Welcome to the Genel Energy PLC I nvestor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via 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 it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll.
I'd now like to hand you over to Paul Weir, CEO. Good morning, sir.
Good morning. Good morning, everybody. My name is Paul Weir. I'm the CEO of Genel, and I'm joined here today by our CFO, Luke Clements. Welcome to our regular January trading update. As is normal, I'm gonna run through a very short presentation that complements our trading statement. Our aim this morning is to give you sight of a high-level view on our year-end outcome, and also, importantly, some high-level guidance for the year ahead. We'll provide further detail on both of those areas when we release our annual report in March, when the specifics of our activity for the year have been finalized. But you'll hopefully get a useful insight into the Genel 2025 and 2026 story from the trading statement and from what follows.
As usual, after the presentation, we'll open it up for Q&A, where Luke and I will be happy to deal with any questions that you may have. Let's get started. We start with an overview of the business and a slide that will be familiar to those that have followed us in recent years. Our resilient business is characterized by the blue box on the left, and then our strategic objectives are framed within the green boxes to the right of this slide. The world-class long-life operation, that is the Tawke PSC, predictable and well run, and our healthy balance sheet together represent our strong and resilient platform. A determination to maintain that strong balance sheet, running as efficient a business as we can, and working hard to geographically diversify both our footprint and our cash flow are our three areas of strategic focus.
We are seeing positive momentum on all of, all three of those strategic areas, which means that 2026 could be a very impactful year for us. Within these objectives, we have several ways to deliver significant value increase, and in the cash generation of the business, both in the short term and beyond. So where do we see positive movement? In terms of balance sheet strength, the first strategic focus, we have more than $200 million of cash to hand. In 2025, we took steps to rightsize our capital structure, and we have a new bond that now matures in 2030. This move has both removed a degree of uncertainty and has reduced funding risk around growth through acquisition. And we obviously continue to work closely with our operating partner to maximize income from the local sales arrangements in place at Tawke.
It's important to note that we actively work hard to maintain that balance sheet strength. It's not something that we take for granted. Refinancing debt and shedding non-core assets are active decisions aimed at making Genel stronger and more resilient. Work to further strengthen our position continues in the second arm of the strategy, where we keep a very close eye on our cost base. Our efforts there, coupled with the reduced net interest cost resulting from the lower level of debt, means that our core business now generates double-digit free cash flow, even at local sales pricing. That cash flow increases significantly if we find ourselves in a position to resume exports and gain exposure to international pricing for our product.
Sticking with the second strategic initiative, business efficiency, at Tawke, which is producing 80,000 barrels a day today, investment has resumed on the drilling front, with a plan to drill a series of wells in 2026 that will bolster production rates this year and beyond, and that may also even add reserves to this already significant asset. Importantly, of course, the lion's share of this investment is supported through the PSC's cost recovery mechanism, which means a very quick return on the money that we put to work there. You will already be aware of reports from other IOCs that the interim arrangements for exports is so far working well and in line with expectations. We are very pleased with that news and congratulate both our peer companies and the government authorities in making that happen.
If the conditions, as we understand them, eventually prove to be fully honored, then we hope to be able to commence international exports ourselves and significantly improve our cash generation by doing so. In terms of diversifying our cash generation, the rightmost strategic priority, we are very pleased that work has begun in the field on Block 54 in Oman, where there is ongoing work to determine next steps in what will be a three-year program that includes seismic and drilling. And in Somaliland, we see steady progress towards drilling the Toosan-1 well, which has very significant potential, both in terms of chances of success and scale. In the M&A space, 2025 was a very busy year, even although suitable opportunities have been hard to find. Throughout the year, we did a great deal of good work finding, screening, working up, and bidding on opportunities. This is an area that's increasingly competitive and where progress usually takes time.
Despite that, we will maintain our discipline as we search for the right opportunity at the right price that gives us an acceptable return. Today, we continue to actively pursue opportunities for growth, and we remain very confident that we will secure the right deal in time. On to the next slide, please. The world-class characteristics of the Tawke asset are well known, but the 2025 performance really was exceptional, given some of the challenges that we faced, and this really highlights the quality of both the asset and the operator. From the production graph on this slide, you can quite clearly see the effect of the drone attack that Tawke suffered in quarter three, that resulted in short outage there.
If you disregard the low rates of that particular quarter, you'll see that the field was actually on track to outperform the 2024 production levels, despite no new wells being drilled in the year. This was achieved by conducting a very effective well management program. Rates are now back to around 80,000 barrels a day in gross terms. In addition to the very effective and well intervention program, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize the terrific effort made by the operator to reconfigure and repair the processing plant following that very disruptive mid-year drone event. The operator's team reacted quickly and innovatively to safely reestablish optimal production rates. And as a guy with an operational background, I think it's right that we recognize that effort. So 2025 was a very impressive year at Tawke.
Next slide, please. This slide provides a high-level overview of our cash generation last year, and rather than run through the numbers, which you can see there for yourselves, and which are detailed further in the statement, I'd like to draw your attention to some of the developments behind these figures. We now have a business that generates double-digit underlying free cash flow from domestic market sales at just over $30 a barrel. Since I took up the CEO role in late 2022, we've taken a number of important steps to establish a business that does this. Firstly, immediately starting processes to stop non-value accretive or non-core spend. This has involved both significant right-sizing of the organization that began in 2022, but also other longer-term processes. Most notably, our exits from the Sarta and Qara Dagh licenses in KRI, the offshore Lagzira license in Morocco, and the Odewayne license in Somaliland.
Licenses that weren't going to be productive and profitable for us. We've also divested our oldest legacy asset at Taq Taq, which had got to a stage in its life cycle where it made no sense for us to remain involved. These changes were completed in 2025, and all were achieved at no incremental cost and without retaining any future liability exposure. We've also reduced the debt size from more than $300 million in 2022, down to a more appropriate level of a little less than $100 million today. We think that change was well-timed and achieved on reasonable terms, and it has obviously reduced net interest cost. We've also improved efficiency in our processes and systems, so that the smaller organization that we now have is still able to deliver the performance that we require.
This has enabled us to meet last year's guidance, namely net cash being the same at the end of 2025 as it was at the start, and all of this despite the impact on revenue brought about by the production interruption following July's drone attack. All of that speaks to our resilience. We reported previously that we had insurance cover in place to mitigate those production losses, and we expect to take receipt of more than $3 million for lost income in Q1 of this year. So net cash at 2025 year-end of $134 million, and available cash of $224 million.
That $224 million provides significant funding for pursuit of our strategic investment objectives, whether that's the acquisition of new assets, contributing to more drilling at Tawke, ongoing appraisal and drilling at Block 54 in Oman, or getting drilling started in Somaliland. You'll remember that these are the activities listed in the diversification box on the first slide.
Next slide, please. Looking forward to 2026, so the Tawke drilling program recommenced towards the end of last year, actually, with the small in-house rig starting to drill shallow wells in December. The operator's now working on finalizing the plan for this year and getting regulatory approval so that the drilling program can get going. Operating costs per barrel remain very low, so there's significant resilience in the face of oil price volatility and whatever capital investment decisions we choose to make. There are significant remaining reserves in this asset for us to pursue, and further opportunities that can be drilled at an extremely low net cost to the contractor. We'll update you further on any specifics on this front in March as the work plan for 2026 firms up.
So in the coming year, we expect our domestic sales income to again more than cover our organizational costs. In addition to that organizational spend, we will likely spend up to about $20 million on our projects on Block 54 in Oman and Toosan-1 in Somaliland, some of which might be funded from the balance sheet. And as I've already mentioned, if we are able to access international prices again by resuming exports through the pipeline, then that revenue per barrel can more than double.
On to the next slide, please. Those of you who follow us routinely will also recognize this slide. It's a reminder of what we're looking for when we talk about free cash flow diversification. We want to add resilient, good quality assets that generate cash. We see diversified cash generation as a significant benefit in itself, and we want to get that cash that we have to hand actually working. And of course, that geographical diversification should also result in an improved valuation for our Kurdistan business too, for reasons that you'll understand. Throughout 2025, we continued to successfully originate, mature, and bid on opportunities that fit our criteria. We've been involved in bilateral dialogues and in wider processes. In actual fact, we've also been involved in bilateral processes that became wider processes.
We've bid in the period and continue to work towards delivering the right deal that will allow us to acquire assets that we like with the right characteristics, and also importantly, deliver growth and long-term value for our shareholders. It follows that this requires that we acquire at the right price. What we've said in the past, and I think everyone sees this, is that there's not an abundance of deals, and that there's a great deal of competition. There's a lot of capital looking for similar opportunities. Patience and discipline are key. So we'll keep our discipline, and although we're bullish on long-term oil price, we aren't going to overpay to get a short-term positive market reaction, only to find that over time, the asset we buy is unable to deliver the value that we need. We're confident that we'll get there.
In the meantime, we have several organic workfronts to manage. Oman Block 54, for example, where work is underway, and where we're employing a modest amount of capital in both our reserve space and hopefully eventually production, too. A few very brief words on that now. Next slide, please. We are very pleased that the first step in our journey with our partner, OQEP, towards understanding the full potential of Block 54 was completed in late 2025, safely, ahead of time, and under budget. Data collected during the work on the legacy Batha West-1 well will now be analyzed and used to inform a forward work program, which includes 3D seismic and two more wells over the next two and a half years. We'll provide an update on our plans for the remainder of the period in our March presentation.
Next slide, please. In Somaliland, Q4 2025 saw continued steady progress towards drilling the Toosan-1 well, an exploration prospect defined by modern seismic, 2017, 2018 even vintage, and analogous to the fields of the prolific Yemeni Rift Basins close by. The Toosan prospect is targeting prospective resources of around 650 million barrels , which could translate into a very significant discovered resource addition. This work program would be undertaken under very attractive first-mover advantage commercial terms, and has the potential for timely monetization, given its proximity to the Berbera Deep Water Port and the Gulf of Aden. So work continues on a number of fronts towards the delivery of what would be an historic first exploration well in the region for more than 35 years. And again, we'll provide further updates in March as the year progresses.
Onto the final slide then for a recap. We will, we'll work to actively maintain our resilient platform and our strong balance sheet, and we will continue to deliver the best performance out of our assets and our people to maximize cash generation and value for our shareholders. We're going to use our capital carefully and effectively to achieve our strategic objectives. The first and best place to invest our capital is obviously Tawke, where payback is quick, and where our studies carried out over the past 12-18 months have identified a number of opportunities that the operator will now pursue. The drilling program has commenced, and we continue to monitor the international export arrangements closely, and hope to join in time.
Furthermore, we're increasing our investment at our pre-production assets, where there is opportunity for significant value creation in Block 54 and in Somaliland with the Toosan-1 well. Of course, we are committed and will continue to work diligently towards diversification of our cash generation by the purchase of suitable new assets. Each of these work streams can deliver significant value if oil price softness, even if oil price softness means a reduction in Brent pricing in 2026.
That was a very brief run through the slides, but I want to thank you now for your time, and I'd also like to open things up for questions, please.
Paul, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd 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 your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Luke, could I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end?
Sorry, I just lost contact there. Thank you very much. I'm just gonna try and organize the questions a bit. So I'm gonna start with one on exports, Paul. Are there any indications of the likely net payments that could be paid to those exporting oil via the reopened pipeline to Turkey as yet, please? I can continue on if you want.
Sorry, could you repeat that, Luke? Are there any expectations--
Are there any indications of the likely net payments that could be paid to those exporting oil via the reopened pipeline to Turkey as yet?
Well, I can say a couple of things in relation to that, but of course, it's worth pointing out right at the start that we are not part of that arrangement, and there are aspects of that arrangement that we are not privy to. Like most of the people attending this presentation, we are largely relying on information that's being released publicly or by the organizations that are participating. But things have started well. We do know from disclosures by the companies involved, that initial payments have been made, and based on what we understand, those initial payments are in line with the negotiated outcome that we were privy to in the middle of last year. So the early indications are good, I think.
The process, the entire payment process in terms of complete net payment, has yet to run its full course, and we are watching that very closely, and we would want to see the next stage being executed properly before we consider joining that arrangement. I can't talk to facts and figures, because the net payments are largely dependent upon each IOC's PSC and where they are in terms of their production levels and in terms of their investment spend. But the early indications are good, and we continue to monitor it very closely.
Yeah, I'll just add, it looks like from what GKP reported that there are two payments. There's the allocation of the $16 per barrel, and there's the top-up payment. What they're being paid for at the moment is the allocation of the $16 a barrel. It looks like GKP have reported that that's resulting in about the same price as they were getting in the domestic sales market. When we've done our math, it looks like if we were exporting, the cash that's flowing at the moment in terms of quantum, would be about the same as what we're getting in our domestic sales market. It would just be in arrears rather than upfront, which is what we're getting at the moment.
We are not wringing our hands concerned that we're not part of this arrangement thus far.
Yeah. Next question. Here we go. I just found one on exports. I'm trying to group them. How important is DNO for your position on exports?
Well, DNO is extremely important on our position with exports. I mean, they are our operating partner, and they are leading the engagement with the authorities or have done thus far, led the engagement with the authorities around, around exports. We've made a conscious and deliberate decision to remain close to DNO on this and to remain in lockstep with them. And we don't see that position changing anytime soon. So yeah, they're very important.
Okay. Another one on exports: We understand WoodMac has been contracted to begin cost field assessment to amend the provisional oil price as part of the oil deal. Since DNO, Genel did not join the deal, will this assessment include Tawke, either directly or indirectly?
No, is the answer. We are not part of that arrangement, and WoodMac will not have a brief to examine our business or our contract. Obviously, that would change if we found ourselves in a position where we wanted to participate, but Tawke will not be part of their current brief.
Okay, next question, again on exports, and I think Paul's alluded to it by talking about the, the top-up component earlier. But given that other IOCs are exporting, what is holding Genel back from joining them?
Well, it really is seeing that agreement as was negotiated, playing out in full. We're pleased with the progress that's been made thus far, but application of the top-up payment or not, that's the differentiator between the local sales agreement and what eventually might be realized through international sales, and we really want to see that working before we'll reexamine our decision to sell locally.
Okay, I'm gonna move on to activity a bit. Is it possible that you fund increased drilling on Tawke from the balance sheet during 2026 if you don't switch to the export market?
It is possible, but I think you've got to be careful when you talk about funding Tawke drilling from the balance sheet, and you might be better placed to talk about the mechanics than I am, Luke. But, you know, it's a PSC arrangement, so whatever money that we choose to invest in drilling at Tawke will be recovered through the cost recovery mechanism to the largest extent. So while we might put money up front, we get that money back very quickly.
That's--
Not essentially gonna be detrimental to the balance sheet.
That's the important point. Tawke PSC is unique in Kurdistan, in that it's recovered all its past costs. So that means when we drill on it or invest in it in any way, the payback on that investment is virtually immediate. So I'm talking a month. So it's all funded by cash generation from the asset. We won't be dipping into the balance sheet for the Tawke cash generation, and again, upfront payment for domestic sales helps that. And if we were paid in arrears, it might be a little bit later, but that's it, it's very well-funded, all the activity in the year.
Next question is on. There's a few questions on Somaliland. The first one is: Is it still active? I think you've answered that already in your presentation, Paul, but no harm in answering it. What are the plans for 2026 with relation to Somaliland?
It is still active. And particularly towards the end of last year, we've been doing quite a bit of work in terms of well engineering work and some procurement activities, et cetera. We will continue to slowly progress activity towards eventually spudding this well. And when we've spoken about it before, we've spoken about the fact that there is a need for stars to align operationally, commercially, and geopolitically. So, we continue to monitor the geography very carefully, and we continue to work quietly in the background to be as prepared as possible to make a start on that well. So yes, it is active, and we have great hopes for being able to do something quite soon.
Thank you. So I'm just jumping around a bit. Is there any forward movement on agreeing a receivable, receivables payment plan?
There has nothing happened very recently. It's not something we've forgotten about, and it's not something that we've written off. There have been efforts to engage with the KRG on this in the recent past. You can imagine that the entire political environment within the greater Iraq and within Kurdistan has been entirely preoccupied with elections in the recent past, and it's been difficult to get any traction, but it is something that we do and will continue to pursue.
I'd just add one, you know, one thing we do, we have been successful over the last couple of years, is offsetting. So we've offset balances owed to the Kurdistan government against that receivable. So we've reported that there's $40 million that we received mostly in 2024 relating to that. So we've, you know, although the gross kind of agreed number is $88 million, there's $40 million against that, which reduces the net number to about $48 million. So it's come down a lot over the last couple of years, but there is no formal payment plan in place. And just to pick up a question about why is free cash flow down from last year? It's related.
So in 2024, we got some positive working capital movements relating to offsetting balances with KRG, which gave us a boost to our cash generation in 2024, and our 2025 number is more like an underlying number without that kind of one-off benefits.
Let me just get to the next questions. And here's a question about what I just talked about: "Is there any pressure on Genel to pay the payables?" Payables is kind of an accounting term. It's really an offset balance. We don't expect cash to flow out relating to that $40 million. "How do you double revenue if you only receive $30 and currently get $30?" Let me try and explain that one. If we're exporting, we realize a higher price per barrel, and we probably ramp up investment further, which means there's more cost recovery, which means a higher revenue number. So the doubling of revenue is looking at an export arrangement where we're increasing our, activity and spend.
Just trying to keep going. Answered that one. So on to diversification. There's a couple here. "You talk about geographical diver." I'm gonna ask you two questions, Paul. "You talk about geographical diversification. Should we expect you to enter new countries, or will you just increase your efforts in Oman and/or Somaliland?" And then the second question, which is quite similar: "Is your search for new ventures limited to the MENA region, or have you been pursuing assets elsewhere?
Okay, we are obviously looking for new countries. We would obviously be very keen to expand our current position in Oman. It's a great place to do business, and it's something that we look at as a matter of routine. And we'd love to expand our footprint there. But key for us is to put more eggs in different baskets. So we will be looking. Without going crazy, we will be looking at other new countries as well. I've made the point in several presentations in the past that a good deal is a good deal, regardless of where that deal happens to be. But we do have a natural inclination towards MENA for reasons that I'm sure you'll all understand. It's the area that we're most familiar with politically. It's the area that we're most familiar with geologically.
It's an area that we can expand into in a most efficient manner. So there is a natural tendency to focus our attention on MENA, but there are opportunities elsewhere, a little further afield, that we would be happy to consider, and we have actually bid on opportunities outwith the MENA region.
And then it looks like we've got one more question. Paul, this one might be for me. "Given the challenges of agreeing commercial terms to successfully complete an asset acquisition, what are the barriers to completing a share-based acquisition in the current business environment?" Sure.
Yeah. Yeah, you can give an answer around value for that, Luke.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, one of the challenges we have at the moment, if you look at our current stock price versus underlying value of the business on any, on any metric, you know, dollar per 2P, dollar per flowing barrel, we are valued cheap relative to others. And one of our real focuses, as we've been very consistent about, is that any deal we do needs to be value accretive to our shareholders, not just build a bigger business that's more fun for Paul and I to sit on top of. So okay, there might be some share deals out there that are accretive on a NAV basis, but you'd need to find a company that's pretty undervalued relative to its fundamental value to see that as value accretive to us at this point in time.
So, you know, we know what we need to do. We need to, we need to get this business valued appropriately and moving appropriately. As we've set out, we've got a clear plan to do that, and we plan to execute on that.
That's great. Thank you for answering all those questions you got from investors. Of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet C ompany platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Paul, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments?
Yes, thanks. I'll be very brief. Thanks, everybody, for taking the time to listen to us this morning. Our aim in this presentation was to illustrate, first of all, the strength of our business. It was also to illustrate and give you an appreciation of the different levers that we have to generate value and, as importantly, I guess, our determination and commitment to exercising those levers, and to make you aware of the very exciting potential that Genel has to offer. I hope you found the presentation helpful. We will be giving you a more comprehensive presentation, one quarter from now when we present our end-of-year results. In the meantime, thanks very much for your time today.
Paul, Luke, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session, as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete and I'm sure be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Genel Energy PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.