Recorded presentation. Investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll, and I would now like to hand you over to CFO Luke Clements. Good morning to you.
Good morning. Thank you for making time for this presentation. My name is Luke Clements. I'm the Chief Financial Officer at Genel Energy. This is our January trading update. Given the breaking news from Baghdad on Sunday regarding the budget amendment, I'm going to start by talking about that amendment and exports generally. It is early days, but this looks like good progress. We said at our Q3 trading update in November, at the time when budget amendments were first being discussed in Baghdad, that if passed, the proposed budget amendment would represent an important first step towards exports resuming, but it was not clear how that government-to-government arrangement would be implemented to support full export payments to IOCs. Well, that budget amendment has now been passed, so that important first step has happened.
The amendment confirms an initial price of $16 a barrel, with then a follow-up adjustment process to determine the final price true-up, but there is not yet clarity on the detail of the end-to-end process, so key now will be the implementation. That implementation will cover how and when the initial $16 a barrel payment mechanism works, how that $16 a barrel is shared between different contractors with varying dollar per barrel entitlement, how the true-up adjustment works to deliver a final dollar per barrel entitlement revenue number for contractors, and then, importantly, how the cash will flow to enable the payments for amounts due. We've been working with peers on these issues for some time, and there is planned upcoming engagement with the regulator.
We are keen to move forward and test this new mechanism for delivering full value from our PSCs, and we will update the market in coming weeks as we develop the process and get clarity on how it will work. So this is our usual first slide, the current business in the left-hand green box, and then in the three boxes to the right, the pathway that we see ahead for the delivery of shareholder value. We've been consistent that there are a number of events that will drive the transformation of this business. Resumption of exports is very important and transformational from a free cash flow generation point of view, but it is one of a number of objectives that we pursue to deliver on our strategy.
That strategy being to build a business with a resilient platform, diversified and resilient cash generation, a regular dividend, and upside potential within the organic portfolio. The resilient platform is the foundation. That platform has two key pillars which are in place today. The first pillar is the strong balance sheet. We have net cash of around $130 million, a reduced debt balance, and just under $200 million of cash. Maintaining that strong balance sheet is one of our key priorities, which we have demonstrated over many years. Second, we hold a 25% interest in the world-class Tawke PSC, a license with a long life ahead of it that delivers significant free cash flow even when selling at heavily discounted domestic market prices. So how do we build on that platform? First is the resumption of exports.
We are currently selling domestically only at prices that are less than half of Brent. Restart of exports on extant PSC terms will double our entitlement cash generation. Next, in terms of growth in reserves and production, first we look organically, and that starts with the Tawke PSC, where we work with the excellent operator DNO on getting the best possible performance to deliver to the maximum potential of the two fields. We believe there is more to come from both. For our licenses in Morocco and Somaliland, it's about finding the right conditions, commercial and operational, to invest in these exciting exploration opportunities. We will continue to be disciplined and will only invest when those conditions are right. Then finally, we are working towards acquiring new assets with a view to materially diversifying our cash generation.
I will provide more color on each of these in this presentation, but I'm going to start by our cash sources and uses in Q4. Next slide, please. The waterfall shows how our cash of $273 million at the start of the quarter has evolved to our closing cash position of $195 million, with net cash largely unchanged at around $130 million. The big use of cash was the reduction in our debt, where we called $75 million of bonds at a call price of just under $102. In the waterfall for Q4, you can see cash generation from Tawke more than covers our spend, which we continue to work on optimizing. An example of that optimization is divestment of Taq Taq, which we announced last week.
Removing unprofitable spend and minimizing exit costs is an important part of building our resilient platform, and we are pleased that the terms of divestment remove the risk of any future decommissioning liabilities. Worth noting also that now, with our reduced debt levels, the interest earned on our cash covers the interest cost of the remaining bonds. So overall, we have a resilient core business that in total generated $19 million of free cash flow in 2024. Now, the balance sheet onto the next slide, please. We have reported net cash around $130 million, with debt of $66 million, and that brings you to a cash balance of just under $200 million. We have an overdue gross receivable balance of $107 million, owed to us by the KRG for sales that took place before the export pipeline access was suspended in March 2023.
For some time, we've been working to bring this balance down, and although nothing has been formally agreed, we now have around $50 million payable to the KRG for various items that offset that gross balance. So the reported net balance is around $57 million. We continue to work towards agreeing a settlement plan with the KRG. In December, we announced that our subsidiary, Genel Energy Miran Bina Bawi Limited, lost the arbitration claim brought against it by the KRG. Under the arbitration rules, we are likely to hear the arbitration panel's ruling on the costs award in the coming weeks. The KRG has submitted a claim for $36 million, a number far greater than the equivalent legal costs incurred by Genel, with the process for challenge now underway. You can see from the chart we have a strong financial position, and it will continue to be strong going forward.
Next slide, please. So on top of that strong financial position, we have strong financial performance from the Tawke PSC. It is a high-quality and mature asset comprised of two fields that have produced over 400 million barrels of oil. With around 100 wells drilled on the license, the fields are very well understood. You can see from the top chart that it has been delivering significant production for a long time, interrupted by the pipeline shutting in 2023 and then lower drilling activity in 2024 when we have been selling domestically. In the bottom chart, you can see that despite that lower drilling activity, the fields have performed exceptionally well over the past 15 months, with production maintained around 80,000 barrels a day, which is where the production is today.
With that consistent production and domestic demand, and with low OPEX around $3 a barrel, this continues to be a very reliable, very resilient, and cash-generative asset, even at current domestic sales prices, which in the chart is the line fluctuating around the mid-30s and averaging $35 a barrel for the year. Next slide, please. That average price of $35 a barrel is about half of what we see benchmark crude selling for internationally. So if exports can be resumed in excellent PSC terms, then the free cash flow generation on the license will simply double.
The first step on the chart illustrates the uplift in profit or from price improvement, but also, importantly, the chart illustrates how Tawke's unique commercial position means that 80% of any CAPEX ramp-up for drilling new wells is funded by higher revenue, meaning the impact on free cash flow of drilling multiple new wells is very small. So exports can make a big difference not only to price, but also to production and positive cash generation, even when increased drilling activity means that capital expenditure is materially increased. I said at the start that we're working towards diversifying our cash generation. Onto the M&A slide, please. So that means as well as getting the best we can out of Tawke and seeking a way to test our exploration opportunities, we also want to add new assets to our portfolio.
We are looking for resilient and predictable cash generation to come from assets that are either on production or close to production. What does resilient and predictable mean to us? It means resilient to adverse oil price. It means low risk of significant adverse technical revision and not being overly dependent on one or two wells or new wells being drilled. A carbon emissions profile that means it will continue to be attractive oil to produce in the future, and finally, of course, jurisdiction is important. We know the countries that we want to enter and establish material footprints for follow-on investment, and we are targeting those. We have been systematically developing and working on a list of assets we like, either moving them through our processes to bid or adding to a watch list from which we try to develop a deal space with the owner.
Although opportunities are relatively scarce, we are generating and bidding on opportunities that we like. We are taking enough deals through to firm bid to believe we are doing the right things to be successful, and we will keep both our discipline and energy to ensure that we deliver the right deals for our shareholders. Next slide, please. Now our exploration licenses in Africa, both licenses we've had for some time. We've retained them because we like them. We see them as potentially very high impact with very material resource potential. On Morocco, over the past couple of years, we've been working to reprocess and reinterpret 3D seismic and have identified a new lower-risk prospect updip of known oil from our 2013 Sidi Moussa- 1 well, which can be tested at lower cost than others in the inventory.
We are currently running a farm-out process built on that newly high-graded prospect in order to find a partner to help us test the obvious potential of the basin. On Somaliland, we remain excited by this opportunity and continue to work with stakeholders to find the conditions that will enable us to drill Toosan-1, a well with multiple stacked reservoir objectives. Whilst the potential scale of the resource is high impact, the commercial terms afforded Genel as first movers in the basin mean that even a modest discovery is likely to be commercial and support development. We will update you on any meaningful change or progress on these licenses as we go along. Next slide, please. So to end, a summary of our focus going forward. First, we continue optimization of the business that we have right now and remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet.
We have net cash of $130 million and a highly cash-generative asset. Second, we continue to work towards resumption of exports. It is important that we ensure that any export opportunity that arises is tested, but it is also important that it is tested on the right terms and maintains our extant contractual rights and economics. Third, we continue to work towards diversification of our cash generation and putting our capital to work, both in terms of buying new assets and investing in our organic resource. We have a roadmap. That roadmap includes specific near-term and longer-term targets that we believe are in play or may come into play, and we will continue to work to convert these opportunities into value-accretive transactions. Thank you for your time.
That's great, Luke. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company takes a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via Investor Dashboard. Luke, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation, and if I may now hand back to you and kindly ask you to read out the questions where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.
Sure. So I've got some questions on share buybacks here. Why don't you use part of the cash balance to buy back shares at the current cheap value?
We've been pretty clear that our capital priority is buying new assets, and that's how we want to use our capital. We've also been very clear that in terms of transactions with shareholders, our preferred method is dividend rather than buyback. That remains the case. What we'd like to do with the dividend is get the business to where we can restart a regular dividend program. We are not there yet. Dividend is very much on our mind, though, and we will think about that in coming months, seeing what evolves in the next couple of months. But buying back shares now with the relatively low volume of trading of our stock is not a priority for our capital allocation. We've not had much information last call on why there's been no progress on operations in Somaliland. Can you give more color on this opportunity?
Somaliland is an opportunity that we really like. We're very excited about it. We've been working there for over 10 years now, and although we don't report progress, there is regular dialogue and people in country working on bringing this opportunity into play. So it's very much part of our planning. We very much want to drill this well, but as talked about, we need the conditions to be right, and we continue to work on trying to get those conditions right. But we absolutely want to drill that Somaliland, Toosan-1 well, and other wells. You mentioned resuming exports on extant PSC terms, but the recent federal budget law amendment effectively reduced the relationship with the IOCs to service provisioned by only covering costs. How will the companies ensure their PSC contract economic terms are upheld? So the budget amendment is a government-to-government mechanism.
So what it does is it enables Federal Government of Iraq budget to be paid to the Kurdistan Regional Government to support resumption of exports. That is not an arrangement that involves IOCs. So the next step of this process, as I alluded to in the presentation, is discussion with the regulator to understand how this process then rewards contractors for their entitlement in line with the PSCs. The $16 a barrel is an initial payment. There is a true-up mechanism that follows that. We would expect that true-up mechanism to mean that it gets trued up to our entitlement cost that we are due under our PSCs.
So $16 a barrel, if that was paid directly to us, it's a bit more than we get for domestic sales, and it's quite a bit less than we would get for export sales, if that helps frame that number a little bit for you. How do you anticipate recent developments between Kurdistan semi-autonomy and the Iraqi government will positively impact Genel Energy? It looks like there's good momentum. What we've seen is the courts in Baghdad have agreed with the KRG appeal that the KRI PSCs are valid, and we've seen this budget amendment. So how do we think that will positively impact Genel? We hope this leads to resumption of exports, payment of full entitlement under our PSCs, and proper export pricing.
We hope it's the first step, and we will work with our peers to try and translate what's happened in the federal government this week into a mechanism that gives us full value for our PSCs. Dividend, I think I've answered. What is the timeline for the Morocco farm-out now? The farm-out process is going on at the moment. There's people looking at the data room. It takes as long as it takes, really. So the guys are busy working on that and getting some good interest. So we will update if we make progress on that. Will the dividend be restored to previous levels when exports restart? We're not going to guide on dividend. The board will be looking at that in March. Will sale of Kurdistan oil by SOMO decrease discount rate of Kurdistan oil relative to Brent oil compared to Kurdistan oil price prior to pipeline shutdown?
We certainly hope so. It should be. If you think about SOMO selling rather than Kurdistan selling, there was a limited pool of buyers when the Kurdistan oil was being sold independently. If SOMO sell it, it should be a better price. We think the improvement could be as much as $10 a barrel, but it will be what it will be. But certainly, I expect to see an improvement on realized price for barrel. Key will be the offtake terms. But in terms of the realized price for the barrels, it should increase. Realistically, how soon could exports resume? We don't know. The budget approval takes a few weeks to be gazetted. So it's likely to take at least a few weeks.
And then discussions are planned to start soon in terms of taking that budget amendment and developing it into a proper framework that pays IOCs properly and also gives the flow of cash to do that. So I don't want to put a timeline on how long that will take. If there's good political will and momentum, it could be pretty quick, but it sometimes takes longer than you think. Just seeing if there's any further questions. Will you still prefer to have local sales on the side even if exports resume? We want to sell our oil at export prices, and we want to get paid export prices. So if that process is working properly and paying us properly, we will want to send all our barrels down the pipe, get paid export prices, and maximize the production from our assets. Just seeing if there's any. Comment here.
If you look at the share price of GKP and Genel, the former has vastly outperformed due to buybacks and dividends. Why would we trust you with acquisitions? We have a very well-established process for originating, evaluating, and bidding on targeted assets. It's generating good opportunities that we like, and it will continue to operate to generate good opportunities that we like. The analysis we do on targets is very thorough. We look at a range of scenarios, downside scenarios, upside scenarios, and work on how we can mitigate downside and maximize exposure to upside. We've got an experienced team with a ton of knowledge and a ton of expertise, and we believe we'll deliver the right deal. The fact we haven't done a deal, you can see that as good or bad. Does it give confidence that we're ensuring we're not overpaying?
You can always buy something if you want to overpay and significantly lean into oil price or discount rate. We know what we need to do. We know the returns we need to deliver, and we recognize the risk in the assets that we review, and we price our bids accordingly. So we will continue to keep our discipline. We'll continue to keep our energy, and we believe that's the best way to deliver shareholder value. And that, I think, is it.
Perfect. Luke, if I may just jump in there and thank you for addressing those questions for investors today. And of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we will publish those responses on the Investment Company platform.
But Luke, before we redirect investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, could I please ask you for a few closing comments?
Yeah, you can see from the presentation we've put in place a very resilient platform. We've got decent cash generation even from domestic sales. And now 2025 could be the year that sees exports restart and us diversifying our cash generation and getting ourselves towards that strategic objective of resilient, diversified cash flows. We're close. We'll keep working on delivering on strategy, and we will update you as we make progress. Thank you for listening.
Fantastic. Luke, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you will now 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 I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Genel Energy plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.