Good morning. My name is Sergio, and I'll be your conference operator today. Welcome to Frontera Energy Second Quarter 2023 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. All lines are currently on a mute to prevent any background noise. I will now like to remind you that this conference call is being recorded today and is also available through audio webcast on the company's website. There will be a time for questions following the speaker's remarks. Analysts and investors are reminded that any additional questions can be directed to the company at ir@fronteraenergy.ca. This call contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian security laws relating to activities, events, or developments the company believes or expects will or may occur in the future. Forward-looking information reflects the current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs of the company based on information currently available to it.
Although the company believes the assumptions are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking information is subject to several risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information. The company's MD&A for the quarter ended June 30th, 2023, and the company's annual information form dated March 1st, 2023, and other documents it files from time to time with securities regulatory authorities describe the risks, uncertainties, material assumptions, and other factors that could influence actual results.
Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is dated, and it is made, and the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, except as required by law. I will now like to turn the call over to Mr. Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board of Frontera Energy. Mr. de Alba, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Frontera's second quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me on today's call are Orlando Cabrales, Frontera's CEO, and Rene Burgos, Frontera's CFO. Also available to answer questions at the end of the call, we have Victor Vega, VP, Field Development, Reservoir Management, and Exploration; Alejandra Bonilla, General Counsel; Ivan Arevalo, VP, Operations; and Renata Campagnaro, VP, Marketing, Logistics and Business Sustainability. Frontera continued to efficiently execute its financial, operating, and strategic plan in the second quarter for its three core businesses. In the company's Colombia and Ecuador upstream, onshore business, production, cost, operating EBITDA and CapEx are within 2023 guidance at $80 per barrel average Brent prices for the year.
In its potentially transformational Guyana exploration business, Frontera and joint venture partner, CGX Energy, safely concluded its planned two-well exploration program for the Corentyne block and announced an oil discovery at Wei-1 Well, offshore Guyana. With the conclusion of the drilling campaign for Wei-1, the joint venture has complied with its exploration commitments under the Corentyne Petroleum Prospecting License. Wei-1 is the second discovery in the Corentyne block, following the Kawa-1 light oil condensated discovery in 2022. In its standalone and growing Colombian midstream business, I'd like to take a moment to discuss an important development in the company's efforts to unlock value of the sum of its parts.
As you likely saw in Frontera's earnings release last night, subsequent to the quarter, Puerto Bahia entered into an agreement to connect the Puerto Bahia liquids terminal in Cartagena with Ecopetrol's Cartagena Refinery, known as Reficar. Puerto Bahia will build, operate, and maintain the 6.8 km, 18 in bidirectional hydrocarbon flow line, which will have a normal capacity of 84,000 barrels per day. The connection will be capable of handling imported and domestically produced crudes and other hydrocarbons. The agreement is the result of many years of effort by the team and marks a significant milestone for the continued development of the Cartagena Bay, a strategic activity hub for Colombia, and Frontera is excited about a strategic project with Reficar and for the future of its growing and standalone midstream business. Frontera remains committed to generating even more value for shareholders by unlocking the sum of its parts.
I will now turn the call over to Orlando Cabrales, Frontera's CEO, and our CFO, Rene Burgos, who will share their views on Frontera's second quarter results and the performance of our three core businesses. Orlando?
Gabriel. Good morning, everyone. Frontera delivered positive second quarter results. We increased our average daily production by 1% to approximately 42,000 BOE per day for the quarter, as we successfully brought production back online following the resolution of third-party road blockades that occurred during the first quarter, and increase water handling capacity at Quifa and CPE-6, where production improved 8.4%. We also grew natural gas liquid production by 41% to approximately 1,800 BOE per day through increased gas re-rejection at P one. At CPE-6, we recently achieved daily record production of 6,177 barrels per day.
We deployed approximately $155 million in capital spending, primarily to drill 19 development wells at Quifa, CPE-6, and Curillo, improve flow lines, build a storage tank and other facilities to double water handling capacity at CPE-6, drill 2 exploration wells in Colombia, and complete Wei-1 exploration drilling activities. Taking a closer look at our three core businesses. In our Colombia and Ecuador upstream business, Frontera produced 41,436 BOE per day from its Colombian operations. We drilled 19 development wells in the second quarter at Quifa, CPE-6, and Curillo blocks, and 1 injector well at the CPE-6 block. We are currently have 2 drilling rigs and 1 workover rig active at our Quifa, CPE-6, and Corcel-Guatiquia blocks in Colombia.
Production from Quifa and Cajua fields averaged approximately 18,408 barrels per day of heavy crude in the quarter, up 9.4% compared to the first quarter. The company drilled 12 production wells, including 7 wells at Quifa and 5 wells at Cajua in the quarter. As I have mentioned before, increasing water handling capacity is key to Frontera's efforts to grow production at Quifa, where our current water handling capacity is approximately 1.6 million barrels of water per day in Quifa. In 2023, we began commissioning SAARA, our reverse osmosis water treatment facility, with an estimated 1 million barrels of water per day nameplate capacity. Every additional 100,000 barrels of water increases our net production at Quifa by 1,200 barrels per day.
As of July of this year, the plant had processed 7.6 million barrels of water as part of its commissioning program. This is a 5-fold increase in treated volumes compared to April of this year, providing irrigation source water to the company's nearby ProAgro palm oil plantation. In Ecuador, Frontera's share of production was 613 barrels per day of medium crude oil for the 3 months ended June 30th, compared to 1,005 barrels in the prior quarter. On the Frontera-operated Perico block, we drilled the G-2 appraisal well in July, discovering 48 ft of net pay in the Lower U sand and 24 ft net pay in the Hollin Main formation. The well has been successfully completed with initial production rates of approximately 1,200 barrels of 30.5 degree API crude oil.
Pre-drilling pre-drilling activities and civil works are underway in advance of drilling the Jandiayacu exploration well, which the company expects to spot this month. Turning now to our midstream Colombian business. We continue our efforts to unlock shareholder value from our three core businesses. Building on Gabriel's earlier comments about the connection agreement between Puerto Bahia and Reficar, I will add that construction of the connection is expected to begin in the second half of this year and take approximately 12-18 months to complete at an anticipated total cost of approximately $30 million. The connection will enhance Puerto Bahia's position as a strategic infrastructure asset and deliver additional revenue, revenue generation opportunities, not only for Puerto Bahia and Reficar, but also for the local communities of Baru and Cartagena, and for Colombia.
I would like to thank our partners at Reficar and Ecopetrol for dedication, their dedication to completing the connection agreement with us. I look forward to exploring the full potential of the connection in the coming months and years. Regarding our midstream business results, total ODL volumes pumped were approximately 1,000 barrels per day in the second quarter, up 8% compared to the first quarter. Puerto Bahia liquids, liquid volumes were approximately 74,000 barrels per day during the second quarter of the year, up 17% compared to the first quarter. Adjusted midstream EBITDA in the second quarter was $30 million, compared with $28.2 million in the first quarter. The increased quarter-over-quarter was driven by both higher volumes transported through ODL and higher throughput volumes in Puerto Bahia Liquids Port Facility. Now, our Guyana exploration business.
As Gabriel mentioned, as you are all aware, during the quarter, Frontera and CGX announced that the joint venture discovered 210 ft of hydrocarbon bearing sands in the Santonian horizon, confirmed by wireline logs and extensive core samples. The rock and fluid properties of the Santonian are currently being analyzed by independent third-party laboratory to define net pay and a basis for the evaluation of this interval. The JV also updated its previously announced discovery in the Maastrichtian and the Campanian intervals to 77 ft of net pay. Fluid samples were retrieved from the Campanian and Maastrichtian, indicating the presence of light crude in the Campanian and sweet medium crude oil in the Maastrichtian. The JV data acquisition program included wireline logging, MDT fluid samples, and sidewall cores throughout the various intervals.
Over the next two months, results will be integrated into the geologic and geophysical models to form an updated view of the entire northern portion of the Corentyne block. The northern portion of the Corentyne block includes the channel complexes discovered by the Kawa-1 and Wei-1 wells, and a prospective central channel complex, which is yet to be evaluated. The JV is excited by the definite presence of oil in the Maastrichtian and Campanian, and the presence of hydrocarbons in the Santonian, believes there is a significant potential in the block.
Speaking of Guyana, subsequent to the quarter, Frontera and CGX entered into an agreement to amend the Corentyne block JOA between the companies to cover the unexpected additional cost of the Wei-1 well due to delays associated with the late release of the rig by a third party, costs associated with a lost sampling tool, and the drilling of the bypass well. As a result of this agreement, if the maximum amount is transfers-- is transferred by CGX, the company will have 72.7% participating interest, and CGX will, will have a 27.3% participating interest in the, in the block. I would now like to turn the call over to Rene Burgos, Frontera's CFO. Rene?
Thank you, Orlando. Also, thank you very much, Gabriel, for the introduction. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for participating, for the interest in our company, and for your ongoing support. I'd like to take a moment to highlight a few key financial aspects of our second quarter results. In the second quarter, the company recorded net income of roughly $80 million, which compares with a net loss of $11.3 million in the prior quarter. The company's second quarter net income included $35.5 million of a net recovery from asset retirement obligations and improvement expenses, resulting mainly from the company's sale of its interest and exit in the Z-1 block, and the corresponding reduction in asset retirement, asset retirement obligations related to such block.
A $14.3 million in income from associates related to our interest in the ODL pipeline, and a $17 million foreign exchange gain, including a $9 million realized gain related to our FX management program. These were partially offset by finance and income tax expenses of approximately $18.4 million. Operating EBITDA for the quarter was $116.5 million, compared to $92 million in the first quarter. This represents a 27% increase in quarter-over-quarter operating EBITDA, primarily as a result of higher sales volumes during the quarter and the realized gain on our FX risk management contract. The company continues to actively manage its inventories in Colombia and expects to continue to benefit from an improved differential environment going forward.
As at June 30th, the company had a total inventory balance of approximately 1.4 million barrels, including roughly 900,000 barrels in Colombia. This represents a decrease of around 200,000 barrels compared to Q1. On the cost side, production and transportation costs per barrel totaled approximately $14 and $11.40, respectively. This compares with $12 and $11.20 in the prior quarter. The increase in cost quarter-over-quarter was primarily a result of foreign exchange impacts related to the almost 10% appreciation of the Colombian peso during the quarter. Also impacting higher energy and internal transportation costs and additional costs related to additional activity for services. I would like to provide a refresher on our cost exposure to the Colombian peso.
About 75% of our OpEx and 30% of our transportation costs are denominated in Colombian Pesos. As I mentioned earlier, the Colombian Peso appreciated 10% during the quarter. Since then, and through today, it has depreciated another 4%. The company has a top-down focus on cost control, and this includes ongoing review for the prioritization of activities and through labor engagement to enact cost-saving measures, as well as a disciplined hedging program to help mitigate this impact on of fluctuations. I will review key details of our hedging program shortly. Cash generation for the quarter was strong, with cash from operations totaling $184 million, compared with approximately $1 million in the current quarter.
The increase in quarter-over-quarter cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to higher production, higher sales volumes, including inventory sales, and realized foreign exchange gains, partially offset by lower Brent oil prices. From an investment standpoint, the company spent $154.9 million in CapEx during the second quarter, including $72.8 million related to the Guyana Wei-1 exploration well. Additionally, the company spent $26.3 million in debt service payments. I would like to take a second to give you a quick update on our investment related to our potential transformational Guyana exploration program. We expect to be in the lower end of the capital guidance of approximately $190 million-$195 million, and as of the end of the second quarter, the expected additional cash outlays are estimated at around $40 to $50 million.
As of the second quarter, the company reported a total cash position of $214 million. Compared to $183 million as of the first quarter of 2023. The company finished with a strong balance sheet and healthy credit metrics, including low LTM net leverage of 0.5x. I would like to highlight, during the quarter, the company borrowed $20 million on their new working capital facility loan. This facility matures by December of this year. This working capital loan is an important milestone for the company, as it marks the first time that the company has successfully gained access to traditional bank funding markets in an effort to optimize its sources of capital funding. Lastly, I would like to also give you an update on our risk management strategy.
Frontera uses derivative instruments to manage exposure to oil price and foreign exchange volatility. Consistent with the strategy, the company entered into new put hedges, totaling roughly 2.1 million barrels or roughly 40% of our future production for the year, and this will help protect a portion of the company's production through November at prices between $70 and $79 per Brent barrel. Frontera has also entered into foreign exchange rate hedges, totaling roughly $120 million, or approximately 40% of our estimated peso exposure for the second half of 2023.
We've used zero-cost collars that protect, yeah, protect the company at the COP 43 level, with a price cap above the COP 4,900 level Colombian peso rate. We believe these provide the company with visibility and help mitigate future fluctuations and allow the business to deliver on its targets. I would now like to turn the call back to Orlando for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Rene. Before I, I wrap up, today's call, I would like to highlight that during the quarter, we released our 2022 sustainability report. We also announced that the company achieved 102% of its 2022 ESG goals. In 2022, we invested in 218 projects that benefit more than 73,100 people in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. We offset 52% of our greenhouse gas emissions. We reduced water consumption at our operations by 15%. We achieved a total recordable injury rate of 0.82 at our operation, and this is the best health and safety performance in Frontera's history. I'm incredibly proud of the entire Frontera team for the dedication to safe operations. For 2023, we have set ambitious ESG targets.
We aim to neutralize 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions through carbon credits. We plan to inaugurate our first solar farm at CPE-6. We will continue commissioning our SAARA water treatment facility at Quifa, and we aim to recycle 15% of our operational water use. We aim to preserve an additional 1,000 hectares of biological corridors in Casanare and Meta. With that, I would like to conclude by saying thank you to Javier and Rene for the comments, and thank you, everyone, for attending our call. I will now turn this call, the call back to our operator, who will open the call up for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star one. If you want to withdraw your question, please press star two. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, while we just compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Anne Milne from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good morning, good afternoon. Thank you very much for the call, and congratulations on good results. My first question has to do with the linking of the Puerto Bahia liquids terminal with Reficar. Congratulations, I think that's something you've been focused on for a long time. My question is, is there any commitment on the part of Reficar or Ecopetrol to, to use this in any capacity? Will you be looking for contracts from, from third parties? That's my first question. I don't know if you want to answer that, and I have two others.
No, why don't you go ahead with the other ones?
Okay, so the second question is, I just didn't get all of the information when you talked about the water treat- treatment capacity, particularly at Quifa. I think you said that for every 100,000 additional, I wanna say, is it barrels or gallons of water treatment, you can increase oil production by 1,200 barrels per day, and I think you might have already achieved something there. I just wanted a little bit of clarification on that. The third question is just on Guyana. I know you said you're, you're currently evaluating all the results that you have. What are the different options after 2 months? Is it possible that you will make additional investments there, or are there a variety of options you're looking at?
Okay, let me start. Thank you for the questions. Let me start with the first one, addressing the Puerto Bahia, the Puerto Bahia connection with Reficar. Well, as I mentioned, I mean, this, these are significant value creation opportunity for the company, so we are very excited about that. We still have 12 to 18 months to go to build the pipeline that connects the two facilities. There is a growing opportunity given the expansion of the refinery in Cartagena, which will need additional volumes to be refined in the facility.
There is, there is a, there is a, there, there is a, a take-or-pay agreement. Rates have been already negotiated. Again, this is. These are very exciting opportunity. It's a, it's a significant value creation opportunity for, for the company. On, on the second, on the second question, yes, is every 100,000 of water that we can handle in the SAARA facility, there is an increase of 1,200 barrels net production. That is a, that is a number net for Frontera, 1,200 barrels per day. Every 100,000 implies one, 1,200. That is for Frontera on a net basis.
The facility as it is designed, is going to benefit Quifa, the Quifa Association, also the Rubiales Association, the Rubiales fields. At the end, the benefit for Frontera is $1,200. I think the third question was about Guyana, no? Yes, as we mentioned, we are in the process of finalizing all the information that we got from the well. It is very positive that we got significant new additional data from the well as we move forward, we of course, will consider different strategic options as we have indicated before, for the Corentyne license.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Roman Rossi from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, congratulations on the deal you closed this quarter. I have a couple just on Guyana. I see that you changed your CapEx guidance, I assume this is just related to Guyana, right? The second one is related to the pending technical information for the well. When are you expecting to have the net pay for the primary target?
Can you, can you repeat those, Roman? Can you, can you repeat your first question, the first part on the, on, on CapEx?
Yeah. It seems you changed your CapEx guidance for 2023, right?
No, no, we haven't changed the CapEx guidance for 2023, no. This is still the same.
The original guidance, we updated our guidance related to the Guyana, I think it was in, in May, June, because of the additional costs that we discussed in, in the prior call. We have not updated guidance, and what I alluded in my, in my notes, was that we expect to be in the lower range of the updated guidance for Guyana of between $180 to $185 million. Does that answer your question? Regarding technical information?
Yeah. Yeah, thanks for the question. Basically, as we indicated before in the, in the previous press release that we made on the web results, we are going to take two to three months to finalize all the integration. Basically, we still are going to, to be within that timeframe. We are making progress on preparing the data by a third party. Then, as we alluded also before, we have a lot of data, not just for the, for the Campanian, but also mainly for the Santonian. There's a lot of information that we have to analyze and integrate. We are, you know, on track, and we are making good progress. We have a lot of data. We are, with the same timeframe that we had indicated before, only 2-3 months, after the release of the information.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jacob Steinfeld, from Ashmore. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Congrats on the results. I had 2 questions. The first one was on the NCIB. I think it expired in March. Can you talk about whether you're planning on renewing it or whether you're able to repurchase stock? That's my first question. The second one's just on, you could just go over your sort of capital allocation plans for the second half of the year in terms of how much CapEx you have remaining and any other plans in terms of capital use and whether this agreement with on Reficar and the port changes your CapEx guidance for the rest of the year.
Those are really good questions, and, and thank you, Jacob. For, in your first question about the NCIB, I think that we had said before that we are extremely focused on unlocking value for our stakeholders, and that for us, is taking multiple different avenues. This year, the focus is still is on key investments into our platform, including the significant investment into CPE-6, the investments related to the, to our, our potential transformational Guyana exploration program. To the extent that we have any update on additional NCIB activity, that remains at the board's discretion, and we'll keep the market appraised and updated as that actually comes through. Again, the, the, the focus is on value creation for our stakeholders, and clearly NCIB has to be, has been a significant use of that.
On the guidance, we are, our guidance remains the same. I think year to date, we've allocated roughly $286 million, so you should expect to see the remainder of that being consumed. As it relates to the Reficar connection, I would say two things: The timing of the cash flow doesn't necessarily kind of tie together with the current guidance that we have today, there will be some additional expenditures that we will need to do.
But as you may recall, we did have funding allocated as part of our original, our, our refinancing initiative with Reficar. Not with Reficar, sorry, with Puerto Bahia, that would allow us to fund that investment directly from those sources. So that would be, you know, the, the update that I would share with you, Jacob. I can clean up my answers if you want to, if you want to clarify any other questions that I could address for you.
Okay. It just, I guess 2 quick clarifications. You didn't purchase any stock in the second quarter?
No, we have not.
Right. Okay, then on the, on this, this take or pay that you mentioned, may- maybe it's too early to say, but do, do you know what the financial impact would be for the midstream business once it's up and running?
Look, it's a Take-or-pay. It's a take and pay. We are the, we believe that, like, I think what Orlando alluded to, is this connection should provide additional economic activity of all sorts into the bay and particularly into our port. We would expect that this would certainly have a very important impact, and as we start refining numbers, we will give the market a quicker update, you know, on these matters, and we expect to do that shortly.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Oriana Covault from Balanz. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. This is Oriana Covault with Balanz. I had a follow-up with regards to production and perhaps key drivers for the second half of the year. Just looking at your light and medium crude production and as well as your Ecuador oil crude production drop during the quarter and natural gas. Just to understand all the moving parts and how should we expect for light and medium crude to recover, perhaps to average levels seen in 2022? If this natural gas volume should be like the new normal going on, or what should we expect from that, from that end? Thanks.
No, I think the expectation. Thank you for the question. The expectation is that certainly we, we, we are very comfortable that we will be within, within the guidance that we provide to the, to the market. As, as we, as we have indicated, we are having positive results during the second quarter in terms of, of our capacity to increase water handling in the heavy oil fields, with SAARA and, and doubling the capacity in the CPE-6. We have achieved record production at CPE-6. Very positive results there. There is a good indication that we also provide to in our press release about the, the, the appraisal well that we finished, the Jandayacu well in the Perico block that Frontera operates.
No more to say on that at this point in time, given that this is coming from production since yesterday. We continue to manage decline in our light medium oil assets. Again, there is no, no, no change in the guidance, and we feel very comfortable about that.
Great. Thank you. Maybe just one clarification, going back to the CapEx needs, and I'm understanding that due to some timing of cash flows that wouldn't necessarily match your CapEx, you might see some additional cash outlays. If you could perhaps clarify in which order should we see it, and if this is only due because of the increased participation in Corentyne, and or also because of some initial payments associated with the Reficar connection? Thank you.
Yes. No, I, I'm just thinking of the timing of cash flow, because you haven't made any changes or updates to your full year CapEx after June. That was completely clear. You have this Reficar announcement, and you mentioned some additional cash outlays through the year. Should we expect any changes in forward? What could explain this is because of the increased participation in Corentyne, like a marginal increase there, over this transfer of 0.7% participation? Just to understand if this CapEx figure that we're seeing through the remainder of the year should stick.
Let me just provide this clarity. If you go to our MD&A, and you look our guidance, we have not updated our Colombia and Ecuador guidance expenditures. There's been no change there. There has been no change in the Guyana exploration, because that guidance already reflects the, our expected total investment of around $190 million-$195 million. We consolidated ACX. Yeah, remember that we said something 2022, right? The, the, the numbers again are a little different. Yes, the fact that we are increasing our participating interest in the Corentyne license, doesn't.
Exactly. As relates to my comment on the cash outlays, what I wanted to provide clarity was, what is the remaining amount of cash that we need to disburse from the second quarter onwards to finish the investment in Guyana, in Guyana, according to our guidance, Oriana?
To answer the question on, on the, on the, on the port, there could be some amount of CapEx this year, but that amount of CapEx would be relatively small, and it wouldn't impact our guidance because the construction period now begins. We would expect to provide you guys with better clarity on that, you know, probably during the next call, but as of right now, it does not change my guidance, you know, respect to the CapEx.
Perfect. That, that's very clear. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please first star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Zac Constantine, from SMC. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the great quarter. I had, basically 2 questions, since some of mine have been previously answered. My first one is Clearly, the market is kind of undervaluing your company on a sum of all parts. You know, you have 3 main businesses, and seems like they're fairly heavily discounted when you look at your market cap. Has there been any consideration of taking your midstream business and spinning it off as a separate entity and, having its own, I guess, ticker symbol? I guess my second question is, given elevated Brent pricing, I know previously y'all had had more significant puts in place to protect your cash flow. Have you considered potentially putting in a more year-long schedule for puts to maintain the $80 plus Brent pricing? Thank you.
Let me, let me take the, the first one, and you can take the second one. On the, on, on your first one, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a good question, and the way I would, I would answer that is that we, we are permanently looking at opportunities and strategic options to maximize, to maximize value for, for our, our shareholders. Definitely, as you said, I mean, the, the sum of the parts of, of our three core businesses, are not reflected in the, in the, in the, in the market, the cap of the, of the company. As you could see, I mean, we are, we are delivering, we are delivering on the, on the three core businesses.
On the upstream, Colombia and Ecuador, we are within our guidance in terms of cost, production, EBITDA, at EBITDA of Brent. We have positive developments in the midstream segment. We also have significant progress on the Guyana side. We are delivering on the three core businesses of the company, and certainly the sum of the parts doesn't reflect the current value that the market recognize. We are, I mean, permanently, and believe me, as management and our board, looking to those opportunities to fully maximize the value for our shareholders.
On your, on your hedging question, it's a great point. I would add that we are very pragmatic with our hedges. That is, you know, you need to strike a balance between the cost of the hedge and the effectiveness of the hedge. What we try to do, and I think what we've done through this year is, you know, provide certainty into our cash flows, particularly in a year that included a significant amount of investment from our end. We will continue to exploit that because I do believe that it helps providing visibility to ourselves as managers, but also you guys as our investors. If the timing is correct, and the financials work, we would love to enter into longer-dated hedges, but right now we're kind of striking the proper balance between right price, budget, and kind of value.
All right. Well, thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Christine Guerrero from Brickhouse Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah, my questions were regarding the Corentyne license itself in Guyana. The first question is, what is the total accumulated sunk cost in the license to date that would be recoverable if this license rolls into a production license? Also, you've, you've currently fulfilled all your commitments on the exploration stage of the license. How much time do you have before the license converts over to a production license? I'm assuming that there would have to be a commitment then to, to bring a development on. Again, that's an assumption, so I'm looking for clarity from you on what the, what the process is going forward for this license if you continue to hold it.
Sorry? I would. Let me start, Christine, thank you for your questions. I think, I mean, my first reaction would be, as we said, we are, I mean, analyzing the significant amount of data that we got from the well. That will take, as I indicated before, like a couple of months. That will give us a better perspective on the block, on the potential of the block and how to move into the following phases. To say something more, I mean, to say something more than that is going to be, I mean, difficult at this point in time.
As I said, I mean, as we have indicated before, we normally permanently look into, into strategic options for the Corentyne block, for the Corentyne block. That is, that is where we are concentrated right now. Any, any potential move after this phase will be subject to the, to the analysis that we are conducting, to the results of the analysis that we are conducting, today.
Yes, again, like I'm just wondering what the sunk cost is to date, because, because if this does roll forward, that is going to be recoverable. I'm, I'm... I know you can't give me a resource potential right now, but you should be able to give me what the sunk cost is.
Look, I can say that anything in our financial statement, the JV and we consolidate JV. As of 2019, we've invested roughly $440 million in Guyana. That should give you a sense of investment into particularly the Corentyne block, more or less.
That would include the 3 wells? Because I'm looking back to Eagle, because I'm, I'm assuming Eagle would also be cost recoverable,
This is only Look, this is the aggregate number that we have related to the CGX. Remember, we consolidated CGX following 2019. Some of the other investments were repaired and no longer are sitting in the balance sheet. I'm just giving you a balance sheet account today. We include roughly $440 million of assets in Guyana, which includes, I would say, roughly $400 million of investments in our two wells, which is the Wei-1 well and also the Kawa-1 well, and there will be another X amount of investments related to the port. I'm just giving you a number, just to get a sense of the capital invested following the JV into the two key exploration program wells that we've done since 2019.
Okay. Yeah, I just... Because, at, you know, at one time, Suresh Narine, the CEO of, of, CGX, had mentioned that $700 million had been spent, and, I'm trying to figure out what portion of the 700 goes to Corentyne.
Why don't we take it back internally, and maybe we can follow up with you? It's a good question, Christine, so we'll get back to you.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Should you have any further questions, please email ir@fronteraenergy.ca. This concludes the call. Thank you all for participating.