Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of PetroNor's second quarter and half year results. My name is Eyas Alhomouz. I'm the Chairman of the Board, and with me today is Jens Pace, our Interim CEO. During the summer, we completed the long-awaited Aje transaction, and engagement with the JV partners on redevelopment opportunities of the asset is currently underway. Our infill drilling program is progressing rather well, and production is expected to ramp up as it matures. Financially, there was a lack of lifting in the first half of the year. However, I'm pleased to announce that we have a new arrangement with the confirmed scheduled lifting in the first week of October for our entitlement production inventory.
I will now leave the word to Jens, who will give you more details about our performance in the quarter and the prospects of our assets going forward. Jens?
Thank you, Eyas, for the introduction, and I'm very pleased to be here once again to present the quarterly results for PetroNor. I've got a few slides that provide a little bit of extra context for the report that went out earlier this morning. And then there'll be an opportunity for anyone to ask questions at the end of my presentation. Starts with the usual disclaimer, which I'll let you read at your leisure. The headlines for Q2 and what's happened subsequently, you know, our Congo infill drilling program has been continuing, and four new wells have been brought on the Litanzi field. That actually completes the program on Litanzi, and the rig is now moving to the next target at Tchibeli.
We're very pleased with the production from these new wells. In fact, there's a tenfold increase in the capacity of Litanzi from what was previously about 1,000 bbl a day to about 10,000 bbl a day now potential from that field on the initial rates that we're seeing. The average quarterly production in the second quarter for PetroNor was 3,737 bbl of oil per day. A little bit shy of where we wanted it because of some wells that went offline during July. They've all been brought back on now, and we expect with the new production from Litanzi to see a continued ramp up to our target of 5,000 bbl of oil per day during the year.
In fact, over the last weekend, the field was producing 29,000 bbl a day on a gross basis, which is getting us close to that target. That makes our net about 4,880 bbl a day. Good progress towards the production increase that we were signaling in the last quarterly report. We've made some new lifting arrangements with an established terminal operator at Djeno, with a lifting now scheduled in early October. We previously had, and we still have an agreement with ADNOC, but it has been not able to be operationalized because it needed ancillary agreements with the terminal operators, which have yet to be forthcoming.
As an interim measure, we've agreed lifting arrangements with an established operator, and we have our first lifting scheduled for early October. We have visibility on when that will happen now, and that's something that will change our financial situation. Because as you see, revenue for the first half of the year has had to be restated with the restatement of the quarterly, the first quarter report, since we've had no liftings. We believed that it was inappropriate to carry on using the implied revenue from the ADNOC contract while we were working this situation.
As Eyas has said, the purchase of Panoro Energy's Aje field interest is now completed. I understand that Panoro have made a dividend payment of our consideration shares out to their shareholders. I'd like to offer a warm welcome to new shareholders on our register from the Panoro shareholder group. Couple of slides on our financial results. In our report, you'll have seen an inventory of about 440,000 bbl of oil, that's been built up through the year with no lifting. For accounting purposes, that's valued at cost. We have about $10 million for the value of that inventory. At prevailing prices, that would be worth over $40 million.
You know, I think that it's a matter of time before we realize the true value of that production, that entitlement production. We invested about $14 million in the infill drilling program in PNGF Sud during the first half of the year. You know, from as you'll see from the discussion about the rates of these wells, the initial rates of these wells have been very promising. We see a payback period of this investment with less than one year based on the current production rates and prices. We're very pleased with the economics of that whole program. Our interest-bearing debt has been reduced by $5 million since the beginning of the year.
We have an outstanding $8.1 million to be repaid or refinanced before year-end. Discussions with the working capital facility that we've kept on the Congo are underway. We expect that we probably will be doing some refinancing before the end of the year on that basis. The liabilities we have include $22.5 million for what we owe our operator in the Congo for the ongoing operations there. We have arranged to transfer part of our inventory to Perenco in settlement of these in order to honor our license obligations.
Perhaps restating it, we haven't had any physical oil liftings in the first half of the year. We're restating the revenue reported for Q1. We expect that our full year profits are largely going to be unaffected. This is a timing issue, and the new lifting arrangements gives us visibility now on the first of what we expect to be two or three liftings in the latter half of the year. We expect that by the end of the year, we will be back to where we wanted to be for the year. The ADNOC sales agreement is still waiting for third-party pooling agreement to become operationally effective.
I think in the longer term, it's important for our Congo subsidiary to have the rights to lift its own crude through the terminal. This is in discussion with the terminal operators and the government at the moment. I think it's a government-led initiative to try and create a more competitive situation for lifting out of Djeno, and we welcome that and support that process. You'll see that our costs have included some one-off fees for the re-domicile process and the up-listing onto the main bourse. So you'll see costs for the first half slightly above where they were for 2021.
This is because of the one-off business that we had and we reported on during the first quarter. Just a quick run through the portfolio to which is composed of three main ingredients here. Our production base is in Congo with the PNGF Sud license and it's operated by Perenco. Our net is 16.83%. High margin production with lifting costs around $11-$12 a barrel. A good asset as I'll describe a little bit more in the next couple of slides. The next component is in Nigeria.
It's the Aje field which we've just completed our entry into with the purchase of Panoro's interests. We see the potential for a development plan there for 25,000 bbl of oil equivalent per day in the future. A good deal of that is gas, which I think is a desirable product for this part of the margin and allows the development to present a strong ESG profile. Although there's kind of infrastructure-led exploration in both of those two assets that I've mentioned before, the main exploration component of PetroNor is in high-impact acreage that we have in the Atlantic margin in Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia.
These are in a proven basin with multi-billion-barrel potential and there's been some success along the Atlantic margin recently, and I think the flavor is coming back to exploration in this part of Africa. Focusing a little bit on the Congo now and our position in PNGF Sud. This is a long life asset. It came on stream in the late 1980s. It has 2 billion barrels of oil in place, and to date, less than 500,000 bbl have been produced. We see a production profile extending beyond 2040, and the potential for a significant term addition.
Our current CPR has projects about another 150 bbl of production reserves is possible there. With the success of the current infill drilling program and the longevity of the infrastructure that's in place, we see potential above that. Even if we completed that, it would still mean an overall recovery factor of about 32%, which is still low by North Sea standards. This is a high quality asset, high margin production and has legs to run for the next decade or two. Just zooming in a little bit on the recent performance of the field.
You can see, you know, typical production from the existing well stock. It's around 22,000 bbl a day. Then as we approach the end of this curve, you can see the impact of the Litanzi wedge that is coming in with the infill drilling program. Then also what we anticipate from the next target at Tchibeli, where the rig is moving now. This brings production of the field over 30,000 bbl a day, which is our target for the year. The slide has a little bit of a graph of the performance from Litanzi, and you can see it started the year at flowing at about 1,000 bbl of oil per day.
It's just recently been shut in to effect the rig move. Just prior to that, it was over 10,000 bbl a day from that field, including the infill wells that have been drilled there. High hopes for the rest of this program. There was a total of 17 wells in the program, and 13 more to come in the coming year. Moving on to Aje. We now have a seat at the table with the license group, which has been a long time coming.
This was a transaction that had quite a long delay waiting for government approval and then for us to resolve issues associated with the redomicile to Norway and the uplisting onto the main exchange. So all that's behind us now, and the next milestone for Aje is we're finalizing agreements with the license operator, YFP, to form a joint venture, which will be called Aje Production. It'll be a Norwegian entity that PetroNor will hold a 52% interest in. This is the vehicle by which we hope that we will be able to forge a new dynamic in the partnership. We've started in parallel to engage technically with the rest of the license partnership.
We're putting together plans to work with the current technical service company to bring about you know a definition of what the group chooses to do in terms of redevelopment of Aje. It was previously produced as an oil producer. All the gas which was associated with that production was flared. Our plan is to exploit that gas, bring it to shore, and also to extract liquids both from the gas and the underlying oil rim.
We see an attractive economic development there, but one also that addresses some of the regional needs for a clean fuel that the gas will provide and will help displace the use of other sources of energy onshore, such as diesel and wood that would be a benefit to the environment as well as the economy of Nigeria. Touching on the high-impact exploration acreage that PetroNor has offshore Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, we have advanced well planning for a well in 2023 for Guinea-Bissau. It was a position we largely inherited from Svenska when we picked up the license in the course of last year.
In The Gambia A-4 Block, we have an option on a license. The option is expiring on the 18th of October, and we've initiated discussions with the government about what would be the desired outcome here in terms of either an extension or a commitment to enter into the license itself. We are in the midst of farm-out discussions with IOCs across this portfolio. This is supported by what's seen as a revival in exploration from strengthening balance sheets of companies, as well as the recent success enjoyed by some of the deep water discoveries in West Africa. This is very much work in progress, but we have hopes for this position.
Perhaps also to mention that the arbitration with Senegal over our licenses in ROP and SOSP, we don't typically report on the arbitration. It's confidential. We are expecting a result from this process before the year-end, and we'll be reporting on that as it emerges. This is my last slide to wrap up here. We see continued strong delivery from the Congo assets, and a rising production outlook. Targeting our 5,000 bbl a day that was mentioned in the last quarterly report, and we still see as in front of us, but with good progress towards it. The infill drilling program, I think supports the long-term production growth.
The success of these wells suggests that we'll be able to find more targets above and beyond the 17 currently planned to increase the overall recovery from that 2 billion barrels that was initially in place in the Congo asset. The new arrangements around lifting gives us visibility on getting value for our entitlement oil inventory, and we're looking forward to getting that done starting in October. We are in the midst of engaging with partners on Aje and look forward to presenting a redevelopment opportunity to them and to our shareholders in due course. We still see a significant amount of organic growth opportunity within that portfolio.
We have ambitions beyond that. Our three-year target remains unchanged, and we have a significant effort on looking for that transformational M&A deal, and we have several conversations that are maturing and have been ongoing through the year that I hope we'll be able to report on in the near future. Thank you very much and I'd be happy to take any questions.
Yeah, I guess we'll be moving over to the Q&A part of today's webcast. Jens, going into the third quarter, does the new lifting agreement imply that you will stand without revenue also this quarter? If so, what will that mean for the fourth quarter?
Our lifting program envisages a start in early October, I think the first week of October. We anticipate liftings through the fourth quarter. The third quarter will be. There'll be no change to our revenue situation. We are looking at the potential of accelerating some of the cash from that lifting program through credit discussions. On the face of where we are now, we won't be seeing any revenue from that program until October. You know, it does leave us quite exposed to the fourth quarter in terms of oil price.
While we see that there's plenty of support for oil price going forward, through the rest of this year, we are looking at the possibility of hedging that position for the fourth quarter so that we can manage that exposure. That's at an early stage at the moment, so we haven't typically hedged our production. It's something that we might consider given the exposure to the fourth quarter in this year.
When can we expect that the mentioned 5,000 bbl of oil per day will kick in?
I'm hoping that with the addition of another well on Tchibeli, assuming that all the rest of the well stock stays online, and we would envisage that we'd get to 5,000 bbl a day after the completion of that well. The rig is just moving to location at the moment. It'll be after that first well is completed. You know, with the field producing 29,000 bbl a day last weekend, I think we're getting tantalizingly close to that target now.
Are there any plans for consolidations of shares?
We have a commitment to have a value of our share price on the Oslo Børs. We will be meeting that commitment. It will probably involve a consolidation at some point. We haven't finalized that at this stage.
Can you give an update or let us know what is the status for PNGF business?
We're very much in the hands of our operator, Perenco, on PNGF Bis. We have a right to enter that license as a partnership group with them as operator. You know, I think to some extent the priority for that has been circumvented by the opportunity for investment in the infill drilling program on the other fields. It hasn't been something that we've approached urgently. There is potential there for additional investment and we are certainly carrying the opportunity in our books and in our CPR.
We will anticipate that Perenco will get to the completion of those negotiations with the government in the coming future.
Thank you, Jens. It seems that concludes the Q&A part of today's presentation. The complete recording of the webcast will be made available on the company's website.
Thank you very much.