Good afternoon and welcome to the Pharos Energy plc preliminary results presentation. Throughout the recorded meeting, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions can be submitted any time via the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen j ust simply type in your question 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's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Katherine Roe, CEO. Good afternoon.
Thank you, Paul, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us this afternoon. We do have a short presentation to summarize events from last year, our financial results and a few operational updates, and then we will open up to some Q&A. Thank you again. Just to start us off, I'll provide a brief introduction. As some of you may be aware, I joined Pharos about 20 months ago as CEO. The priority was very much about extracting as much value from the existing assets, and ensuring that the balance sheet was strong and robust.
Today, we're reporting full year results from 2025 as my first full year in the seat at Pharos, and we are delighted to announce that we've been able to deliver on some of those key levers that we identified in order to move forward to extracting value from the existing assets. I'll talk a little bit more about that. We have two jurisdictions in Vietnam and Egypt, both producing, and both jurisdictions have appetite for exploration as well. At the end of 2024, we were able to secure license extensions in Vietnam for our two producing fields, TGT and CNV.
That was really critical to us because it opened up a new development campaign, which the six-well offshore drilling program that we really are well advanced in and we'll talk a little bit more later in the presentation. It's the largest investment campaign in our Vietnam assets since the original development, and as I say, was really only made possible because of those license extensions secured at the end of 2024.
A lot of the first half of 2025 was spent preparing for that program, putting everything in place, and we were able to commence that last year. We do expect that to complete on track. Again, it is on time and budget by the first half of this year. That's really underpinning the stable foundation production of our business.
It's the majority of our production, and it's also the majority of our free cash flow generation. Really importantly, those commitment appraisal wells that you see on the bottom left bullet there, TGT-18X and CNV-5X, if successful, could drive that incremental production growth that we've guided at around 20% above just arresting natural decline and giving us that uplift. It's been a really important campaign w e've been able to fully fund it by internally generated free cash flow, and as I say, the economics supported by the license extensions secured at the end of 2024.
Exciting update on Vietnam. Again, we'll talk more operationally about that later on. Egypt, again, another successful year for us in terms of meeting some important milestones. A big part of our job in Egypt was to consolidate the two existing licenses into one new agreement. The real drive behind that was to give ourselves longer time, again, extension of time on those licenses, but also improved fiscal terms. We do summarize those improved fiscal terms later on in the presentation.
That really improved the economics to drive further investment so l ast year was a relatively low activity year for us in Egypt whilst we negotiated these improved terms. That was concluded in September. Really importantly, we were able to agree a retroactive effective date, which is the 5 October, and that's important because this consolidation is still subject to formal government ratification, which will happen during the course of this year.
Because of that retroactive date, we're actually able to benefit from those increased fiscal terms from October last year. One of the other concerns in Egypt that's been a huge priority for us is the recovery of our receivables position. We saw a material and growing receivable balance over the last several years, and it was really critical to us that we reduce that and had been in negotiation or discussion with EGPC, our government stakeholder, about the best way to reduce that receivables balance.
We were able to secure a one-off $20 million payment at the end of last year, the last day of 2025, which meant we were able to really boost our year-end cash balance, which you can see in the third column here. What's even more important, and again, we'll talk about it later on, is the continued recovery of receivables.
While this one-off payment was very material and critical to us, we do need and continue to need visibility and we're, you know, continuing payments as we go forward t here's regularity to that payment that we see every month. That has been happening, and we're able to reduce our balance even further from year-end to a balance of just over $6 million today.
Again, this is really giving us renewed confidence about reinvesting in a disciplined way back into Egypt, mitigating that payment risk, and allowing for improved economics going forward. With that in mind, we've agreed a 6-well work program with our partner for this year. Modest program, but one that we feel should be sufficient to increase volumes from the current level.
We are about to commence that 6-well work program with the first rig identified for the first well, which we should be starting shortly. All of those activities last year have really driven the financial performance for last year. Very strong position. We remain debt-free with a strong cash balance, and a strong operating cash flow result.
That balance sheet strength has also been able to allow us to continue our sustainable dividend w e do have a dividend policy, but we've been able to go a bit above and beyond that, and declare that 10% increase today, ensuring we try to strike the right balance between capital return to shareholders, but allowing ourselves flexible financial flexibility to pursue growth. We are now looking at additional growth into the portfolio.
As I say, I think last year was very successful in being able to deliver value from the existing assets to put things in place to allow us to move forward with extracting value. We now also want to add to that with additional assets into the portfolio, and we are identifying appropriate assets to come in. Really looking at existing near-term production assets.
We do have our own high-impact exploration in Vietnam, which we'll again talk to you a little bit later on. Exploration is lower down the priority list than the near term or existing production. I think it's just worth saying in this introduction slide that, you know, we are clearly in a relatively volatile scenario with commodity prices.
We are seeing that across the globe. We are very fortunate that we operate in jurisdictions that have been unaffected by the Middle East conflict. We are taking advantage of higher oil prices, w e do receive a premium to Brent for our product in Vietnam, and we've been able to take advantage. Sue will talk a little bit later on about our hedging policy. Both assets are for domestic consumption.
We've had no impact from the conflict i t's very much business as usual, but even better to some extent because of being able to take advantage of that higher oil price. That's really capable of driving increased free cash flow generations. We're in a very stable, robust place. Good set of results today. Importantly, again, another year of activity in order to achieve further value. That's to sort of set the scene, I suppose, and I'll hand over to Sue. Thank you.
Thanks, Katherine. In terms of the final outturn for 2025, strong set of results so r evenue $115 million, which was very good considering the Brent price was sort of circa $69 million for last year. We were able to finish the year-end with $40 million in the bank, obviously doubled up by that Egyptian receivable from EGPC there on the 31 December, which was terrific news. In terms of cash flow from operations, we did actually increase cash flow from operations from the prior year, even though we had that decrease in the Brent price i t's $55.6 million.
In terms of the Egyptian receivables, you know, very important for us, and you can see the history of those and actually getting that position down to $7.4 million by the end of the year was great news. Indeed, it continues to fall, so circa $6.1 million as we sit here today.
What's also worth mentioning is that the EGPC have said openly to the market that they expect to pay all outstanding debt by Q2 this year. We should expect that to fall further and actually get to a position where it, you know, traditionally, we just see a month in arrears as would be normal. That's something to look forward to as we move forward. If we could move to the next slide. Thank you.
Strong cash flow with $30.5 million after exceptionals on a free cash flow basis. 2.9 coming in there from our farm down that we did with IPR a few years back. We've got one more year to follow through from that contingent consideration, and then that will be the farm down completed. You know, strong set of results there w e spent roughly $28 million on the CapEx program. Of course, the main majority of that going into Vietnam, into that program of work that Katherine was talking about.
We'd actually completed two of the infill wells on TGT by the year end t hey had been brought into production by year end, and we had started on the TGT-18X appraisal well, and indeed in CNV on the infill well. As you'll see, as we come onto later, you'll see the final piece of the capital program coming out in the first half this year.
With that, could we move on, please? In terms of dividends to shareholders, obviously Katherine's announced that we are making a increase in the dividends this year, 10% increase w e have done that over a number of years, the last four years since we've been back to paying dividends. That doesn't mean that is, you know, a program that will continue. Obviously we look at each year individually as to where the capital allocation goes.
Obviously, with that $20 million coming in right at the year end, that gave us the confidence to increase the dividends there. As I say, you know, it shouldn't be taken as a given. Certainly we look at it each year on what should go into that dividend piece. If we move on.
In terms of hedging, obviously very important, particularly with the current pricing and volatility in the market. We are not subject to an RBL or facility, so we're not forced into hedging. We do, however, take a sort of a protectionist, if you like, support to the balance sheet to make sure that we hedge a minimum position of our portfolio to make sure that we're protecting the downside.
Equally, we have an opportunity to feature in some of that upside as we move forward. At the moment, very modest, just 24% that's been hedged in 2026, and just at the moment, a modest 7% into the first half next year. As we are seeing prices, you know, prices that we can take opportunity out of, we may fill a little bit more of that first half 2027, and also bring a bit more into the second half and indeed 2026. We will, as I say, layer that in, but it's protection. It allows the upside to our shareholders of the oil commodity price. Then in terms of the capital investment program for 2026, $50 million overall.
You know, circa 80% of that obviously going into Vietnam t hat's that continuation of the six-well program coming through. That will essentially all be spent by the first half of 2026. The Egyptian piece, as Katherine mentioned, you know, obviously we've got the receivables position that has come down considerably.
We're also seeing receivables that are being received every month, so a constant pattern of that. That going back to putting money into the ground in Egypt with that 6-well commitment for this year's budget. Hopefully that puts us in good stead as we move forward on 2026. With that, I'll hand back to Katherine.
Thank you, Sue. We just have a few slides just to recap on our operational activities. Just starting with Vietnam. Just a reminder here on the left-hand side that the guidance that we published at the beginning of the year, that range is really partly dictated by the current drilling campaign. Just in the middle section here, again, just a reminder that all our oil is sold domestically, and we do get that strong premium to Brent.
You know, very stable, steady production. We're producing out of these fields for two decades, and I think really what we were trying to work through here is they're good quality fields. What can we do to get more? You know, how can we maximize the recovery from both of these fields? That was really what was driving the drilling campaign.
Again, as a recap, we had two commitment wells t hat's one appraisal well in TGT and one appraisal well in CNV. It's a 6-well program in total f ive of those six wells have now been drilled. The three infill wells in TGT are producing and on stream, as is the one in CNV. Again, all of these wells are drilled from existing infrastructure, existing platforms, ready to be tied into existing infrastructure immediately. It's been very successful. We have a lot of operational capability in our joint operating model. Again, you know, very, very successful.
It can sometimes be taken for granted that these are relatively challenging, operational wells to drill. But again, you know, having been able to deliver this campaign, five out of the 6- wells so far, on time and on budget, and adjusting any challenges that we've found along the way, has been a real success, and a real testament to the JOC model.
The TGT appraisal well has finished drilling and is in the process of some detailed testing. We probably need another three to four weeks before we have the full results of that testing so w e are anticipating a more fulsome update to the market, probably towards the end of April, for that TGT appraisal well. Pretty important in terms of the incremental volumes that could potentially deliver. The CNV commitment appraisal well has just commenced drilling.
T hat's a relatively long well, again, we'll need another four to five weeks probably of drilling before we have a result on that. So there may be a couple of updates on TGT and CNV during the course of April and May. Then we'll be able to give a bit more of an indication as to where we are in that guidance range. Again, very comfortable with that range given Q1 performance. It's the incremental growth that could come from the appraisal wells that we'll wait to see. We've said before that that could potentially unlock additional development.
Again, we'll need to spend probably Q3 assessing those results and determining whether an additional development program can work economically and is viable. Again, the philosophy for us is very much to extract as much as we can from those existing fields because they've worked so well for us t hey underpin our entire business. To be able to extract as much as possible clearly makes sense if the economics work. We have very good support from PetroVietnam.
Again, you know, a well trodden path in terms of operations. It's really about delivering as much from those fields as we possibly can. On the exploration side, again, a really key important part of our story. We have high impact, deep water frontier exploration offshore Vietnam. We were able to secure a two-year license extension last June. Again, critical for us. We were discussing whether that should be a year.
Two years really has given us maximum optionality to try to find a partner and a rig to drill our Prospect A, which has been identified as the first prospect to drill in Blocks 125 & 126. We've started a structured formal process. That is ongoing. It does take a bit of time w e've got some active discussions going on as we speak. I think what we've found that's been very encouraging is that high impact frontier exploration is very much back on the agenda for a lot of the majors. It is being prioritized again.
Clearly, Vietnam and Southeast Asia is an area of priority for a lot of those. We are moving through various stage gates and discussions. That will continue to progress until the point that we have a tangible view that we can share with the market. That does remain a priority for us as a really way to unlock value from our overall Vietnam portfolio. Which I think leads in quite well to the next slide, which is just designed to give you a picture, of how we see growth being extracted from our existing Vietnam portfolio. You can see there the existing production underpinning the business and everything we do.
The blue middle piece here is the current campaign that we're drilling that could unlock additional value if we have appraisal success in TGT and CNV t hen the real value piece that could drive even further is that exploration success in Blocks 125 & 126. It's just designed to give you an idea of what we're trying to achieve and how to go about it. I think with that, we just move on to Egypt. Just to recap on Egypt, again, you can see here our guidance. We'd very much like to get towards the upper end of that range this year. It will require more activity.
We had a very low activity year last year, which is why production was relatively stable at the 1,300 bbl We did need improved economics in order to proceed with a bit more activity. That's really an explanation as to why it was low last year. We have started the year with a 6-well program agreed with our operator, IPR. That is a program that's in our 2026 work program and commitment. As I say, we have a drilling rig secured for the first well, which we expect to start shortly. That will really allow us to unlock some of this value that's been sitting there for the last couple of years.
While we create an environment in Egypt that is more valuable for us to reinvest and provides enhanced economics to do so. We really did need those improved fiscal terms, which we just summarized here. Obviously, we announced these at the time of securing that concession agreement. Again, you know, important that we have that retroactive effective date so that we can start benefiting from those improved terms from that point, rather than having to wait for the parliamentary ratification, which will happen during the course of this year.
You know, we are starting to see things change in Egypt in terms of mitigating that payment risk that we talked about earlier with the full recovery of receivables, which we expect, improved terms, in order to enhance our economics, and an alignment with our operator on an appropriate work program so w e've got all the pieces in place to try to unlock some of that value, which I think leads on to that slide. Minh-Anh, thank you.
Again, just a sort of picture of what we're trying to achieve here and how to go about it. Again, existing production on the left-hand side. What can we do as near term exploration and development to enhance that? And then obviously medium to longer term exploration going forward.
We do have fairly good exploration success rate in El Fayum, which was sort of around 58% when we're drilling with seismic w e will need to do a little bit more 3D in order to unlock some of that but a gain, there's a pathway now to being able to unlock some of this value that has been latent and unable to be unlocked for the last couple of years. I'll just move on to an outlook slide before we open up. We've put this in here really to show our free cash flow generation capabilities at various oil price scenarios. You know, pretty important given the current environment.
You know, it wasn't that long ago that we were still working off $65 in a short, medium term. The picture does change quite significantly with these higher oil prices, and we're in the fortunate position to be able to take advantage of that. We do run the business as a relatively conservative model. Again, this is an internal model that has relatively conservative assumptions.
When we layer on that forward curve there, which we've done, you can see that this business, even as the base case production is capable of delivering substantial material free cash flow generation and a gain, as a reminder, it's we're unlevered and we have full flexibility for our hedging policy. We really sort of can take advantage, even if one thinks that $100 Brent is sustainable, you know, we do see that forward curve moving with every day. To be able to have a business that can take advantage of that for the benefit of shareholders is a real positive for us. I just finish on the last slide, an outlook slide.
You know, protected growth, you know, but I think more so than that, you know, we have the ability to capture upside. We do try to strike the right balance between capital growth and that income yield to shareholders. The dividend is important, but we need to get the right balance with allowing ourselves financial flexibility to grow as well.
We've done really well in terms of our existing assets to put those levers in place to enable us to extract as much value, and we're really pleased that we've had a successful year last year. I think we are also aware of the need to build additional scale outside of the existing portfolio. That's something that we've really focused on as an initiative, looking for appropriate assets or ways to increase our scale, moving from a 5,000bbl to 6,000bbl business to 10,000bbl and beyond. Again, I can't emphasize obviously the importance of Blocks 125 & 126. It does take time, but it remains a priority.
I think renewed interest from some of those important potential farming partners has given us some cause for encouragement and could be very material for shareholders. Again, thank you all for listening. You know, really proud to have a business that's resilient and robust in a very sort of volatile macro scenario.
We feel very fortunate that we're in jurisdictions that are not impacted in any way operationally through some of the conflict, and that also we're in an advantageous place to take advantage of those higher oil prices and have stable production that's capable of supporting additional growth. Thank you all. I think we can-
Yeah, move into questions. Thank you indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions just using the Q&A tab situated in 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 the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides in the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Minh-Anh Nguyen, perhaps I could hand over to you.
As you can see, we've had a number of questions throughout today's presentation, and thank you to all the investors who submitted those. If you could just read out the questions where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
Fantastic. Thank you, Paul. I'll now go through some questions which were pre-submitted to the company. First question is with regards to the recent conflicts. What is the route to market currently being used for Egyptian production? Has this changed in recent weeks, and are there any security concerns?
Thank you, Minh-Anh. Thank you for the question. It's very much business as usual with Egypt. We have no disruptions. Our oil is trucked, continued without any conflict n o security concerns. Obviously, we check in with our Cairo office and our operations team on a daily basis. We haven't seen any impact to date.
Do you want to add anything?
No. No. That's..
Yeah.
Business as usual.
V ery much business as usual. I mean, I think, without wanting to get too political, you know, Egypt remains politically neutral. It very much tries to not get wrapped up in some of those conflict issues. One key area for Egypt which I guess has come into sharper focus with events in Iran has been the need for energy security.
I think really what we're seeing when we talk to the ministry and to EGPC is that need for energy security is driving this commitment to repay outstanding receivables to IOC because they really would like to see further investment from all of us, all of our international players, from the majors, you know, down to some of the smaller independents like ourselves.
You know, mitigating that payment risk is clearly the first piece of the puzzle to unlock further investment and t he need for increased domestic supply in Egypt is a priority. Going back to the original question, there's been no disruption and no security concerns in Egypt.
Fantastic. Thank you, Katherine. What about Vietnam? What difference has the Hormuz situation made to realized prices from Vietnam production? Are there any export constraints? or price caps? being imposed by the host country? Is the company being required to redirect more production for domestic consumption?
Yeah. Thank you for the question a gain, no impact. We feel very fortunate that's the case. All of our production in Vietnam is sold domestically, for domestic, ultimately domestic power generation. We're not reliant on any export. If anything, we are encouraged to increase volumes as much as we can. I think we have been able to do that, in recent weeks to meet some of that demand. But otherwise, very much business as usual. Haven't seen any disruption, either operationally or financially.
That's great. Thank you, Katherine. Probably one for you, Sue. I know you've touched on this on the slide already, but can you clarify the current hedging position and how much of our oil this year has exposure to the current oil price? Also, now that we are net cash, what is the future hedging strategy?
Yeah. I suppose I've addressed it probably in the presentation itself. Sorry, if we could just move to the next.
Yeah, sorry.
Currently, as I say, 2026 is only sort of 24% hedged. We're obviously leaving that unhedged position so w e've got a cap and a floor there for the first and second halves. What we are looking at is whether we layer in a little bit extra into 2026 in order to give us some of that protection, but to get some of that upside into the portfolio. We are looking at that currently.
In terms of first half, again, I think we are looking at whether we layer in a little bit more into the hedging. Traditionally, we would do between 20% to 30% hedged and leave the rest unhedged for it to react to the price curve. That's traditionally our hedging position.
That's great.
Hopefully that answers your question.
That's great. Thank you, Sue. In terms of receivables, what are the expectations for reducing Egyptian receivables further to normal commercial levels?
Yeah. Hopefully we've sort of been able to address that one as well. $7.4 million, we finished the year on. You know, great position with that $20 million bullet that came in 31 December, which was great. We had known it was coming for some time. But brilliant to have got that across the line in December.
We continue to see money coming in, so $6.1 million, and indeed, we've already heard today that we'll be getting some more in over the coming days. Of course, there is a commitment out there in the public from EGPC to pay all outstanding debt by the end of the Q2 . That's public knowledge now, but we had had confirmation ourselves two to three weeks ago.
I think, yeah, good position, which obviously means that, you know, if we can get stable receivables from that gives you the encouragement to put money back in the ground for investment w hich I think is, you know, really important with all of those 2P and 2C resources, reserves and resources to go after. That's great.
Thank you, Sue. Before Jan left, it was mentioned that Pharos had tested the market for potential divestment of Egypt, and at the time, there wasn't an appetite for the asset. Now that EGPC are making significant payments, what is the longer term strategy? Should we perform a strategic review of Egypt? reconsider potential divestment, and focus on Southeast Asia?
Yeah. Thanks, Minh-Anh Nguyen. It's always a source for debate. We'll look at anything that can extract value for shareholders. I think our current view of our Egyptian assets, you know, they are self-contained. They are self-funded. I think we've been clear about that previously, that, you know, the point at which that changes, you know, we do need to look harder.
While they remain self-funding, and we have an improved environment, we would be leaving value on the table to divest those assets today. That doesn't mean that we wouldn't look to do so, if there was an appropriate or an attractive proposition. Likewise with any asset y ou know, we can't be wedded to any assets if there's a way to deliver value for shareholders t hat's always the bottom line.
Our view on Egypt is it's an improving macro situation. Many years ago, you could have sold receivables position for $0.10 in the dollar. I think what we're demonstrating is the capability to recover receivables dollar for dollar. You know, we wouldn't have made the right decision to sell receivables for $0.80, $0.070 , whatever it may be in the dollar, when actually we have a line of sight on being able to recover all of those, as Sue mentioned, even the remaining $6 million balance by the end of Q2.
We always keep it in mind. It's part of the ongoing strategy at Pharos, how best to build scale, how best to deliver value. You know, we obviously enjoy both of our jurisdictions. You know, there are lots of opportunities in Southeast Asia, many of which we've looked at. We don't see the ability to add to the portfolio as being hindered at all by having the Egyptian assets. I hope that answers that question.
Thank you, Katherine. Along the same lines, the market is clearly not interested in small scale oil producers. This is not a situation that is specific to Pharos. What has the company done in the pursuit of increasing scale inorganically? Can you provide some color on the type of acquisition you're interested in? Is your preference for an asset acquisition or a merger?
Yeah, look, I think we entirely are aligned with the view of relevance, scale, economies of scale that can come with that, efficiencies, all of those things. We do not want to be sitting here as a 5,000bbl, 6,000 bbl business for the medium term. We are looking at ways to grow, ways to scale, and as I say, take advantage of some of those obvious cost synergies.
That can be done in a number of ways. We're open-minded. We are looking at a few asset opportunities at the moment i n terms of type of assets, as I say, we would avoid high impact, high risk exploration because we have that already in our portfolio, which has to be prioritized. That's the Vietnam Blocks 125 & 126 that we talked about.
We would also probably stay away from heavy CapEx, heavy development expenditure that's required just due to the return on capital employed and the timeframe. Really looking at current producing assets, near-term producing that we could add some value to. The type of play, the regional focus, obviously, if we can leverage existing relationships in country, those are the priorities in terms of screening new opportunities.
That's great. Thank you, Katherine. Moving on to Blocks 125 & 126. We have been told for many years that we are seeking a partner for Blocks 125 & 126 and that we've been very close on a number of occasions. What is the exact current status? Has the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz increased positive attention on our Vietnam asset? What's the earliest possible timeline for some progress on Blocks 125 & 126? When do you think the process will be finished?
All good questions. It is very much about timing, I think, with these opportunities. As I say, we are fortunate that we're in a cycle where high impact, particularly offshore exploration is very much back in focus in a way that it might not have been a few years ago. I think we have seen the macro sentiment change in our favor.
I think what also has gone in our favor is reaching out to a lot of market peers in a structured way that, as I say, had not been done before at Pharos since we put that in place last year. I think the recent conflict hasn't made much of a difference either way, positively or negatively. Our discussions are continuing because I think if you are looking at Blocks 125 & 126 as an opportunity, it's very much a long-term opportunity. It's not just about the first well. It's about developing a whole new basin.
That could be a multiple number of wells and a very large campaign. You can see that it lends itself to a big company, a major that looks at it to the longer term so i think what's going on right now is not having an impact. These discussions take time, unfortunately. They do take time a s I say, there's a number of stage gates that a lot of these companies need to go through. We just have to be a bit patient. I do appreciate that it's been something that we've talked about. We have enough encouragement that we'll keep those discussions going until the point that we can say more.
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Katherine. I believe we have some time to go through some questions which were sent in live during the presentation. The first question is, Katherine, you suggest you're looking into adding assets for growth. However, you're doing so at a time when energy prices have risen from $60 Brent to around $100. Surely it would have been more sensible to identify acquisition a year ago when you still had a strong balance sheet?
Yeah, I mean, I think the recent increase in commodity prices is a challenge for transacting. There's no question about that, although it's relatively short-lived i t has been relatively short-lived and it remains to be seen how long that continues. Yeah, I think that might have an impact i t certainly resets not just the forward curve, but the bid-ask spread that people are looking at when reviewing transactions. On the buy side or the sell side.
To answer the question why not a year ago, you know, we had to put the housekeeping in place first. You know, this was very much about focusing on the existing assets w ithout the existing assets, we don't have a business, and we don't have a platform from which to grow. It was the right priority to focus on existing assets, to extract as much value and free cash flow out of additional production in Vietnam, and set ourselves up to try to do the same in Egypt. You know, that had to come first, before we layer on looking at additional assets.
It is hard to find good quality, accretive transactions that fit and are gonna deliver value for shareholders w e don't want to do a transaction for the sake of it that is not ultimately going to deliver value. That doesn't mean we're risk averse. It just means that we have to make sure we do the right thing. If there is a reason to relever the balance sheet, it's a good enough reason and can repay in a timeframe that we think is acceptable.
That's really helpful t hank you, Katherine. How are you balancing reinvestment versus maintaining or growing dividends with $400 million cash and $50 million CapEx?
Again, yeah, good question. Ongoing debate. I think Sue answered this earlier. You know, there's two distinct lenses through which we look. We have our policy, we have our dividend policy, and then we have our annual capital allocation exercise. Our dividend policy is a minimum 10% of OCF, operating cash flow. Our capital allocation clearly depends on CapEx, development, other uses of capital for that year. We look at it on a year by year basis.
We engage with major shareholders to ensure that we're getting the right balance. We feel that we're getting that right balance w e do w e are a small business, and we need balance sheet strength in order to be taken seriously when we have discussions, but also to give us that flexibility, of being able to find assets to add. It's a constant debate i t's part of our budget process. We talk about it all the time, and you know, we just try to strike that right balance.
That's great. Thank you. If no assets are acquired, can shareholders expect a special dividend to put money to use?
Well, it's. I guess it's part of that last question, which is absolutely. You know, if we felt that we had excess cash on the balance sheet that wasn't being used, absolutely. Better to return it to shareholders than put it into something that would be value destructive, in our view.
Great. Next question. Pharos was buying back shares when prices were up to 25p. When prices declined to 20p, Katherine chose to abandon the buyback over a year ago, indicating funds may be required for acquiring assets. Do you have any comments?
Yeah, I guess part of the capital allocation discussion. You know, we do feel strongly about shareholder returns, so there's no question on that. It can come in the form of a share buyback or dividends. We do feel strongly that there is one of those maintained, but equally, we need to reinvest back into the assets. You know, these assets naturally decline, as oil and gas assets do.
There is a requirement to reinvest those assets in order to support an ongoing sustainable capital return to shareholders, be it in the form of a buyback or dividend. It certainly wasn't the result of not wanting to return capital to shareholders. It was just we have a better use of that capital by reinvesting into our assets at that point, when that decision was made.
Fantastic. Thank you, Katherine. Have you seen what Seascape is doing in Malaysia? Are you thinking about replicating their success there?
Yeah. It's a great story. It's been, you know, an incredible journey for them. It's a different business model. You know, they've been able to take advantage of relationships in Malaysia t here's lots of opportunity. As I say, I think it's a different investment proposition i t's a different business model. I'm not sure you could directly compare the two.
Great. Thank you, Katherine. In terms of Blocks 125 & 126 , how many parties are in active discussion? and can you elaborate more on what advanced discussions mean?
We've got a number, I think is probably as far as we can say, of companies under NDA, looking at technical data, looking at the..t here's a range of work streams t here's the technical piece, the commercial piece, the development work that we've done in terms of what a development infrastructure map would look like, picture would look like. T hen, yeah, as I say, commercial terms. You know, there's a number of different work streams which take quite a bit of time, and there's a number of discussions, and that's probably as far as we can go at this point.
That's great. Thank you. Have you identified any jurisdiction, and are there any active discussions, in that jurisdiction?
We've done a screening of those jurisdictions that we like more than others. I would say we're quite open-minded w e're more focused on the type of asset and type of opportunity that it can give to us. We've seen a couple of assets where there's potential read across from what we see at TGT and CNV in terms of the reservoir and the geology, and you know, again, we could apply some of our experience and expertise into that. It is above ground as well as the subsurface that we look at. There are some jurisdictions that are more attractive than others, but also it has to be the right type of asset, I would say.
That's great. Thank you, Katherine. I'm just a bit conscious of time. I think we do have time for one more question. Has the company met or spoken with the largest shareholder recently?
Yes.
Yes.
We have active, continue dialogue to our shareholders. Strictly to a lot of shareholders.
That's great. Thank you, Katherine. I think, I'll hand it back to Paul.
Fantastic. Thank you indeed for answering those questions from investors, and of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to you and the team, Katherine, can I just ask for a few closing comments, please?
Thank you, Paul. Again, thank you everybody for taking the time today. We really appreciate it. You know, we have a good story, given so much global volatility, and to be able to sit here with a really robust business, which is really, you know, now looking forward to further growth, taking advantage of those higher oil prices, having our downside protected, full flexibility to try to deliver additional returns to shareholders is really what we're here for. We really look forward to be able to do more of that and updating as we go forward into 2026. Thank you again for taking the time.
Fantastic. Thank you all for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session? You should be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and is greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the team at Pharos Energy plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good afternoon to you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.