Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Jadestone Energy Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Gabrielle, and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press Star followed by two. I will now hand over to your host, Mitch Little, Chief Executive Officer of Jadestone Energy. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Gabrielle. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I would also like to welcome all of you to Jadestone Energy's full- year 2025 results conference call. I'm Mitch Little, Jadestone's Chief Executive Officer, and I'm joined on the call today by Andrew Fairclough, our Chief Financial Officer. I will make some introductory remarks prior to handing over to Andrew to take us through the financial update, then I will return to provide an operational review and some closing comments. We'll be referring to our results presentation, which you can view through the webcast and which can also be accessed on our website. After our prepared comments, we will open the call for questions and answers. Moving past slide two, which outlines our standard disclaimers, I'll start on slide three.
Geopolitical events in early 2026 have magnified the importance of domestic energy security and the safe and reliable supply of oil and gas. For the last 10 years, Jadestone has been building and operating upstream platform across the Asia-Pacific region, building critical mass in Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. We've established a 20,000 BOE per day production base from existing assets and a material organic growth project in Vietnam, both from the initial development as well as the additional 1.5 TCF upside within our existing licenses that has attractively low finding and development costs in the success case. Our 2025 performance was anchored by another year of strong HSE performance. During the year, we reached the milestone of 12 million man-hours LTI-free, delivering on our commitment to the safety of our people, our assets, and the communities environment in which we operate.
Operational excellence and cost discipline drove record production and materially lower operating costs during 2025, resulting in significant improvement in cash flow generation during the year. We have started 2026 where we left off in 2025, delivering on several of our key priorities in the first four months of the year. Most notably, we have made significant commercial and technical progress on the Nam Du U Minh project in Vietnam, allowing us to book approximately 32 million BOE of gross 2P reserves for the initial development phase. We've also refinanced our existing debt through the issue of our debut bond. Strong benchmark oil prices, record premiums, and the bond issue have contributed to significant liquidity, providing us with a strong foundation to support and deliver on our strategic growth objectives.
Moving now to slide four, where I will cover three high-level themes that define the direction of travel for our business and our 2025 highlights in more detail. Under the leadership of our refreshed management team and board, the organization's hard work and relentless focus on operational excellence is beginning to yield measurable improvements. Perhaps most evident is the delivery of 14% growth in the underlying producing assets and a unit operating cost reduction of 21%. We have no illusions about the hard work that's required to effectively and efficiently manage mature assets, especially in the offshore operating environment, and w hile we realize that new challenges may surface from time to time, I have confidence that we are instilling the right processes, behaviors, and competencies that will allow us to address those challenges on par with the best operators in the business.
The improved focus and discipline around protecting the base has translated to a significant improvement in cash flow generation during 2025, where despite only achieving a 3% improvement in annual revenue, our adjusted EBITDAX and operating cash flow were up meaningfully year-over-year, and our net debt was meaningfully reduced. Additionally, we have recently delivered on a further key 2026 objective in refinancing the group's reserve-based lending facility with a $200 million debut Nordic Bond. The increased liquidity and associated flexibility of the bond greatly enhances our ability to direct the cash flow generated from the business towards our near and midterm growth objectives. A very timely and important achievement in light of the great momentum continuing to be achieved on our Vietnam gas development, with all key regulatory and commercial approvals now in hand.
On slide five, let me touch on a key priority for the board and management team. Namely, narrowing the significant and persistent discount of the share price to the underlying value of our portfolio. On the left of the slide, we compare the current share price to the valuations of the sell-side analysts who cover Jadestone. Valuations are structured as core NAV, or in other words, the value of our producing assets, and risked NAV, which adds a risked view of the known upside potential in our business. These valuations were calculated on oil prices much closer to where we entered the year, rather than what we see on the screen today, and d espite the conservative oil price basis, their valuations are still multiples of the current share price. A compelling third-party endorsement supporting our internal view that the share price undervalues our existing business.
On the right-hand of the slide, we ask the same sell-side analyst to run their models and valuations at a series of flat real oil price scenarios from 2026 to demonstrate our high gearing towards Brent oil prices. The share price disconnect we see on the analyst base case valuations is magnified in higher oil price scenarios. While we are not in the business of forecasting oil prices, we are of the view that the significant dislocation in energy markets we've seen this year will take some time to normalize, even if there is a rapid de-escalation in the Middle East. We will continue to focus on demonstrating the potential of the business and narrowing this discount with several near-term catalysts.
Firstly, we will remain steadfast in our focus on protecting the base business, both in terms of operational excellence and cost discipline, which improve our ability to deliver on the business drivers within our control and professionally and efficiently manage through non-controllable events like Cyclone Narelle, to regain the confidence of the broader investment community and deliver the cash flow generation which underpins these analyst valuations. We remain active in seeking out accretive opportunities in the Asia Pacific region to deploy our skills in late-life field management and development of regional gas resources. The refinancing of our debt facility earlier this year will allow more of the cash flow generated by the business to be directed toward that growth ambition rather than repayment of debt.
The Nam Du U Minh project has tangible momentum with project contract awards, farm down, and final investment decision, all near- term visible catalysts towards crystallizing and de-risking the value carried in the analyst models while enabling the transfer from risked upside into core NAV. We're also excited about further organic growth opportunities, which are not currently included in the analyst models. Later in this presentation, we will further detail the upside potential around our existing discoveries in Vietnam, as well as the significant gas resource potential around Montara, where we are actively progressing conceptual development studies. In summary, I believe there's significant unrecognized value in our portfolio with several near-term catalysts, which should naturally translate to a meaningful narrowing of the gap between that underlying value and our share price. I'll now hand over to Andrew, who will take you through the financial update.
Thank you, Mitch. Good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. On slide six, we show the operational and financial summary for 2025. From an operational and a cash flow perspective, 2025 was a strong year. Record annual production, along with the schedule of liftings, led to a 23% increase in lifted volumes. This offset the impact of weaker Brent prices on our realizations and premiums through the period, delivering a 3% increase in revenues, including a $2 million hedging gain in the year. Reported production costs reduced 19%. After adjustments, removing non-cash inventory and lifting charges, royalties, and non-recurring costs, our adjusted unit OpEx for the year was $28 per BOE, which was a 21% reduction year on year.
Adjusted EBITDAX increased 20% year-on-year to $153 million, demonstrating the group's ability to deliver material cash flow. However, there was a loss after tax for the year of $111 million, largely as a result of a post-tax non-cash impairment of $88.2 million, which was broadly in line with the estimate we provided in the February guidance and reserves update. The impairment entirely relates to the Montara and Stag balance sheet carrying values, which have been significantly written down following the end-of-year impairment exercise. A primary driver of the impairment was the requirement to use an independent oil price forecast as at December 2025, which, together with changes in discount rates, tax calculations, the addition of Skua-11 costs, contributed to the impairment.
While an impairment of the scale and the resulting loss after tax is clearly disappointing after the operational successes of the year, a more current oil price assumption would have made a material difference. Using our reserves auditor's updated oil price forecast at the end of Q1 of this year and keeping all other inputs unchanged, the post-tax impairment would have been reduced to approximately $31 million. Return as cash flow, we delivered a significant year-on-year increase in operating cash flow, post-working capital of $124 million. Capital expenditure was $93 million, reflecting the Skua 11 drilling campaign during the year, and t he net debt at 31st December 2025 was $89 million. This comprised $61 million of cash and cash equivalents and $150 million of drawn RBL debt.
These figures excluded approximately $24 million of proceeds related to December 2025 liftings, which was received in January 2026. Moving to slide seven, which provides more detail on our cost performance during the year. The chart on the left-hand side compares reported production costs for 2025 versus 2024. Reported production costs can be split into underlying operating costs, royalties, and production-based payments, and the non-cash inventory lifting charge, which ensures operating costs match lifted barrels. Year on year, underlying operating costs reduced by $36 million or 15% to $212 million. On the right side of the slide, we can see year-on-year reductions at Stag, Montara, and our Peninsular Malaysia assets, driven by the strategy to focus on efficiency and prioritization across our OpEx programs.
At Stag, which comprises a significant portion of the year-on-year operating cost savings, we saw cost reductions across workover activity, where improved pump performance reduced the number of workovers from 10 in 2024 to four in 2025, and t here was also a significant focus on greater efficiency in repairs and maintenance programs. The reductions at Stag, Montara, and our Malaysia operations were partially offset by a small increase at CWLH, representing a full year of ownership in the period of the interest acquired in February 2024, and a full first year of operating costs at Akatara. You can see that the uplift in Akatara costs is relatively modest, as there are a number of one-off costs during the commissioning phase of Akatara in 2024, which were therefore not repeated in 2025.
On slide eight, moving left to right, we can see that cash from operations in 2025, after working capital was $110 million. Cash CapEx of $102 million was predominantly related to the Skua-11 sidetrack drilling campaign, and w e received $39.4 million from the disposal of the Thailand interests in April. During the year, we also repaid $50 million of the RBL principal, and other financing cash flows of $40 million were roughly split equally between financing costs and interest and lease payments. That delivered a consolidated cash balance of $61 million at the year-end, and i f the December 2025 lifting proceeds of $24 million are included, that would then be closer to $85 million.
Including the Sinphuhorm disposal proceeds and the December 25 lifting proceeds, the business generated approximately $80 million of unlevered free cash flow last year, and t his represents good initial progress towards our 2025 to 2027 unlevered free cash flow range of $200 million-$240 million. Moving on to slide nine, we've significantly improved our liquidity position since the end of the year following the successful Nordic Bond issue, which raised $200 million. We were pleased that our debut bond offering generated substantial demand from credit investors seeking exposure to the strong upstream growth story of the Asia-Pacific region. Including our working capital facility, which remains undrawn, our pro forma liquidity at the end of April stood at approximately $220 million.
Now, although we have a much improved liquidity position, it should be noted that most of our lifting activity this year will be concentrated in the Q3 and the Q4 of the year. While we have continuing expenditure throughout the year with the CWLH FPSO dry dock program, which was recently completed, the PM-323 drilling campaign CapEx, which is ongoing, and the compressor upgrade at Montara, which has recently started. We also need to manage the Stag CALM buoy recovery and any near-term costs associated with that ahead of the insurance process coming into effect. Regarding hedging, our policy has always been one of protecting our cost base, which given the consistent negative oil price outlook through the back half of last year and into the start of this year, has been the strategy we executed.
We currently have approximately 1.5 million barrels hedged through to the end of the year at a weighted average price of just over $70 per barrel. That's excluding premiums, which is about 40% of forecast oil and condensate production over that period. Obviously, events in the Middle East since the end of March have significantly altered global oil markets for the foreseeable future. Although we did manage to capture some of that with more recent hedges put in place in mid-March, adding 400,000 barrels in the Q4 at just over $80 per barrel. With that, I'll hand back to Mitch. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. From slide 10, I'll run through operations and asset updates, starting with Vietnam, following on the excellent progress we have made in recent months, moving the Nam Du U Minh development project forward. In March, we received Vietnamese government approval for the field development plan. The FDP approval was the trigger to book around 32 million BOE of gross 2P reserves recovered by the initial phase of the project, setting us up for very healthy reserve replacement at the end of 2026. Last month, we signed the gas sales agreement for the supply of Nam Du U Minh gas to our buyer, PV Gas. This event, captured by the image on this slide, was held in Ho Chi Minh City and well attended by stakeholder representatives, including representatives from several ministries and the chairman of both PetroVietnam and PV Gas.
Andrew and I were honored to represent Jadestone at the signing ceremony and to meet many of the key stakeholders for the project. Due to confidentiality restrictions, we cannot go into full detail of the GSPA, but I can say that the contract follows market standard principles, with a gas price being comparable to historical Vietnam imports from Malaysia and regional LNG pricing. The gas price also benefits from fixed annual escalation. The regulatory and commercial approvals earlier this year allowed us to formally initiate the planned farm-out process. We have been encouraged by both the number and quality of interested parties to date, and are targeting completion of that effort in the H2 of the year. We are also progressing towards a final investment decision on the project before year-end, with anticipated awarding of key contracts for the FPSO and field infrastructure in the Q4 .
Moving to slide 11, let's quickly revisit the compelling fundamentals of the project, which highlight the strategic importance of the project, not only to Jadestone, but also to the citizens and government of Vietnam. Nam Du/U Minh and the upside potential proximal to these discoveries are situated in shallow water depths around 200 km offshore southwest Vietnam. The Nam Du/U Minh gas is high quality, low CO2, and thus requires only minimal processing and compression before introducing it into the existing PV Gas-owned pipeline. This development-ready resource is ideally placed to supply the southwest Vietnam market, specifically the important Ca Mau Power and Industrial Complex, which currently receives gas from the PM3 project just to the south of Nam Du/U Minh. The existing gas imports are scheduled to decline in coming years, opening up ullage in the existing pipeline, which is located a short distance away from our licenses.
The need to replace these imports is an increasingly important priority for the Vietnamese government. The project also supports Vietnam's strategic plan and net zero ambitions, prioritizing sovereign resources to enhance Vietnam's energy security and economic growth alongside the transition to lower-emitting sources of fuel. An objective made even more important given the supply disruptions occurring as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The right-hand side of this chart sets out the plan development. The fields will be developed in a phased approach, with Nam Du first. Each field will be produced from two production wells via an unmanned wellhead platform.
The gas will be processed via leased FPSO, where the gas will be dehydrated, condensate removed, and the dry gas compressed before being exported via a new 34-km pipeline that will tie into the existing pipeline and then be further transported onshore to Ca Mau. We are targeting late 2028 for the first gas from Nam Du. The cash flows from which will fund the development of U Minh, which we anticipate on stream in 2030. The tenders for the leased FPSO and field infrastructure were launched last year and bids received towards the end of 2025. We have been evaluating those bids and engaging with interested parties since. We remain confident that we can present preferred bids to the government in the coming months and be in a position to award the contract shortly after.
Moving to slide 12, which provides further insight on the upside potential we see around the existing Vietnam discoveries. This is a very important part of the Vietnam value case and could be a material driver of shareholder value in years to come. The depositional environment for our Vietnam licenses means gas is contained in channel sands across multiple horizons, which are denoted by the sinuous shapes on the left-hand side map, with each color representing a separate reservoir horizon and where it can be seen that many intersect and overlay one another. As the map illustrates, the majority of the upside potential we currently see is in close proximity to the U Minh discovery, which is marked in red on this image.
We see several areas of potential interest, with particular emphasis on the southwest and south clusters, which represent stacked channel sands with a combined current gas in place estimate of approximately 800 billion cubic feet. The geological chance of success for these prospects is high, in the 70%-90% range, largely due to the similar seismic amplitude signature that is observed in both the Nam Du and U Minh, as well as numerous analog discoveries in the surrounding Malay Basin. This signature is illustrated on the seismic cross-section and top view maps on the top right-hand side of the slide. Given the stacked sands, we are able to test and de-risk multiple prospects with a single well and sidetracks, as illustrated on the seismic cross-section in the middle of this slide, and would result in very low finding costs on the order of $1 per BOE.
In the success case, being able to utilize the existing infrastructure from the original development also results in extremely attractive follow-on development costs. To ensure we are prepared to efficiently capture the value associated with a successful outcome, the FPSO is being designed with the capability to easily increase the initial 80 million standard cubic feet per day capacity by 50% to 120 million cu ft a day. Moving to slide 13. We continue to be impressed with the performance at Akatara. The field produced an average of just over 6,000 BOE a day in 2025, which was ahead of budget, principally due to low unplanned downtime at less than 6%.
This type of performance from a gas plant of this nature in its first full year of operation is a noteworthy achievement. I congratulate everyone in our Indonesia team for their contributions to this outcome. These results were also delivered with a continuation of the excellent HSE performance at the facility, where we have now worked over 9 million man-hours without an LTI. We are seeing similarly strong performance in early 2026 and expect gross production levels to remain at comparable levels to the 2025 production through the end of the decade. Around 50% of the production from Akatara is gas at a fixed price, while the remaining 50% is condensate and LPG. Both sales contracts for condensate and LPG are linked to dated Brent with pricing updated monthly.
As a result, we have seen the recent uplift in benchmark prices feed through into realized prices for LPG and condensate. With recent wellhead prices above $90 per barrel for condensate and LPG prices over $70 per barrel after the product mix and transportation differentials are taken into account. Moving now to future activity at Akatara. Last year, we successfully implemented the first phase of a debottlenecking project, which increased the technical potential of the plant by approximately 10%. We are evaluating a further optimization, which involves a rerouting of the fuel gas source point further upstream to optimize hydrocarbon flows through the plant and lead to a further increase in production potential. Work continues on the design and engineering with a view to implement in 2027 if economically justified.
Finally, we continue our work evaluating the upside potential on the license, reprocessing existing seismic in order to meet the remaining exploration commitment. Our current expectation is that drilling activity, if sufficiently supported by the ongoing studies, would likely occur in 2028, with some scope to move that forward in an upside case. On slide 14, I'll provide an update on our Malaysia operations and particularly the PM 323 drilling campaign, which is our main capital activity this year. Year to date, we have produced 3,200 BOE per day net to Jadestone from our Malaysia assets, which is on plan. Again, benchmark strength has been feeding into realizations for lifted volumes from PM 323 and PM 329, with recent barrels sold for over US $110 per barrel.
The PM 323 drilling campaign follows up Jadestone's very successful 2023 infill program in the same field, which encountered a southwest extension of the field that had not previously been developed. The current campaign consists of two firm wells to further develop this undrained area with a third contingent well based on the results of the first two. The two firm wells are being drilled on a batch basis, with the top hole and intermediate sections being drilled prior to the reservoir section. On the right of this slide, we have set out drilling progress through mid-May for both wells, and I'm pleased to report that to date, the drilling is progressing largely in line with plan. We expect both wells to have commenced production by late June or early July.
The combined production uplift from the two wells is meaningful and is expected to be in excess of 2,000 bbls of oil per day net over their respective first three months of production, and is being delivered at an opportune time to capture upside from the current price environment. With the drilling program expected to pay out in a matter of months with an associated internal rate of return of 100%. The PM 323 field is a great example of the type of value we aim to add from acquisition of producing fields and subsequent reinvestment to maximize field reserves and life. We continue to have positive engagement with PETRONAS over an extension to the PM 323 PSC beyond the current expiry. On slide 15, I'll provide an update on the Stag field.
In late March, the Stag facilities were demobilized and shut in ahead of Cyclone Narelle, which turned out to be one of the strongest tropical cyclones to hit Australia in recorded history. After remobilizing to the field, we discovered that the cyclone had damaged parts of the field infrastructure. Due to the precautions we took in advance of the approaching storm, there were thankfully no injuries to personnel and no release of hydrocarbons to the environment. The CALM buoy, which as you can see from the schematic on this page, sits 2 km away from the field and is used for tanker anchoring and offloading operations, did, however, suffer damage and a partial loss of buoyancy. We are in the process of refloating the buoy and obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals before towing it to the Darwin shore base, where we can make a full damage assessment.
There was other minor damage to the field's facilities, but the critical path to production resumption is related to reinstatement of the CALM buoy. We are not yet able to provide a definitive estimate of when Stag will resume production until we are able to complete a comprehensive damage assessment. However, for internal planning purposes, our current best estimate is for production resumption sometime in the Q4 . We hold comprehensive insurance cover on all of our assets. This includes cover for physical damage and business interruption, with the latter covering a significant portion of Stag's operating costs. Based on current information, the combination of the OpEx reductions we have secured while the field is shut in and our insurance coverage, we do not expect that the outage at Stag will have a material financial impact on our current year or longer-term cash flow projections.
Prior to the shut in, the field was producing around 2,000 bbls per day. Far this year, we have sold approximately 300,000 bbls of Stag crude, including approximately 60,000 bbls, which were in the tanker which disconnected prior to the storm. Which sold for May average dated Brent, plus a $27 per barrel premium, which is the highest since we acquired the Stag Field back in 2016. Moving to our remaining Australia business on slide 16. Production at Montara has averaged approximately 5,000 bbls per day year to date, and we've lifted 460,000 bbls in the Q1 for a weighted average realization of around $84 per bbl.
There was a further approximately 300,000 bbl lifting in May, which is provisionally priced at the average of May dated Brent plus approximately $11 per bbl, which similar to Stag, is the highest premium by some margin that we've obtained during our ownership of Montara. Optimization efforts at Montara this year involve upgrade of the FPSO's reinjection compressor, which will allow for additional gas to be reinjected into the reservoir, reducing flaring and providing a modest increase in oil production. We also continue to progress the conceptual planning and engineering studies to evaluate commercializing the discovered gas resource in and around Montara, where we currently estimate around 800 billion cu ft of gas in place.
The fairly recent deployment of smaller scale floating LNG systems opens up a new avenue for commercialization, and importantly, places both the timing and decision-making process within our direct control, which was not the case in our previous efforts where access to third-party facilities was required. Initial screening studies were completed last year, and while there's still significant work to do, the early results were encouraging enough to continue exploring in more depth. Turning to CWLH, the Okha FPSO successfully completed its five-year maintenance dry docking at the end of last month, with the FPSO sailing away and subsequently returning to the field on May 10th. However, recent subsea inspections have established that some minor structural repairs may be required on one of the field's subsea riser J-tubes before reconnecting the vessel to the riser turret mooring.
Depending on results from the ongoing analysis of the inspection findings, production could be restarted as early as end May, or if repairs are deemed necessary, they are expected to be executed within approximately five to eight weeks. Based on the joint venture lifting schedule, we are typically allocated two cargos a year of 650,000 bbls each, usually in the Q1 and Q4 . We had one of our two normal liftings early in the year, and we also shared in an ad hoc lifting prior to the dry docking. In aggregate, we have lifted 850,000 bbls so far this year for a weighted average realization of around $80 per bbl. Moving on to slide 17, which covers our guidance and key priorities for 2026.
We've already made great progress on many of our 2026 key deliverables, particularly in Vietnam and the refinancing of our RBL facility. The CWLH dry dock is now complete and the FPSO has returned to the field, although, as previously mentioned, reconnection has not yet occurred while analysis is being done to assess recent subsea inspection findings. While in Malaysia, the PM-323 drilling campaign is well underway. We continue to be very active in the background on originating and pursuing inorganic growth opportunities to complement the significant organic growth we expect from Vietnam. Our bond issue gives us more certainty on the financial capacity of the business in the near term, giving us a much stronger financial platform from which to grow, both organically and inorganically.
To the end of April, we had produced a year to date average of approximately 16,300 BOE per day, reflecting both the planned downtime at CWLH and the unplanned downtime at Stag following Cyclone Narelle. Production guidance for the year is maintained at 18,000-21,000 BOE per day, although an outcome in the lower half of that range is more likely pending further clarity on a Stag restart date. Operating cost and capital expenditure guidance are also unchanged. With the operating cost reductions we've achieved at Stag during the shutdown period, it is also likely that full-year OpEx spend will trend toward the lower half of the range. Our CapEx guidance for 2026 includes only minimal pre-sanction CapEx in Vietnam.
Depending on the timing of contract awards, final investment decision, and farm-out terms, we may incur some Vietnam development CapEx this year. If we are incurring development spend in Vietnam later this year, it will be on the basis that we have achieved further meaningful progress and are on the path to material shareholder value creation. Our 2025 through 2027 free cash flow guide of $200 million-$240 million at $70 per barrel real Brent is unchanged with a sensitivity of $90 million based on a $10 per barrel change in the underlying Brent assumption. I'll wrap up on slide 18 by reiterating the key points of the investment case.
I believe that we have demonstrated the impact a refreshed and committed management team can have. Delivering record production and a significant increase in cash generation last year. This momentum has continued into 2026 with significant progress in Vietnam and refinancing of our debt facilities. We will continue to protect the base business by focusing on high reliability and strict cost discipline. Coupled with safe and efficient operations, this will maximize cash flow from our existing assets, which combined with the refinancing efforts completed earlier this year, provides significant liquidity and no principal debt repayments until 2029 at the earliest, providing us the capacity we need to deliver meaningful accretive growth.
In particular, shareholders can look forward to further meaningful Vietnam catalysts over the next several months as we move the project into the execution phase and deliver a farm out, which retains significant exposure to the project, but with a reduced capital outlay net to Jadestone. We are confident that this investment case and near term catalyst will start to realize the value upside we see in our portfolio, which is validated by third party analyst valuations. With that, I thank you for your participation in the call thus far today. Operator, we will now turn over to you for questions.
Thank you, Mitch. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question is from James Carmichael from Berenberg.
Hi. Thanks, guys. Thanks for the presentation. Just a couple of quick ones, I guess. Just firstly on CWLH. Just interested to know when you expect to sort of understand more about the repair versus the no repair outcome, and obviously, therefore what that'll mean for timing of restart of that asset. Just looking at Vietnam, obviously, you know, you talk sort of contracting and potentially project sanction in H2. You seem very keen to get on with that project, and obviously, you know, it's now great that you're in a position to be able to do that. Just wondering what the industry appetite is you're seeing in terms of really engaging on the formal farm out and whether it's realistic to think of that process potentially concluding before year end.
Then just lastly on M&A, you know, I guess organic growth is one of the ongoing priorities that you outlined for this year. Just wondering how we should think about that, what are the opportunities and whether you expect to get something done, albeit obviously that's sort of hard to predict. Thanks.
Yeah, James, let me jump in on at least the first two, maybe some thoughts on the third, and Andrew pitch in as well. In terms of CWLH, you know, this is very recently developed news. There's an ongoing detailed fatigue analysis going based on the inspection findings. What they have resolved is that it's a fairly straightforward repair, should it be necessary. It involves most likely installing an external clamp around the J-tube. Given the position of the J-tube, that would require divers versus an ROV installation.
That really dictates the duration to complete the repairs, largely due that, you know, a dive plan would have to be submitted and an amendment to the safety case to perform that operation, which would then have to be approved by NOPSEMA. However, the fatigue analysis is still ongoing. We would expect it to be resolved this week, and h opefully, by the end of the week, we'll have more clarity on whether a repair is in fact required, and if not, you know, returning to production near the end of this month, and i f so, you know, they're marching down the path of submitting those repair plans and seeking expedited approvals. That, I think, addresses CWLH.
On Vietnam, look, management presentations have started this week or will start this week. We formally initiated the progress or the process on the back of the recent approvals, both on commercial and regulatory. Been as expected, given the robustness of the project and the meaningful upside, a lot of interest from qualified and sizable interested parties. We've made it clear in the initial communications what our timeline is, and there's been no pushback to that, so I t hink we're on track. As always, you know, where there's healthy competition, it'll take us, you know, a number of weeks to move through that and to educate them on the full potential of the project, but n o pushback to the schedule and lots of interest, so w e're encouraged by that, both the quality and quantity on that.
You know, on organic growth, there's not a lot we can say publicly about what's going on behind the scenes, as you'll appreciate, but I think, you know, the important assurances are that this has always been part of Jadestone's DNA. It continues under the refreshed management team. We actively work and have a continuous pipeline of opportunities that are available to us, either self-sourced or come to us through directed processes. There, I can't think of a time in the year that I've been here where we haven't had multiple opportunities that we were screening, evaluating, or negotiating on, but a s always, there's somewhat, you know, completion of successful deals is somewhat episodic, and we're very disciplined about, you know, the opportunities we will acquire will be value accretive to the existing portfolio.
Great. Thanks so much. Thank you.
Thank you, James. Our next question is from David Round from Stifel.
Great. Thank you. Follow- up to James is actually just Vietnam. You mentioned a schedule there. Just wondering if you're able to elaborate on that at all. I presume that the biggest internal sort of deadline must be sort of, you know, prospective parties firming up interest. I'd just be interested in whether you're able to share sort of at least loosely when that might be, because that obviously gives you a good sense of genuine interest. You also, you put a slide, an interesting slide in the presentation on prospective upside. I was just wondering whether that was something that you wanted or expected a partner or a farm-in partner to pay up for, and actually sort of when you expect to actually test that.
Just a final one, maybe just for Andrew. Just correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that there were some hedging requirements tied to the old RBL. I'm just wondering if you have new flexibility now you've got the bond away, and does your hedging policy change going forward?
Great. Thank you, David. Let's see. Vietnam, the first question I guess, was around timeline. Look, I think realistically, we kicked the process off this week. You know, this would normally a process like this would normally be anywhere from three to six months. We're pushing towards the shorter end of that, but we certainly have opportunity to work towards the back end of that as well and still meet all of our critical deliverables. With healthy competition, we can keep the pressure on. We've got, as I said earlier, good quality and good quantity of interested participants. We'll be moving them through management presentations over the next week or so and into, you know, physical and virtual data rooms immediately thereafter. Those are already available and accessible.
You know, realistically, I would expect to close that in Q3. We're driven to keep this project moving forward. If we were placed in a position to sanction before finalizing that, I think we're prepared to do that. You know, it's an important project to Jadestone. It's an important project to Vietnam, but y ou know, I'm, I've got quite a bit of confidence that we're gonna find the right partner and be able to bring them in in advance of project sanction. The prospective upside, you know, is quite attractive, and it's one of the things that certainly has caught the eye and becomes one of the most material attractions for several players who are interested in viewing this opportunity with us. Our subsurface team has been working this basin for about two decades.
That they know the, this basin and these reservoirs like the back of their hand, and I'll tell you, they've done some really detailed work to map these things out. These are seismically supported. The amplitude signature looks very much like the Nam Du U Minh discoveries and many analog fields in the basin. Is there value for that? Absolutely. There's many ways in which you can structure capturing that value and the timing of trying to de-risk some of that, you know, will be worked out with the successful partner that we bring in. Our priority and our emphasis will be to initially test, to begin testing that as part of the 2028 drilling campaign for Nam Du, which is the first field we're gonna bring online.
As I said, that's something we'll need to work out with our eventual partner. That's certainly our objective and what I think makes sense from a value creation standpoint. Andrew, I'll let you take the hedging question.
David, you're right. I mean, we did have some obligations under the RBL. I mean, they were fairly broad anyway, we had quite a lot of flexibility under the RBL. Under the new financing arrangements, we don't have limitations or restrictions around hedging. You know, we're currently concluding our hedging relationships with our existing relationship banks as well, so w e'll continue to have that flexibility and ability to hedge into the future, you know, as appropriate. I mean, ultimately, though, our hedging policy really, as I said in the presentation, is around protecting our cost base, and t hat was very much the policy we were adhering to. Clearly, you know, it's a flexible policy and, you know, we have to evaluate it, you know, as the situation evolves, but y ou know, today that's what we said.
Great. Thanks, guys. That's all very clear.
No worries.
Thank you, David. Our next question is from Anish Kapadia from Hannam. Your line is now open, please go ahead.
Good morning. My first question's on the balance sheet. There's been a sharp fall in net debt over the first four months of this year to reach just $5 million from $89 million. Seems like you have now your entire market cap and is equal to your liquidity, you know, half your market cap in cash. Alongside the persistent high oil prices, I was wondering what are the opportunities you see for this better than expected balance sheet position, in particular organic opportunities within your portfolio? Just a second one on Stag.
Just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail in terms of how the insurance proceeds would work in terms of timing, how it looked from a accounting perspective versus a cashflow perspective, you know, versus what you're reporting in terms of operating costs. Thank you.
Anish, thanks. I think both of those fall to me by a gut feeling. From a balance sheet perspective, very healthy in the Q1 , you've also got to remember that we had a sort of an acceleration of liftings. We had a sort of a lifting and a shared lifting out of CWLH. We had a lifting Montara last, just recently completed and also a Stag lifting. You know, we've very much had a sort of a Q1 weighted lifting period. I mean, we also completed the bond, okay, you know, we sort of raised $200 million. You know, as at the end of the year, you know, the outstanding RBL was $150 million. We've actually subsequently paid off another $28 million of that.
Yes, we have a very good liquidity position at this point in time. Partly because the market is that way, but also partly design. When we look forward through the year, this was prior to the CALM buoy at Stag, of course. We were looking at a period of sort of fairly sustained investment through the year with the CWLH dry docking pushing back the anticipated second lifting to the very end of the year. Drilling of PM 329, et cetera.
Also, we wanted to be prepared ultimately to be able to be in a robust position so that, you know, we were in a position or are in a position to pursue Vietnam along our timelines, and so not beholden to the processes that, you know, may actually have an external impact. I think, you know, when we look at it's about, really setting ourselves up through this year, to be able to accommodate the various factors and features that we had operationally, to position ourselves well through the end of the year and into next year. Insurance. Insurance is a little, it's a little tricky to be too prescriptive at this point in time. We've just been going through. We've had a very active engagement with the loss adjusters.
We've been meeting with them on a weekly basis, keeping them very updated. They are just finalizing their report to the insurers. That will generate really the next phase of negotiations. We've gone through our wait period. You have a 45-day waiting period before business interruption kicks in. That's completed. It's now waiting on the back of the insurers to accept liability, and then t hat triggers a series of other events as to then the reclaimability of business interruption. You know, we'll have a negotiation with them as to the regularity of those sort of payments, and then s imilarly with, you know, any payments in relation to expenditure on, you know, this, whether it's sue and labour or, you know, the recovery repairs of the CALM buoy.
You know, there is an element of negotiation that goes into the basis and timing of repayments of those expenditures. Whether that's, you know, quarterly or event-driven, you know, that's something we're gonna have to work through in this next phase.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Of course.
Thank you, Anish. Our next question is from Ashley Kelty from Panmure Gordon. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents, and thanks for the comprehensive update this morning. A couple of things from me, really around obviously Stag and Malaysia. First of all, on Malaysia, you said that it was sort of two wells and a contingent well. Have you made the decision around the contingent well, and i f not, when might we hear about that? Then on Stag, I was wondering, sort of given fact that this has got a relatively short life left, is there an argument for bringing forward COP and instead of bringing it back online, actually just moving into the decomp phase? Would that create more value? Also wondering, is there scope for reversal of the impairments given the higher commodity prices that we're seeing?
Great. Thanks, Ashley. Let me jump in on the first two and hand over to Andrew for the third. Let me take Malaysia first. That'll be a quick one and Stag pretty straightforward too, I think. On Malaysia, the information that we need to gather is obtained when we drill the reservoir section. We run in our drill string tool a set of logging tools that allows us to image the reservoir significantly above and below the drill bit, and also determine the fluid content. We're confident in the fluid content. We need to confirm the height of the oil column, which would be based on the actual structure that we encounter at the top of the reservoir.
So we would expect to have that information somewhere around middle to second half of June. Be in a position to make that decision quickly thereafter. With Stag, you know, I want to correct, I guess, one observation or comment. You know, our current view is that Stag will remain online and decommissioning won't start before the middle of the next decade, so t he middle of the 2030s. Prior to the shut-in, the asset was performing quite well, producing, you know, just over 2,000 barrels a day, which is a level at which it's produced for the last several years. Would be expected to produce, given the ESP lift mechanism that we have to supplement reservoir energy there for the foreseeable future.
There are also infill development opportunities in Stag that help contribute to life extension if executed. You know, all signs were a go. We were actually performing very well through the Q1 with aspects of the business that are within our control. The focus on operational excellence to improve reliability and uptime, the strict cost discipline, we're all seeing some measurable benefits from that. The team is focused on continuing. You know, that's a nonstop sort of evergreen effort required there, but they're up for it. I'm really impressed with how our team has responded to this event. Their can-do attitude, their creativity, their quick action to get this CALM buoy stabilized to avoid further consequences, you know, had the buoy sunk to the ocean floor.
You know, we're on track. We've got multiple paths to restore the CALM buoy and the producing facilities at Stag, and I don't see, you know, accelerating decom being in the cards for us, nor even on the table for us to be talking about at this point. We expect to restore production and continue it back to the stable operations, and then, you know, continue to look for opportunities to improve it. Of course, in the oil price environment we see today and the likely impacts of the conflict taking a while to unwind, even higher bolstering of the case to continue to produce Stag as quickly as we can.
Okay. Thank you. I hadn't picked up on the infill opportunities.
Cool. Ashley, impairments, potential for reversal. Look, potentially, I mean, Stag and Montara are both sensitive to the oil price. You know, we have to assess impairment triggers at every reporting period. You know, that's the regularity of that evaluation. Where the oil price forecast goes, I can't tell you. Look, rightly or wrongly, and probably, you know, it's just my own personal view, I'm not a massive fan of reversals and impairments and, you know, flipping between one at each reporting cycle. I mean, I think you have to sort of, you know, swallow your medicine, take it, and move on, but y ou know, that's not the way it goes.
Of course, it's dictated by the accounting treatment and whether or not there are those triggers. I really couldn't tell you whether reversals are likely. We'll have to see where the oil price goes and, you know, I think balance of the world probabilities, there's nothing else material within the sort of the calculational dynamics that would have a material impact, I don't think.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you, Ashley. We currently have no further questions. I will hand back to Mitch for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you, Gabrielle. Thank everyone for your time today and your continued interest in Jadestone. Please follow up and get in touch with us if you have any further questions or comments on the results or today's presentation.