Okay, I think we can get underway. Good morning, everyone. It's a real pleasure to be joining on such a fantastic occasion for Invictus. It is a landmark day for the company. We've got two fairly big pieces to this announcement, so I'll go through them and just explain a little bit the rationale behind the transactions, what it means for the company, and what the plan is going forward. Just to recap the announcement, we have, as I said, entered into a two-part transaction with Al Mansour Holdings from Qatar. This group is backed by His Highness Sheikh Mansour. Sheikh Mansour is one of the senior members of the Qatari royal family and one of the biggest business identities in Qatar.
His son is the communications minister in Qatar, so a very prominent part of the family, and we are very privileged to be in partnership with him and his team. The first part of this is that Al Mansour have taken a stake. We've signed an agreement to take a stake in Invictus of 19.9% for approximately $25 million. A premium to the current share price, and that is a very good transaction for our shareholders. We have a very strategic partner now that is from a very important part of the world and very important backing. We have a sovereign-linked funder now with the might of the state of Qatar behind it. A very unique position for a company like Invictus. This will allow us to advance the near-term Cabora Bassa work program with that injection of cash up front.
I think in addition, and more importantly, that it provides us a pathway for the development of the Cabora Bassa project and to take it into commercial production. That is, again, a fantastic result for our shareholders. It has allowed us to maintain our existing equity stake in the Cabora Bassa project, but now provided us with that all-important funding pathway all the way through to commercial production. An incredible deal. I believe this is probably one of the best deals that you've seen out of an ASX junior company in a very long time. It's been a testament to the quality of our asset, the quality of our team, and also the relationship that we've built with the Al Mansour Group, and I'll go into that in a second. That's firstly on Cabora Bassa, our important flagship asset that we have.
In addition to that, we've created a new JV company with Al Mansour Holdings, and that is a new Africa upstream-focused company, called Al Mansour Oil & Gas, or AMOG, as we call it. That has been set up to acquire producing near-term development opportunities across the continent. Again, having the backing of a group like Al Mansour with the backing of the state of Qatar, it makes these country entries and asset acquisitions a much simpler process than you would have as a junior with a limited balance sheet, limited above ground influence to go in and capture opportunities and bring them into your portfolio. We're not only looking from the asset level, but we're also looking at the M&A level for it. We're in discussions for a number of transactions on that front as well.
What this means is that we will be building our portfolio out as Invictus being a shareholder of AMOG, and that provides us with access to opportunities, as I said earlier, that would ordinarily be unimaginable for a company our size. Further to that, we have a 10% carried stake in AMOG. This is, if you like, almost a private equity type model, where Invictus is the management team. We do all the technical commercial work and the management of the JV portfolio and securing the assets. Al Mansour will finance those opportunities and finance the group and its activities. Again, a fantastic recognition of our capability as a company and a capability of our team. We're very pleased to have completed these two milestone achievements for the company. As part of the transaction, Al Mansour will be, firstly, on the investment in Invictus.
Al Mansour Holdings will be taking a seat on the board of Invictus. We'll announce who that will be once the equity investment is completed. In addition, AMOG has been running in the background somewhat for a while we have been pulling together this asset portfolio, and that will come to the fore over the next few months. We're in advanced discussions for a number of opportunities. We look forward to completing those and really transforming the company into a full life cycle E&P company. On the AMOG side of things, we have the ability to nominate two directors to the board. Currently, we have three. In addition, our operations manager, Ryan Singh, who's been our default COO, will become CEO of the new AMOG entity. Sad to lose his fantastic skill set from an Invictus project perspective.
Him and I will be working very closely with AMOG, and we've been deep in the trenches for a number of months. Sheikh Mansour is Chairman of the AMOG company. We have a very, very strong partner with the backing of the State of Qatar and very, very exciting news for the company. I'll just sort of recap my little summary of what this means for us. This landmark partnership really has been developed over the past year. In fact, when we signed the agreements on Monday, it was one year and one day since we first met them. It has taken us a long time to develop this relationship, develop their trust, and prove that we are the right partners for Al Mansour and Sheikh Mansour.
That has been a long and ongoing process, sometimes with the uncertainty if it would ever complete. There's been an incredible amount of hard work in the background. There's a handful of people who know what it's taken to pull this off, and it's a pretty landmark achievement for the company. Ryan, in particular, has done some very hard yards. It's required a lot of face time to build this relationship, and he spent about five weeks in Perth this year because he's been on the road with the group. You may have noticed that and seen in the press. I'm sure a lot of you have done a little bit of detective work this morning on Al Mansour.
They're on a big investment drive on behalf of Qatar and have executed a number of multi-billion-dollar deals with governments all over the region across a range of sectors. Invictus is responsible for the upstream, some partial midstream and assets as well as some of the downstream trading and refinery opportunities that are being put together, mainly upstream, though. That has required a lot of travel to all of these countries that we're seeking to complete investments in, as well as spending a lot of time in Doha at our home base in order to build this relationship and build this trust that has allowed us now to take the step to cement our relationship with the Al Mansour Group.
Really the technical and the commercial expertise of Invictus that we've demonstrated, and this goes not only to what we've done in Zimbabwe, but it's the group itself and that very talented team that we have in the company who've worked all over the continent, have achieved incredible things. Not only has our reputation as a company, but also as individuals and our achievements in previous lives at other companies have been very important in securing this partnership. We've demonstrated that through the relationships that we have with the regulators, with the national oil companies, and other partners in some of these jurisdictions that we're seeking to complete transactions in. Really this is the beginning of a new era for Invictus and its shareholders. Everyone has been very patient. I know it's been a frustrating period from a Cabora Bassa perspective.
Believe me, that frustration has been well and truly shared by the group. One of the blessings in disguise that's come out of this quiet period where we haven't had the operations work and project work that has been going on is it actually gave the senior team the bandwidth and the time to invest in this relationship and spend the time in doing it. We wouldn't have been able to do that if we had been tied up with ops, with Cabora Bassa, with drilling or seismic. As I said, it has ultimately been a blessing in disguise, this quiet period of activity that we've had with Cabora Bassa. That is about to change, obviously, now that we've got the funding for our near-term work program, including Musuma. We'll be launching a bigger program, not just Musuma.
It's given us the opportunity to look now and do the BD work for AMOG with all these other new country entries. That frustration now for us has sort of evaporated to a certain extent because we know what's ahead. It's very exciting. I do understand the frustration that our shareholders have had with this quiet period. Again, that's about to change rapidly. With the strategic investment into Invictus, with the 19.9% initial stake that they're seeking to take, they will become the largest shareholder in the company. We've completed this equity investment at a significant premium. Again, this is a testament to the quality of the asset, the team, and what the potential of this asset is going through towards commercialization. Those funds will be used to advance the work program in Cabora Bassa.
We'll be putting out what the program and the strategy is very shortly. Importantly, what we've done is secure $500 million in finance to advance it to commercial production. Now, again, that is subject to further agreements demonstrating commerciality from this next phase of the program. Once we do that, then the runway for us is very, very simple and clear to rapidly bring this into commercial production. We've secured a landmark deal for Cabora Bassa. As I said, with AMOG and this new joint venture, I think that will ultimately dwarf what we're doing in Cabora Bassa. That will become a small part of our portfolio, given the size and the scale of the assets that we're targeting for the AMOG group. This joint venture really was conceived when we first went to them, pitching Cabora Bassa.
For a group like this, it's a little bit too small, to be honest, from a ticket size. They obviously liked the group that was there, recognized our skill set and our experience on the continent, and we were asked to put together this new upstream vehicle as part of the wider Al Mansour Holdings, who are investing, as I said, across a number of other sectors. Energy, mining, real estate, agriculture, ports and infrastructure, the list goes on. We have been put at the forefront, the tip of the spear, if you like, because for a lot of the countries that we are seeking to make investments in as Al Mansour Holdings, upstream, midstream and downstream plays a significant role in those economies. The types of assets and the M&A opportunities are very exciting and it's going to be a lot of hard work.
We've got to build quite a significant team now in order to run AMOG, and asset teams for those opportunities that we complete and then come into the portfolio. As well as rebuild part of the Invictus team, which some of it will get sucked over to AMOG, but we'll have a very orderly transition period. Really is an exciting chapter or new era for the company and very, very pleased to have pulled this off. It's quite an astounding deal, and we're very, very pleased that it's come to the fore and all the hard work that's been going on in the background for over a year, as I said, now has now been able to come to light. We're set to transform now rapidly rather than going through a further appraisal and development period for Cabora Bassa.
We're about to transform into a full cycle E&P company very, very quickly. We are uniquely positioned with very, very incredible backers through Sheikh Mansour and the Al Mansour Group. I see Lawrence has got his hand raised. Lawrence?
Oh. Thank you, Scott. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you. I know that there's been such hard work in the background, so I do congratulate yourself and the board and the greater management team at Invictus. It is a very transformational deal, and I think shareholders will get the benefit of what I think is one of the greatest growth opportunities in the world, which is Africa, for this century. That said, just a couple of things in the interim. With the funding coming through, there's a case of mobilization of work activities, and particularly for Musuma.
Do you have an idea of the timetable of that? I've got a predictable question on the PPSA, et cetera.
Yes, of course.
Anyway, are you able to comment on Musuma and the drilling? Because it's very important.
It is. That's recognized. We'll be putting out a timetable because we've got a number of things that we're juggling at the moment, including transitioning of a team. We've done all the prep work for Musuma and we've got a couple of further things to ensure that we can start. We'll be releasing some details on that very soon.
Sorry.
On the PPSA side of things, I'm still in Harare at the moment. I'll be rejoining the Al Mansour delegation as they continue their continent tour in a few days. We've got some meetings with the government here. We are very, very aligned. We've reached consensus on most of the points where there's just one or two very minor things to tidy up. We've got some meetings scheduled this week to do just that.
Indeed. I just had a bit of interference there for a moment. Just going back to Musuma, is it fair to say that drilling could start before the conclusion of this year?
Yes. Yes, it could.
No, thank you for that. I just had a bit of background noise here.
Yeah.
The PPSA obviously is extremely important. Thanks very much for those.
Thanks. Look, just a few more points on this. I think, I appreciate the congratulations. As the public face of Invictus, I get to tan in the sunshine of this, but it has been a real team effort. Not only Ryan, but John and Gabriel as well have spent a significant amount of time on this. They're much more than non-execs. They have had their nose to the grindstone, and it has been a huge effort from everyone, all the support staff everywhere. I think our achievements in what our team has done at Cabora Bassa, going into a frontier place where it's never been done before, making two discoveries with the first two wells. There's not many companies and teams that do that. Again, it's not only me, it's our incredible team that we have behind us.
That's where our strong industry reputation has been built on, those achievements in Cabora Bassa, and it's now paid dividends for us. We're very, very pleased. James?
Yeah. Hi, Scott. I just want to say congratulations to you and the whole team once again. I do have one question. In terms of the further financing, the $500 million, are you able to state what the milestones or what is specifically required to unlock that funding?
Sure. It's fairly straightforward. We've got to demonstrate commerciality from at least one field. Whether that's Mukuyu, whether it's other discoveries, so commercial flow rates and entering into commercial sales agreements, because to allow you to enter into commercial sale agreements, you've got to demonstrate the commerciality. That's reserves, development pathway, et cetera. It's not anything complicated. It's really going through the motions of an appraisal program and doing the work to show that it makes money.
Yeah. Sorry, one question to that. It's determining the flow rates much rather than what you previously said of having the pilot plant online and operating.
Yes. I think that's a fair point. That pathway for us has changed now, where that's not necessarily. I think it's a smart thing to do, to be honest, because if you look at launching into a full field development straight off the bat, you're going to learn some very hard lessons. Going through the pilot will give us a little test run of the process and government procurement, execution, sales, everything else before we launch full field. It's still a smart thing to do. Also to gather longer-term dynamic reservoir information, which will help you refine and optimize your ultimate full field development.
Yeah.
The focus of it changes a little bit, but I still think it's the right thing to do initially.
Yeah. Sorry, do you mind me asking one more question?
Sure.
Before you stated that the group had seen that the Cabora Bassa Basin was, can't remember your exact words, but that it was too small or it was smaller than.
Oh, I'm talking about the investment size. It's not a small project. It's just that—
Oh, okay.
—for the Qataris to write a check for a few hundred million bucks is really not worth their time.
Yeah.
This is why we were asked to put together this bigger JV across multiple countries, so that it is a meaningful company and asset base because the effort for them to do that versus, initially we were seeking sort of $200 million to get us to that starting line, I guess, of being able to then go into commercial funding arrangements with traditional banks that we would do here. That's not worth their time. That's why AMOG in itself is hugely exciting just because of the size and the scale of the assets and the transactions that we're looking at. It is amazing.
Would you say some of them are comparable to the Cabora Bassa Basin in scale or are really just?
Larger
larger?
Yeah, actually. Yeah.
Wow.
That's why I said that it will become a smaller part of our portfolio.
You're completely free carried, you're more just the technical expertise.
Yeah. As I said, it's more like, sorry. I beg your pardon. Sorry. It's very early in the morning here and it's been a busy few days. It's more like a private equity type style arrangement where we are the management team running everything and they provide the finance.
Do they have any support from QatarEnergy, the big conglomerate over there, or?
No. If you read the announcement, this aims to be what it is separate from QE, and they're trying to build a smaller and nimbler that can make these entries into these countries without the splashiness of a huge giant like QE.
Yeah. Perfect. Well, yeah. Thanks again, mate, and congratulations.
Thank you. Tyler, I've got time for two more questions after this.
Scott.
Yes. Good morning.
Good morning. Listen, I'm from America and I don't drink. I'm going to say this for everybody. I'll do a shoey. Take us to the promised land, Scotty. Thank you so much, man. Let's go.
No, thank you. Appreciate the sentiment. We haven't had the chance to celebrate yet, but we will very soon. Ben.
Yeah. Hi, Scott. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Firstly, congratulations. Yeah, like everyone else, obviously a massive achievement. Just a quick question. You obviously mentioned some of these other assets are larger in scale. My experience usually is like the smaller assets sort of fall by the wayside and the program gets stretched out in amongst these larger sort of entities. Do you see that happening with Cabora Bassa? I know you guys—
No
—are going to be interested in things for the near term.
No.
Delaware.
Yeah. As I said, we're going to be building a separate AMOG team that doesn't take away the focus from Cabora Bassa. It's a very important project for us. It's our flagship and we're going to be progressing that as quick as possible. We're going to be running with all of these assets, and when you have the backing like this, you can throw the resources at it.
Okay. No worries, mate. Nice to hear. Thanks.
Scott?
Yeah. Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi. I just had a question about the flow testing. Is there any prospect of that being done this year?
Yeah. We're going to put out the program of what it'll look like in the near term. That will include drilling, flow testing, and seismic, obviously. The sequencing of that as well will determine, but that's still definitely on the plan. We've got to do that to unlock the rest of that finance. It's obviously firmly on the agenda.
Is there any prospect of that happening before my significant amount of options expire next year?
Yes, I would say so. Now that we've got this funding secured, we're off the treadmill of the capital markets, hamster wheel I like to call it. Now we can start planning bigger campaigns, more integrated campaigns, which is far more efficient. Rather than this very sporadic activity, we'll be looking at the constant activity. When we're mobilizing gear, doing it for one well is hard work. It's very easy to put together three or four, compared to one. We'll look at a round of drilling and then a round of testing. From an options perspective, there's obviously a lot more to come than just the flow testing. I don't think that those are in any danger.
Thanks so much. Congratulations.
Thank you. Okay, last one I'll take is Mark. Mark Kempa?
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, it's Mark from New Zealand. Congratulations. I just wonder whether you could put a little bit of color around the commercial arrangement between the new joint venture and Invictus.
The commercial arrangement really is, we have a 10% stake in AMOG, Al Mansour Oil & Gas. Al Mansour Holdings has the balance of 90%. We are free carried for our activity in AMOG. The entire company is financed by Al Mansour Holdings, so that's for all the G&A, all the asset acquisitions, all the finance. It's a free carried interest in this company and that's in exchange for our running of the JV and our IP that goes into it. As I said previously, the team has had a huge amount of experience across the continent. Invictus is a well-known entity as an operator, and a good reputation that we've developed. Also our team has carried those reputations from obviously their previous lives and their achievements.
John Bentley with Energy Africa, what he's done there and across, he's an oil field legend on the continent, and his name carries a lot of weight. As does Ryan's, who's worked all over Africa, and very highly regarded. It's a very good position to be in and a very unique—
Thank you.
Just a quick shout-out to Count Dankula. Thanks for all the encouragement over the last few months. There's been a few other shareholders that have been very supportive. Again, to our shareholders who've been patient, and hopefully, this has been worth the wait. From our perspective, it definitely is and probably has exceeded all of our expectations from when we first started discussing this potential. We've now seen that unfold with our own eyes over the last few months, and what seemed probably fairly ridiculous when the concept was first introduced to us of how we could go about this and the financial backing and strength and influence that Al Mansour and Qatar have. We've seen that now unfold with, as I said, our own eyes over the last few months, and it's a very exciting position to be in. Very grateful.
Again, I'd like to thank His Highness Sheikh Mansour, all of the Al Mansour Holdings team and the group for their support, for their firstly investment and their partnership. We're looking forward to a very exciting future. With that, I'll end the webinar. Thank you very much for listening and again, look forward to delivering a lot of good news and material, and exciting opportunities that will come into the group over the next few months. Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your morning.