reduced our staffing. We have reduced the number on the board already, and it's something that is constantly under review and will remain so. How much of the rig repairs cost? Lorna. The actual rig repairs have not been particularly material. The most expensive item is the Iron Roughneck. The indirect cost is far greater as all of those short-term costs continue to accrue while the rig is on standby. It's actually the spread rate that is actually the incremental cost that adds up while we're not operating. Why were none of these issues picked up in the audit before you purchased the rig? As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, the rig audit, as robust as it was, they didn't obviously actually drill a well. The rig had been cold stacked for a couple of years. It's only by working it and put it under pressure that these problems have come to light. Also, the problems we have had, so like the gearbox, that is a component that's very deep within the rig carrier itself, right within the rig engine. I think it'd be fair to say that no auditor is going to pick all of that apart and take everything out. Unfortunately, there is an element of luck involved and we have been unlucky. As I say, we will continue to troubleshoot and resolve these. While it is frustrating, in the long term, we are understanding and learning more and more about this rig, and I hope that those problems will become less and less as we move forward. Has drill rig been through a full maintenance check, and should we now see no major issues going forward? Yes. I've probably just answered that in the previous question. Once the Iron Roughneck is installed, we will commence rigging up at the Itumbula site, and as part of that rigging up process, there will be a full maintenance check prior to spud. Will you be able to get a crew for Itumbula? Absolutely. A number of our crew, although they've been demobilized in the interim to keep costs down, they're very keen to come back. When I was out at site myself, a number of them approached me personally and said how much they've enjoyed working on the project, and they very much want to be involved with the second well and subsequent wells. All of the logistics are in place. Visa applications, travel plans, et cetera, are poised to pull the trigger on so that we can get the crew back as soon as possible. Regarding the double failure of the roughneck and hydraulics, have any costs been recovered from the vendor? No. This is something that was not written into the sale and purchase agreement and nor would it be. Are Baker Hughes still contracted for the second drill, even though there's drag into next year? Were they contracted for back-to-back drills in September, October, November this year? Have Baker Hughes vacated the site? The personnel have, as I've just alluded to keep costs down, but their equipment is still very much there, and we certainly have plans to use them again for the second well. We are in active discussions with them regarding how we best approach that, but at the moment, we will be using Baker Hughes. Has the chance of hitting free gas reduced considering both Helium One's and Noble Helium have only hit fizz gas / cut brine so far? Obviously I can't comment on Noble's results. I only know what they put out in the public domain. Their data is obviously their data. I mentioned we're targeting those faults. We believe that there is potential for the helium to be in solution, which does slightly change our commercial model and production profiles going forward. However, it's not impossible. There are proven commercial helium projects in the world that are producing helium from alongside water. However, at Itumbula, we're not just targeting the faults, we are still targeting the conventional traps in the lake beds in the Tertiary section and also the deeper Karoo and basement. What are the big operational lessons learned from acting as operator on the Tai well, and what are you doing to mitigate the same issues from happening again? What controls have we got in place to respond to these issues arising should the mitigation measures not be suitable or sufficient? I think as I touched on in the presentation, Tai Three, we have learned a lot. Despite the setbacks, we were successful in logging that well, and acquiring a downhole sample, which had always been the primary well objectives for Tai One. Tai One, we weren't able to do that, because we didn't have the right type of rig. We do have the right type of rig. Problems aside, it is more than capable of drilling these wells. It can drill down to 2.5 km quite comfortably, and none of our prospects are exceeding those depths. As I mentioned earlier, any form of data recovery is a huge bonus. It allows us to better understand what we're drilling, and we will apply those learnings on each well to subsequent wells, which is what we're demonstrating here with Itumbula. Does the board believe they have adequate experience to perform the operator role going forward? Just because we have been on operations in the past where holes have been drilled by an operator doesn't strictly mean we have the skills or experience to perform this role. Well, I'd say we have absolutely the highly experienced team that is required to deliver a complex operational program such that we have, as well as all the corporate activity that is required to accompany that. We've got a great mix of experience, both on the board and in the operational team, both from the city and the oil and gas industry. I think it is worth me adding that I've got 35 years of experience in the oil and gas world, and I have to say, including operating and drilling and being successful in Tanzania, I have to say that the team that we've had on Tai Three is one of the most hardworking, committed, and devoted set of individuals that I've ever seen on a drill floor, on a drill rig operation. Really it's commendable to the whole team and Lorna's leadership. Do you feel that Noble Helium have stolen the march on you, especially as they have spudded 2 wells and raised AUD 14 million? Well, again, it's not my position to comment on our peers and their activities. I guess ultimately it's not a race. I don't see it as a race. Helium is in huge demand and will continue to be. This is about two separate independent parties drilling in a manner that's optimal to them and their circumstances and their overriding strategy. I guess from my point of view or our point of view, I don't believe this. I think we have delivered our strategy and phase two program in the constraints and challenges we've had. As I keep alluding to, in accordance with our regulations, which has proved out further the potential of our assets going forward. Again, I keep laboring the point, but by having this rig, it does provide us optionality going forward. James, that was the end of the pre-submitted questions. Okay. Well, you probably haven't had time to review those online. I haven't. But I think, yeah, we'll open to the floor those members that are present. If anybody has further questions they'd like to ask, please state your name and pose your question. Yes, sir. Yes. My name's Bill Miller. I've heard several reports that there were cost overruns of over $4 million in the first rig. Would the board like to comment on that, especially the finance director? Mr. Chairman, may I just, before you speak, just ask you if you could just paraphrase that for those online, just so we can make sure we can hear the question. Thank you. Okay. The question is, the individual asking the question has heard that there's a $4 million overrun on the first well. He would like the CFO to comment on the accuracy of that. Thank you for your question. I can certainly confirm that there have been cost overruns. Those cost overruns, as Lorna referred to earlier, reflect not necessarily and not just the cost of repairing rigs, but the logistics that go with it. It's a very remote location. Equipment and spares are not available from the nearest town. These things invariably come from a great distance, and the costs we've incurred reflect those logistical challenges and issues. As for the quantum, given the situation we are currently in with regards to fundraising, I'm not unfortunately in a position to be able to comment on that. The numbers were substantial, but I'm not in a position to actually provide the specific number. Next question, please. My name's David Robertson. It's been over a week since the RNS went out for the fundraising, and you've just said we've got cash. Is there a good reason why we don't know now how much we need? We do know, and we are finalizing those numbers. We will be making some announcements shortly, but we cannot say in this meeting here today exactly what those numbers are. Sir. My name's James Main. Similar question, really. I mean, Lorna said earlier that there are always issues with drilling. Also mentioned the fact that despite the fact that we did an audit on the rig, given that that wasn't a drill, that wasn't in real life, as it were. It seems really unfortunate that we're going back to the market for more money only two months after we did the first round. It seems strange to me that we didn't actually already have enough wiggle room for that first round of funding to get through these issues. Who's to say that, well, client C's result was. What's the word? We don't have a defined result from that. If we go through Itumbula and we're in exactly the same position, who's to say when we go then for more money, our current market cap is about GBP 13 million, and the balance sheet is hardly huge. On what basis could we then move forward if we don't get a result from Itumbula? Where do we then go? I'll just try and summarize your question, sir. Basically, if we don't get a result on Itumbula, where do we go next, is your challenge. Lorna, do you want to respond to that? Yeah. We have the option of deepening Tai-03. As I mentioned, the helium, you said it was inconclusive. However, we did get a substantial amount of positive information out of that hole. It indicates to us that the deeper we go into that basement play, which was originally a primary target, and if it wasn't for the losses and the breakdown of the Iron Roughneck, we certainly would have drilled into that basement. That was always the original well objective. That is an option that we can still do, obviously subject to funding. The Itumbula prospect, similar to Tai, does give us the best chance of proving up the helium play and concept in this basin. I'd hope that after this second well, that we will have a much clearer view. The only reason I ask is that, as I said, having to go back to the market for funding twice in less than a quarter is unfortunate. If we can't raise enough money to go into Itumbula and drill deeper in Tai-03, we're going to have to go back to market again for whatever we subsequently do. That would be three fundraisings in the space of two quarters, with an ever-reducing market capitalization. Sir, we can't announce what we're raising this round, and we haven't announced the final numbers and what it will cover. I understand the frustration, and it's equally frustrating for us that we can't tell you more. I can assure you, I would love to say more, but we are bound by the regulations, and we cannot enlarge on what we've already said, I'm afraid. Are there any further questions? Sir. Yes. I read a report that there's contractual difficulties with Baker Hughes. Would you like to comment on that? The question is, there's a suspicion. Over a payment. that there's a suspicion Funding Underpayment with Baker Hughes. Could we comment? Graham, could you take that? I'd be happy to take that. Yeah. I'm just interested in where you read that. I read it in the market report. Okay. Baker Hughes, one of our largest contractors, they provide the cementing and wireline services. As is fairly common in any type of operation of this size and this nature and this length, there are differences of opinion. At this moment in time, we weigh those differences of opinion and nothing more. Their equipment's still on site, and we're very confident that we'll be utilizing their services as we move forward. All we're simply doing is maintaining our position with regards to the use of their services and the way in which they were utilized during the previous drilling campaign. At this point in time, there's nothing that is a major dispute. Any further questions? Nick, have there been any further online? There are a couple online. One, have we considered farm-out options? Lorna, have we considered farm-out options? Yes, that is something that we have considered. We did put together a data room, and we did have some interest earlier this year, which was very encouraging. However, subsequently, there was no deal that came out of that. The interested parties we did have in are very much watching us closely and are keen to touch base at a later date as and when the well results evolve. Another one. Are there any examples of green helium projects in production today similar to Helium One's strategy, or would this be a world first? As I mentioned, we are globally unique. There are other helium projects in their infancy where they are chasing similar gas mix, so without the hydrocarbon gas. The majority of commercial projects at the moment that are in production are very much associated with methane and very low concentrations of helium, actually. Some of the bigger commercial projects in the U.S., less than 1% helium, but it's working because they're producing it as a by-product of the hydrocarbons. Yes, we are positioned in a globally unique place. The final one is, what words of comfort do you have for shareholders who are underwater given the terrible share price? I think, going forward, we are focused on overcoming our funding issues as Graham's alluded to. Hopefully, as you've heard today, you'll be comforted by the fact that we are very much committed to drilling this second well. We have everything ready to go. I'm confident the rig will be back up and running shortly. We are very much looking forward to getting the Itumbula prospect drilled and seeing what that will yield for the company. Thank you, Nick. That concludes the questions from the IMC. Are there any further questions from the floor? If not, I propose that we close the meeting and thank all members for their attendance, both at the IMC and in person. With that, I'll hand back to Paul and close the meeting. Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for updating attendees today. Could I please ask attendees online not to close the session? It should be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and is greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the board of Helium One Global Limited, I'd like to thank you for attending today's annual general meeting proceedings, and good morning to you all.