Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Panoro Energy Q4 2023 Trading and Financial Update. I'm joined today by a number of colleagues who are available to assist on Q&A. Today, I will just take you through our fourth quarter results and update you on some of our key operations.
As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain statements that are or may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, which include all statements other than statements of historical fact. Forward-looking statements involve making certain assumptions based on the company's experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments, and other factors that we believe are appropriate under the circumstances.
Although we believe the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, actual events or results may differ materially from those projected or implied in such forward-looking statements due to known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. And for your reference, our announcement was released this morning, and a copy of the press release and the presentation are available on our website, www.panoroenergy.com.
We will have some Q&A at the end of the call, and you can submit your questions in two ways. You can raise your hand using the hand icon, as you can see here on the left side of the of the screen, or you can type in your question here, and we will endeavor to answer it to the extent it has not already been answered from a previous question. Here are our financial highlights for the year.
This was a record year for Panoro. We had a record revenue, a record EBITDA, and a record profit before tax, so very, very much a very, very good banner year for the company. We're very proud of that, and I think it's reflecting the trajectory that the company is on. We have also today announced a dividend of NOK 50 million, which is our highest dividend to date.
We're also very proud of our dividend track record to date. It's a distribution, cash distribution rather than a dividend. We started dividends, cash distributions about a year ago, and this was about six months before the guidance that we'd provided to the market in terms of when to expect such cash distributions.
In that time, we've grown our distributions by almost 60%, to today's announcement of NOK 50 million. The board and the management of the company are very much focused on cash distributions and shareholder distributions and shareholder returns. It's a very key focus for the company. We're very proud today to have announced our highest dividend to date.
This is a repeat slide from our announcements in November, which we talk a little bit about the way we see 2024. The NOK 50 million dividend that we just announced today concludes our 2023 dividend cycle, our Q4 dividend. We're now officially, as of today, into our 2024 cycle.
This is a framework that we set out in November, and which we're sticking by now, which talks a little bit about our aspirations to pay a core cash distribution, which we've announced today, and we'll continue to do those. Then we also want to supplement those with special distributions and share buybacks. Share buybacks are obviously something very much in focus, particularly given the share price of the company of recent.
There'll certainly be some strong attention paid to share buybacks as part of this distribution. We set out the parameters of where we see the levels here between NOK 400 million-500 million during the 2024 distribution. We're very much sticking by this, and this is very much a key focus for the board of the company.
So a little bit of an operational update now in terms of where we are on the various things we have going on. From top to bottom, we have Hibiscus, the Hibiscus field, where we've been performing some workovers in the back end of 2023. The most recent activity, which I'll talk about, is the Hibiscus South development well.
This was a discovery we made back here in 2023, and we've now drilled this well, and it should be coming online quite soon. We will then be moving on to Ruche to drill the Ruche discovery that we've made, to turn that into a production well. And we'll also be continuing with workovers, dealing with the ESP issues, which I'll touch on again a little bit more.
And that will finally see us coming back to drill a final well in Hibiscus. So we still really have three full new wells coming online, plus a workover or two. And then we have the Bourdon prospect, which, subject to timing, is a well that we very much would like to be drilling this summer. In Block G, we recently had to announce that the rig contract had been terminated, so it's pushed out the drilling icons there. We have them notionally here into the second half of the year. I'll touch again on the situation with the rig, but that looks like it's now a second half activity rather than first half activity, which it was originally.
So we still have plenty going on in the company and lots of production growth, lots of catalysts this year on the operational side. This is a slide sort of reconciling our production for the past year and a half or so, together with our guidance for the year. We last year produced 8,500 barrels a day, approximately, which was a record year for us.
This year, we're guiding between 11,000 and 13,000 barrels a day, having taken the top end of that, the 14,000 barrels a day, off due solely to the rig termination in Equatorial Guinea. Again, those wells were meant to have been coming online in the first half and now are estimated to come on in the second half.
But it still should be approximately a 40% increase in our production from last year. So again, another year of growth ahead of us. Liftings. Liftings are very important for the company, as everybody that follows the company knows. We recognize revenue and cash when we sell barrels, not as we produce them.
And of course, historically, we've had very lumpy liftings, which have created some volatility in our quarterly earnings, quarterly P&L, and of course, our cash flow as well. And I'm happy to say that the yellow graphs you can see here show a much steadier development this year. That's down to a few things.
That's down to obviously growing production, but it's also down to actually getting into some joint lifting arrangements with one of our operators, which makes this much smoother. We're lifting more frequently smaller volumes more frequently, if I can put it that way. So that's been a very, very good development for the company, and I think should make the quarterly P&L a little bit more stable.
What's important to note here, I think as well, is we have quite a few liftings coming up. So in Q1, we are showing 750,000 barrels here. We've only lifted 250,000 barrels of that. So still in Q1, in March, we have about 500,000 barrels being lifted.
Then in early Q2, in April, we have about 650,000 barrels being lifted. So you can see that we have roughly one third of our crude liftings for the year happening in March, from March until late April. So it gives people, I think, a little bit of idea that we're also hopefully catching a little bit of the higher oil price now, if those oil prices maintain above $80, whereas they've been in the mid-$70s earlier this year.
So I think you'll see quite a bit of P&L and cash flow activity as we get into March and April, early May. That's when we start really kind of getting the cash in the door, and as we're starting to get our capital expenditure behind us.
Total liftings for the year estimated around 3.7 million barrels, which is a 40% increase on what we did last year. So again, I think, you know, depending on oil price, of course, I think you should see our financials also potentially looking like a record year again. I won't dwell on this slide. We always produce it to show where our debt outstanding are and what our capital CapEx guidance for the year is.
None of this has changed. There's no new information here, particularly with the exception of the breakdown of where the capital expenditure is in on a per country basis, but the guidance remains the same at $75 million of capital expenditure this year.
You know, we'll continue in our regular updates to update this slide as we go. Similarly, I won't dwell too much on our cash flow waterfall here, but again, we'd like to show this slide every time to kind of break down what's happening. Obviously, we're very happy to have again paid, now with today's dividend, $18 million of cash distributions to our shareholders during a year in which we were spending lots of money on our investments and our assets.
So again, showing that we're willing to dedicate a large portion of our free cash flow towards shareholder distributions, and that will continue. Right, in Gabon, I'll start first with Hibiscus South, because that is the most recent thing that's happened.
People will remember back in the fourth quarter last year, we drilled an exploration well called Hibiscus South. It's just to the south of the main Hibiscus field. And we made a discovery there, and we announced that. And we announced around 6 million-7 million barrels gross. These are very, very high-value barrels because we already have the production platform there.
So the cost of operating these reserves is extremely, and producing these reserves is extremely low. Very, very high-margin barrels to bring back into the Hibiscus structure. And then we have now completed drilling the production well there. So we've come in and drilled a horizontal well.
That well has completed drilling now, and we're busy in the final completion stages of that well, and that well should be online within the next few weeks. It just goes to show that you can, in this area, again, shallow water, lots of objects to drill here in the future, that you can make a discovery and have it online within five months.
Infrastructure-led exploration is very much works in this area, and we have had a great success there. The drilling of the production well has also given us a new data point on the structure, and the structure now appears to be considerably bigger than we had previously guided. So it's a very, very nice additional data point for us.
We don't have a perfect number right now in terms of the quantity, but it is a significantly bigger field than initially estimated. We're very happy with the reservoir performance. And again, as we talk about ESPs and some of the issues we've had here, one thing that certainly keeps delivering here on the upside is the reservoir and, you know, finding additional oil and reserves here, and Hibiscus South has been a great success. So again, that one should come online in the next few weeks. So, Hibiscus Ruche phase I, we've had the ESPs, which have been well flagged.
We've had some electrical integrity issues there, which resulted in November and December having to literally pull out the ESPs, and ship them back to the manufacturer. And then what we've done is we've reinstalled two new ESPs into two of the wells there, and we're free flowing one of the wells. So at the moment, we have three out of four wells at Hibiscus producing.
The ESPs that we've reinstalled in the two wells are operating under slightly modified operating parameters, so we're using different frequencies and things like that. Trying to operate the wells in a different manner than we had before, while we're waiting for the final reports in terms of what the ultimate failure on the previous pumps was.
So far, we've been very encouraged with the performance of those, of those two new pumps. They are very, very steady. Production's very steady, around 25,000 barrels a day. That's prior to obviously bringing Hibiscus South online in the next few weeks. So we've been very encouraged with the new operating parameters. We should hopefully know what the final prognosis is or the final reasons for the difficulties we've had, should be known in the next few weeks or so.
But at the moment, we're very encouraged with what we're seeing in terms of the well performance. On the Tortue field, things are very, very steady there. The gas lift compressor is working just fine. Very steady production on the Tortue field.
So again, on Gabon, we see production around 25,000 barrels a day, but we see that growing. We will be completing the Hibiscus South discovery into production in the next few weeks. We'll then be installing a pump into the fourth well in Hibiscus. So we'll then have an additional well online there. All four wells should be online then by April.
And then we will continue to go drill Ruche, the Ruche field, and another well back into Hibiscus. So I think that we are now climbing back up the production ladder, getting this asset back to where it needs to be, which is towards 40,000 barrels a day. And so progress is very good on that front. Equatorial Guinea, just to remind people, we have three assets effectively here in Equatorial Guinea.
We have the Ceiba and Okume Complex, which is a production asset. Trident is the operator, and Kosmos are our partners there, together with the state. Then we also have a stake in the exploration blocks, Block S, operated by Kosmos, and Block EG-01, operated by Panoro and partnered with Kosmos.
So we kind of have cornered this area of Equatorial Guinea where we see a lot of remaining prospectivity and obviously a lot of remaining reserves and contingent resources to produce. We had to announce recently the termination of a rig contract, so we had a rig working the field here with the infill drilling program, three infill wells, plus the drilling of the Akeng Deep prospect, the exploration prospect in Block S. Unfortunately, the rig contract was terminated.
This is a decision that was not easily taken, but it was the right decision. It's a decision that was endorsed by the JV partners and by the government, in terms of letting this rig go. The partnership is very actively looking now for an alternative rig to come in and complete this program. That could happen as early as the late second quarter.
We don't have a rig contract in hand yet, but we are very desperately working on trying to get a good rig to come in and drill out these wells, including the Akeng Deep prospect. And we'll certainly update the market as soon as we have any news on that. But the partnership is very focused on getting a rig back out here.
It's very important wells for us to drill. There's also a tax update. We mentioned this, I think, once before, but it's good to remind people that in an environment where tax regimes are changing for the worse in many countries in which the industry operates, in Equatorial Guinea, they have actually dropping the profit tax rate from 35% to 25%.
So again, trying to encourage investment in Equatorial Guinea in the oil and gas space. Tunisia, we obviously, during the course of the year, we consolidated our position there and took a bigger position. We have 49% of these assets now, which are a series of onshore and shallow water offshore production assets. These continue to be very good, strong, solid reserves for us, good solid production.
The number of activities during the course of the year, which may be less visible to the market than some of our other activities in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, but nonetheless, are quite important in the context of the asset we have here. Again, we have had success here as an operator in increasing production. And we continue to see lots of upside here, and we will be going after some of that in the second half of this year. So a summary slide before we turn over to Q&A. The key messages to leave behind are the visible production growth.
Again, we are looking at a significant uptick in production this year, targeting between 11 and 13 thousand barrels a day of working interest production during the course of the year. Obviously, we'd hope to get above 13 thousand barrels a day at the peak, but this is an annual, annualized rate.
To remind people of our reserve and our contingent resource position, 65 million barrels. This is a very, very long life, you know, more than 10 years of production reserve replacement. So we have a long-term business here that should continue to develop production growth, and we have lots of development opportunities within our organic portfolio.
On the middle column, infrastructure-led M&A, Hibiscus South is a perfect example of how we can take just five months from finding oil to producing oil. It's the model that we seek, not trying to find oil in strange places that are gonna take years to develop, but these are things that we can turn around quite quickly.
And we do have high- impact wells, Akeng Deep and the Bourdon prospect in Gabon, which we hope to drill this year as well. And then all of that's set up in what we think is a very, very healthy, well-governed company with very strong commitment towards shareholder distributions, targeting $400 million-$500 million this year, NOK this year, through a quarterly cash dividend, supplemented by special dividends and of course, share buybacks.
We continue to look at opportunistic approach to new ventures. That's been part of what we've done as a company, and done so successfully. Equatorial Guinea was a great example, that we bought that and we received payback within 18 months. We're continuing to look at opportunities as they come, in a combination, of course, with our shareholder distribution framework. That concludes my presentation.
As a reminder, you can raise your hand, and we will unmute you, and or you can type a question in. My colleague, Andy, will be managing the questions as they come in. We'll endeavor to answer all questions, unless we've already answered them in a previous response. So, Andy, I'd like to turn it over to questions now.
Thank you, John. The first question comes from Stéphane Foucaud . Stéphane, you're self-muted. Can you please unmute yourself and proceed with your question? Thank you.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. My question mostly is around South Hibiscus. So you talk about the South Hibiscus being potentially materially, much larger than expected. And I was wondering whether if you could give, give an order of magnitude, is it double the size? Is it triple the size or, or what is it?
I think it's a little early to say, but yeah, I mean, it's not gonna be triple... I'd say maybe double the size in that range, maybe 50%-100% bigger.
Um, okay.
Which again, these aren't quite free barrels, but it's not far off in terms of their contribution, given the low operating costs associated with them. But yeah, it's probably in that order of magnitude.
Thank you. And therefore, would that require an extra well, you think, to develop those reserves? Or could that be done with the existing well?
It probably would require a second well in due course. Obviously, we're just putting the first well in there, and we're gonna start getting some production data off that in the next few weeks. You know, it's an undrilled structure, so we would hope that we're gonna get a good production response from it. The reservoir quality looks really good. But I think certainly in due course, a second well, given the size of it, would probably be warranted, perhaps in the next phase of the Hibiscus Ruche.
Okay. Thank you. And again, on Hibiscus South, you talk about the, I think, structure being bigger. Does that mean you have seen more net pay than you were expecting and perhaps better reservoir quality, or is it something else?
Stéphane , I'm gonna ask my colleague, Richard, to respond to that question. He's here with me.
Yeah, Stéphane , on that point, we came in a little bit higher to prognosis with the well. So in other words, the structure seems to be a bit larger. We came in more or less as expected in terms of reservoir quality and oil saturation. So it's more a structural gain.
Wonderful. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Stéphane .
Thank you. The next question is from Teodor Sveen- Nilsen. Teodor, you're unmuted. Please proceed with your question. Thank you.
Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my question. Three questions. The first on investments. You already provided some colors on how much you expect to invest in 2024. Just wondering for 2025, directionally, should we expect lower CapEx in 2025 than 2024? Definitely understand that it's early days, but some kind of direction would be useful. The second question is on the Akeng Deep prospect, which looks exciting. Can you talk a little bit about the prospective resources and the chances of success?
And third question is on your 2P reserves. You currently, by end 2022, you have 65 million barrels, 2P reserves. For 2023, when you disclose your reserve report, should we expect the reserve replacement ratio to be maybe below 100, and by that, also reserves are slightly down year-over-year? How should we think around that? Thanks.
Okay. So CapEx guidance for 2025, yes, it's a little early. Obviously, we don't decide these things with the joint ventures until much later this year. But directionally, yes, it will be considerably lower. Certainly not going to zero. There will always be, you know, capital expenditure associated with this, and some of it is quite driven by how quickly we get around to the next phase of drilling in Dussafu.
I think it's kind of the key item there of uncertainty, exactly when that will happen. But, you know, so I'm not quite ready to give you guidance on it, but I would certainly take it substantially lower than the $75 this year. On Akeng Deep, Richard, do you want to talk a little bit about Akeng Deep and what that looks like?
Yeah, I can do that. So Teodor, the Akeng Deep, very interesting prospect. It's a four-way in the Albian, which is a slightly deeper formation compared to where we're producing at, Block G. It's a nice looking structure. One, the main risk in the prospect is reservoir. So, the Albian reservoir is unproven in this part of West Africa, so this would be a new play.
So it's reasonably risky from that perspective, and the operator is estimating a one in four chance for this well. The reserves or, or sorry, prospective resources we're looking at in this case is, the mean case of about 180 million barrels. So it's very high impact. And again, it's kind of this infrastructure-led exploration idea, an easy tie back to our production facilities at Block G.
And your last question on reserves, it's just a little bit early. We're just in the final stages of working through our reserves. So we'll do our ASR as usual, you know, in the next month or six weeks or something like that. So I don't wanna get ahead of that, Teodor. But we will publish that as we usually do.
Okay. That's fair. Thank you.
Andy?
Hello.
Hello.
The next question comes from Christoffer Bachke. Christoffer , you're self-muted. Can you please unmute yourself to ask your question? Thank you.
Hi, guys. Christoffer from Clarksons here. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions for today. The first question is, can you elaborate a little bit on the progress in Guinea, and also talk a little bit about the rig availability now that Island Innovator has been terminated? At least from what I see, there's little rig availability in the area right now. And can you also say if you are in direct contact with rig owners right now? And as a follow-up to this, does the production guidance range for 2024 take into account that the infill wells in Guinea may be postponed to 2025?
The second question, based on dividend guidance of NOK 400 million-NOK 500 million, can you be a bit more specific about how you wish to balance between dividends and buybacks now in 2024? Thanks.
Okay, sorry, could you just repeat, you know, the first question about Equatorial Guinea? Just wanna make sure I understood properly.
Yeah.
I get the part about the rig, but the first part of it was?
Yeah, just elaborate a little bit on the progress in Guinea now that the Island Innovator rig has been terminated, and whether you are in direct contact with rig owners right now. Because, from what I see, at least, there's little rig availability in the area right now.
Right. Yeah, so the activity in Equatorial Guinea is continuing to do a lot of work around the infrastructure. We're doing a lot of the flow lines and preparing, in addition, for the eventual completion of these wells, which have now been slightly delayed. So there's plenty of activity there, but not of the, you know, production growth nature, until such time as we come in and drill these wells. The rig market is tight, there's no question. But we are in, you know, direct contact as a joint venture with a number of parties.
We've indicated that the timing is uncertain, but that there could be the possibility in late second quarter of having a rig at our disposal. But until such time as that process is concluded, it would be premature to say anything more. But what I can say is the joint venture, including the government, who are very much aligned with the joint venture on this, are very focused on getting back to this drilling activity.
It's very important for each of the companies involved. It's very important for the government. The drilling of the Akeng Deep well is obviously something that Panoro is very, very interested in, as is Kosmos, who've been talking a lot about it to their shareholders and analysts. So something we'd very much like to get after.
And then the production guidance. Yeah, the range includes an assumption that we have a contribution during the course of the year from some of the new wells in Equatorial Guinea. If that gets postponed for longer, then we'd probably be towards the lower end of that range. If we can get the rig in there at a decent time, then perhaps we're more in the other part of the range. So, it does include some of the uncertainty around that. So I hope that's answered the questions.
Great. Thanks, John. And regarding the dividend guidance of-
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, not quite ready for that one. But you know, clearly what we'd like to do is set up a quarterly return of capital, paying capital to shareholders, or this quarterly core payment, which you know, kind of sets a minimum payment. And then you know, share buybacks are something that are very much on the radar. You know, today we've increased the dividend substantially up to NOK 50 million. But in terms of the mix, I think it's gonna depend on a number of factors.
But, you know, share buybacks, particularly, you know, where our share price is, and the view of the board and the management is that we have a very low share price, and certainly, share buybacks are gonna be a significant portion of what we do.
I certainly agree. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Stéphane Foucaud . Stéphane, you are unmuted. Can you please ask, proceed and ask your question? Thank you.
Yes, good morning, guys. I dropped out for a few minutes, so apologies if my questions have been answered. My first question is on the Hibiscus South. Looks very promising. Could you say anything on when we should expect a more quantification of how high the reserves can be? And just to confirm, I guess this will extend the production plateau, right, from that development? And my second question is on the drilling termination in Equatorial Guinea. Do you face any risk of any termination fees or any sort of cash payments there to the rig operator? Thanks.
Yeah, Stéphane , I think your first question has been dealt with. You know, we're not gonna come up with any volume metrics yet, but we were put on the spot, and we kind of said it's probably 50%-100% bigger than we thought, something in that order. Reserve quality seems very good, and we seem to have a bigger structure than originally modeled off the back of the initial exploration well.
So that's all very promising, and yes, ultimately, of course, it will extend the plateau out, you know, of that area. I think what's also maybe not mentioned, but I think is very encouraging, is I think it continues to prove the Dussafu model, where we've got this license for another 15 years.
And there are lots more exploration targets to be drilling here, and we've had mostly successes here. There have been a couple of things that have been disappointing over the years, but you know, the Hibiscus discovery, now Hibiscus South, it's kind of encouraging you to consider continue to look at further exploration on this.
So it's more than just the barrels we've found. I think it's sort of validating the model, the mapping, the seismic interpretations that have been done. It's giving us another really encouraging data point. In terms of the rig contract, termination fees, contractual position, it's be inappropriate for me to comment there.
You know, as you've seen, we've not changed our guidance really in terms of capital expenditure or anything like that. Obviously, if the rig gets delayed, we'll be spending a lot less money. But it'd be inappropriate to say much more than that at this point.
Okay, understood. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Carl Farman. Carl, you are unmuted. You're self-muted. Can you please unmute yourself and proceed to ask your question? Thank you.
Thank you so much. I got an answer to my question from one of the analysts, so that's okay. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Carl.
Thank you. Thank you. John, a couple of questions submitted online. Can you please elaborate a little bit on any thinking around accelerating, de-leveraging in balance with other forms of shareholder return?
Yes. You know, we've- we're always trying to keep these things in balance, making sure that we are, first of all, not aggressively borrowed. We never are, and I don't think you'll ever see the company in a position where we stretch our debt position. We're very comfortable with the reserve-based loan structure. We think it gives a lot of discipline.
We think that the relationship with the banks is important. It provides us with source of capital for future developments. So it's quite important to us to maintain a reserve-based loan. I think that's something that we feel strongly about, but we'll never push it hard. It would always be sort of conservatively geared. That's very much the philosophy of the company.
But at the same time, recognizing that, you know, we hopefully have a period of, you know, good three, four, five years of good free cash flow generation, that, that repaying debt should go alongside shareholder distributions, and so we very much try and keep those things in balance. Having said that, I think, you know, a little bit of, a little bit of debt in RBL is always useful for a company like that, for us. So I'm not sure you'll see us completely gear down to zero. Maybe on a net basis, we'll be net cash, but I think we'd like to keep this facility. It's a very good discipline for a company like us.
Hopefully, interest rates will be start coming down, so hopefully the, you know, the cost of maintaining that debt will also decrease. But you will certainly see, you know, de-leveraging over this period of time that I'm talking about. You know, I think the next three years is what I think most people are trying to focus in on in terms of free cash flow generation, and, you know, pretty much any model you can generate yourself or that we generate will show us in a significant net cash position.
Thank you, John. A further question submitted online. Could you please comment on the current status of the technical cooperation permit onshore South Africa?
Absolutely. I'm gonna get Richard to comment on the South African business.
Yeah, thanks for the question. Right, so this is a technical cooperation permit, which we were awarded a couple of years ago. We completed a year's worth of desktop studies on that area, where we're looking for the potential for gas, helium and methane exploration. We concluded favorably, and then we made an application for an exploration right over the area.
Now, we're currently going through an environmental authorization phase, which is required, working with the regulators to make sure we're adhering to all the rules about operations in the area. Once that's concluded, we'll enter the exploration phase, and then we'll have a three-year period to conduct further works in the area. Quite early days, but we're encouraged by what we've seen from the desktop work and want to pursue the project going forward.
It may not be entirely visible, but this is a very hot area for helium and methane gas in South Africa. There is a very large company now starting to produce both helium and liquefying the gas they produce in the area. There are a number of other smaller both public and private companies that are starting to get acreage going after exactly what we are doing. This is not a big cost center for Panoro, where you won't-you'll find it to be a rounding error in our CapEx line.
But nonetheless, it's a bit using our skills, our subsurface skills, to make a contribution towards the energy transition, trying to help South Africa wean itself off of coal and into gas, and the byproduct of helium, which is a strategic gas and extremely valuable. And South Africa, it looks like it is an emerging province for helium. So, we'll certainly talk a little bit more about it once we're given the formal exploration right. But things are going well.
Thank you, John. Further question online. Could you please comment on Panoro's approach, thinking towards inorganic opportunities and any observations you may have on the M&A market that we're seeing in the region?
Well, we're fortunate enough to have a lot of organic growth in the company still. This year, obviously, is a production boost year. We see a lot of organic growth still in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, through our exploration activities, but also through further development activities. So we don't feel pressured to look at inorganic opportunities.
But Panoro has also grown over the years from producing just a few hundred barrels a day to now around 10,000 barrels a day, partially through acquisition. And the tricky bit for us is to find the right opportunity. So the opportunity needs to exist, and we need to get it at a fair price and fend off any competition.
And those are tricky things to get the stars and the moon to align. But in our business, we're always looking at opportunity. We think we've been good acquirers in the past, and if we can demonstrate first to ourselves and secondly to shareholders, obviously, that we're doing accretive deals that don't disrupt our distribution platform, referred to as distribution platform, then we will certainly look at them.
Thank you, John. Final question, which has been submitted online. Could you please just comment on progress in Tunisia, which seems to have been a bit slower of late, and also, in summary, given the current prevailing market valuation, what do you feel that the market is overlooking or missing with Panoro?
Okay. I'll let Nigel comment briefly on Tunisia, where there's lots going on, but again, it doesn't seem to get the headlines or the attention that our bigger assets do. But Nigel, do you wanna give a brief update on Tunisia?
Absolutely. So I think we'll see multiple activities in the year ahead and beyond. We're, in particular, looking at a series of workovers on the existing fields, which should boost production during the course of this year. And alongside that, we've been looking at further growth opportunities. So we've come to the final phases of detailed simulation modeling of the largest onshore field, the Guebiba reservoir, and are identifying a couple of potential drilling targets there.
So we're in the process now of gearing up for a drilling program which would, we hope, kick into action in the latter part of this year and early into next year. Alongside that activity on Guebiba, we'll also be planning to drill a well on the Rhemoura field, also onshore.
So there's quite a busy period of activity that will boost production that's scheduled for this coming year. Beyond that, the next real focus will be the Cercina field, offshore. And we're in the process of renewing the concession for that field, and we then are looking at a very significant program of revamping and upgrading the facilities for that life extension, and then looking at further potential drilling opportunities on that reservoir.
As to the final question, in terms of what the market may be overlooking, obviously the market is driven by short-term sentiment, and we understand that. We've had some issues in Gabon and now the issue in Equatorial Guinea with the rig postponement. And that's going to affect the share price, and I think that that is seen very much in our share price at the moment.
I think what I would say is missing is, for longer term, people with a longer-term focus, is that the reserves have gone nowhere. These barrels will still be produced. We're in fact finding more of them, for instance, Hibiscus South. We have a couple of very exciting exploration wells on the horizon in Akeng Deep and Bourdon.
So we have, we have a very, very good long-term business here with an overlay of a, of a very shareholder-friendly, distribution framework. So for longer-term holders or even medium-term holders, I think that, hopefully, they, they can see through some of the, shorter-term volatility created by the issues we've had. But none of these issues are, are fundamentally changing the investment, proposition of Panoro. Thanks, Andy.
Thank you, John. That concludes today's Q&A.
Perfect. Well, thank you, thanks everybody for listening, and we'll certainly be updating the market as and when we have news, in particular around some of the key items that I know people are focused on. So we'll update the market as soon as we possibly can. Thank you.