Hello, everyone. My name is Nadia, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Africa Oil Q3 2022 Results Call and Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link at any time during your conference. Please note that this event is being recorded. The recording will be available for playback on the company's website. I would now like to pass the meeting to Mr. Shahin Amini, Africa Oil's Investor Relations and Commercial Manager. Please go ahead, Mr. Amini.
For our Q3 2022 results call. I'm joined today with our President and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Hill, and our Chief Financial Officer, Pascal Nicodème'. Keith and Pascal will present the quarter's highlights and the business outlook before we go into a Q&A session. I would like to remind everyone that remarks made during this session are subject to forward-looking statements, which involve significant risk factors and assumptions and have been fully described in the company's continuous disclosure reports. The information discussed is made as of today's date and time, and Africa Oil assumes no obligation to update or revise this information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. The company's complete financial statements and related MD&A are available on the company's website and SEDAR. Keith, we're ready for you. Please go ahead.
All right. Thanks, Shahin, and thanks to everybody for dialing in. Obviously, another good quarter for us. I think we have met or surpassed most of our financial goals this year. We still have a few more catalysts remaining this year as well, so I think it's still to be an interesting year. I think most of you have seen this slide here, where I think we're showing that we've become a full cycle oil company, not only production and exploration, but cash flow and actually returning money to shareholders for the first time, which I think has been very well received by the market. I think couple of highlights there on the right side of that slide.
We are ending the quarter with a significant amount of cash, over $200 million of cash in the bank, even after we have done our shareholder returns. I think we're in a very good liquidity position. I also wanted to highlight under the carbon neutral target that we have made before. We have made a pledge to be carbon neutral by 2025, roughly 25 years ahead of what the industry has signed on to in most of the accords.
I do want to highlight that we did have a review done for our largest shareholder by EcoVadis, and we came out to be in the top 1% of companies of over 80,000 companies. You know, we're quite proud of that. We are actually the highest ranked oil company in the ESG framework, and I think that's something we'll continue to do. As I've said before, I think for those who are good ESG operators and part of the solution, I still think oil and gas is going to be investable for the foreseeable future.
If we move to the next slide, really talking about what we've done this quarter, and really the first nine months of the year. Obviously, financials are quite robust. Pascal will give a more detailed account of that. As I said, you know, we are now debt-free. When you look at cash on the balance sheet versus our share of debt in Prime, we actually have a net cash position of $42 million. Again, that's after we've done our shareholder returns. Again, a very attractive net debt to EBITDAX ratio of 0.3. You see on the right there, we have started our shareholder returns.
We continued the dividend we put in, but we've also launched the 10% buyback that we discussed at our last meeting. As of now, we've spent $35.7 million to repurchase 15.8 million shares. We intend to continue on with that program throughout the rest of the year. Again, the total shareholder returns, $59.5 million, I think it is a testament to the amount of cash that we're generating and also our commitment to give money back to the shareholders. Again, it's all driven by Prime and Prime dividends.
You know, we've already had $250 million this year compared to the $200 million we got in 2020 and 2021, and we're expecting more this year. The amount of additional dividend this year will be somewhat dependent on getting our license extension in Nigeria. Regardless, there will be more dividends coming this year. Again, I think the barometer of this acquisition, we've already taken $650 million off the table after only paying $519 million. I think this has been a great acquisition for us. We've also had some very good exploration successes led by Venus. Now, Venus looks like it could be the largest discovery in Sub-Saharan Africa ever.
It's early days. We've only drilled one well, but the well that we drilled had very good reservoir, 84 m thick, significantly thicker than we thought. The oil water contact was significantly below where we thought. It looks like it could be quite big. Early days, but we're getting ready to drill some appraisal wells there, and if that pans out, it could be incredibly, you know, material to the company. The other thing is we've opened up a new petroleum province with that and with the wells that Shell drilled next door. We have a very good position in that province as well. Next slide. We are going to come in on production performance.
All of our guidance for this year, we're going to be at the upper or middle part of the guidance, both working interest production and title production. We're going to be well over guidance in cash flow and dividends received. I think everything seems to be ticking along well on that. You know, we will be coming out with guidance at the end of year forecast. I think so far these assets just continue to be the gift that keeps giving. Next slide. Again, record oil sales since the Prime acquisition. I want to spend a few minutes talking about hedging. Now hedging is something that we have talked about a lot in the past.
You know, I'm going to go back one, Shahin Amini. You know, the sales price versus dated Brent. In 2020, we were kind of heroes. You know, we actually had hedged all of our production. When COVID hit and the oil price went down to $20-$30 a barrel, we were still getting $60, $70 up to $80 a barrel for our crude. Essentially saved the company in 2020 by having a very robust hedging program.
Now since then, we've given a bit back in 2021, and then 2022, we've been doing our best to unwind some of these hedges and come up with a new way of hedging that basically allows us to take full advantage of the current high prices in oil. I think we've accomplished that. If you look at the progression from the Q1 to the Q3, we've actually got to the point now in the Q3 where we're realizing above dated Brent prices for our crude.
The way we're doing that, if you go to the next slide, is a somewhat strange but very effective hedging mechanism where we actually take 50%-70% of the next 12 months cargoes, and we set a trigger on those cargoes at 80% of what Brent is trading for. It's essentially a floor. It's a free floor. We don't pay for it. What happens is, basically, it just chugs along, and if we never have a significant downward event in price, we just sell at spot market, which of course we did in November. We just sold two cargos of crude over $100 a piece. The triggers never hit.
I think what it does is it gives us the downside protection if things do go bad, if there's a new wave of COVID or some of the economic issues with inflation and the overall world economy start turning bad, we've always got this cushion that basically stops us from, you know, going down below these thresholds. Right now, most of our trigger's in the $70 range for the H1 of next year. It shouldn't be a big issue for us. You know, my goal is that none of those triggers ever get hit. I think we are still quite bullish on oil price.
I think this is a pretty interesting strategy that allows us to keep the upside but protect the downside and not actually have to pay for it. So far working very nicely. Next slide. Again, Nigeria is really the core of the company. I think when you look at valuations, I think the majority of our valuation is still done on Nigeria. These are the three largest fields in Nigeria. They're all performing quite well. They're going to be within guidance. They have low operating costs. They've got great operators in Chevron and Total. You know, we see these as our cash flow going forward and really underpinning the value of this company going forward. They do need investment.
If you go to the next slide, I think one thing we will be doing is spending a fair amount of time and some money reinvesting in these oil fields. The primary thing we really want to do is drill development wells on Egina and Akpo. We've unfortunately had a little bit of a delay in the rig, so we're hoping the rig shows up in December or January, earliest. We have a rig identified. It's just going through approval procedures in Nigeria. If we can get that rig on location, we plan to drill 9 development wells on Egina and Akpo, which will really be key to boosting production and stopping that. We're seeing a bit of a decline in, particularly, Egina that really needs some development wells to shore it up.
We're also going to drill a couple of exploration appraisal wells. There are a number of good targets right around our FPSOs that we want to start developing to bring online. Of course, Preowei, the field that's already basically ready for sanctioning, you know, when we get license extension, we hope to sanction that fairly quickly as well. I think this is a, you know, this is a great asset for us, but it does need some investment. I think you'll see in 2022, 2023 and 2024, we will be putting some money back into these fields to make sure that they continue to produce at the same levels. Next slide. I'll turn it over to Pascal now and let him kind of run through some of the financial highlights.
Thank you, Keith. I think as you said, it's been a very good quarter. We posted $17 million of net income this quarter. Above the average for since we've made the acquisition in Prime. It is also an increase compared to Q2. In Q2, we have been affected by net increase in the net operating position. This quarter, we've seen the exact opposite. There has been a decrease in cost of sales due to the movement in the net operating position by roughly $73 million, which extends this very good quarter. Yeah, as Keith mentioned, we are still sitting on $207 million for [inaudible]. Despite the $35 million of shares that we have bought back since we started this buyback program. Next slide, please.
I said this performance has been underpinned by another good quarter from Prime. Our share of profits from Prime is $78 million for this quarter. Very strong EBITDA of $210 million on our share, $63 million of cash flow from operations. Prime still sits on a very large cash and more than $600 million cash. Net to Africa Oil today, Prime has repaid their net debts to roughly $165 million net debt. Prime continues to deleverage and our net share of that debt is decreasing. Thank you.
Keith mentioned, since we've made the acquisition, we've more than repaid the consideration, the initial consideration. We've received $650 million of dividends since we've made the acquisition, which was $520 million of cash acquisition costs. In the meantime, the net cash balance to us within Prime has also increased by $85 million. That's something to be taken into account in this acquisition. As mentioned, the net debt has continued to reduce $450 million since we made the acquisition. Next slide. We sit on a very significant capital today.
We have this $100 million unsecured corporate facility in place with four banks. We've agreed with our banks to increase that facility to $200 million as soon as we get the license renewed, OML 130 license renewed in Nigeria. That's another evidence of the banks that are supporting us at the moment. We expect to receive another large dividend from Prime as soon as we get this license extension as they will also refinance their RBL facility at the same time. We will close that refinancing as soon as this license is renewed. Thank you. Keith, I think over to you. Thank you.
All right. Thanks, Pascal. Yeah, we have a number of catalysts still coming up. A couple of these I was hoping to be reporting today. Unfortunately, everything in Africa seems to take a little bit longer than we'd like. Two of them in particular, the Project Oil Kenya farm out and the Gazania well, we were expecting to see this quarter, but still moving forward, but hope to have those literally in a matter of the next few weeks. The biggest one is probably the Venus appraisal drilling program. That is going to be next year. Again, we were hoping to have that rig here this year, but it seems to be a lucky rig.
It's made a big discovery in Cyprus, so they are drilling and testing on that rig now. As soon as they're finished, they'll be coming to us. Should be there around mid-February, and we'll start drilling the first Venus appraisal well. Total, the operator, has stated they are looking to bring another rig in. I think we could have a two-well drilling program going by the second quarter of next year. You know, I think obviously industry interest and interest of our partners is very big on the Venus and Orange Basin area. We are looking at a number of strategic assets, producing assets. I think our criteria is very simple. We want producing cash flowing assets.
We're looking, you know, at what majors are divesting. You know, we don't want things that are going to suck up a lot of cash. We want things that are going to be producing cash. We will be doing exploration, but it'll be really following up the exploration we've got. We don't see ourselves doing a lot of new frontier exploration out there. It's mostly taking advantage of the portfolio we've built. Really, if we buy things, it's going to be focused on Africa and primarily West Africa producing assets. Another big catalyst is this license renewal. As Pascal mentioned, once we have that renewal, we will be able to refinance the RBL and the PXF facilities.
That frees up an awful lot of cash for us to go do things with, you know, potentially shareholder returns, potentially acquisitions. I think we're very close on that. We should know something on that by the end of this month. You know, keep an eye out for that because it actually is a pretty important thing for us to get that license renewed. Then we also are looking to farm out our Block 3B, 4B. I'll show you a little map where that is, but that's kind of right in the heart of this Orange Basin trend, and we've had quite a bit of interest from industry on that. Next slide. Again, exploration, while it might not be the industry mantra, we still see it building value.
You know, we want to make sure that we do it in the right way, what we like to call advantage exploration. We're not going to be probably going and doing big onshore rift basin-type things that are going to take eight-10 years to develop. What we see is looking at areas that could be brought on very quickly, advantage barrels that are either near infrastructure or offshore, where we think we could have fast-track development similar to what they've done in Guyana. Again, the three companies that we invest in, Africa Energy, Impact, and Eco Atlantic, have very active drilling program going on in South Africa and a number of very well-placed exploration blocks. I do think there's a lot of value here.
I think our goal in the next year is to basically figure a way to get that value to shareholders. I think at some point we need to consolidate this position where we don't have these portfolio companies. They're either absorbed or sold or moved forward on. Next slide. Orange Basin continues to be, you know, I think it is now becoming the hottest basin on Earth. You know, not only is the Venus discoveries we made, but the Graff discovery made by Shell. Shell are bringing a rig in as well, so there'll be potentially two or three rigs working full time here for the foreseeable future. We're drilling there in Block 2B. It's a slightly different setting. It's actually a rift basin that's not part of the Orange Basin Delta proper.
We will have results on that before the end of the year. Drilling's been a little slower than we'd like there, but you know, good news is we were able to spud the rig and spud the well and keep it moving. I think we did a very good job on our you know, ESG compliance to make sure that we weren't you know, shut down by environmental groups there. I think as long as you do things the right way and you do your consultation, your ESIA, and prove that you're a good operator, I think you still can operate you know, almost anywhere in the world if you do things correctly. I do want to point out Block 3B, 4B.
We're very keen on this block. This block has a number of prospects that we think are very similar to the Graff and even the Venus discoveries, and we are in a farm-out process to bring in a partner. I always like pointing out that little inset map on the bottom left. You know, we've got an area that's roughly 7x the size of the Guyana trend. So we've drilled two wells and have a 2 billion barrel discovery, so I think this is about as good as you get from an exploration standpoint. Next slide. Don't forget my good friend, Kenya. I've been telling you about Kenya for 13 years. I know patience is worn thin, and I think probably most of the market doesn't give us much value there.
We still think it's a very good play, and we still think we've got a very reasonable chance to get a strategic partner and get this farmed out. Again, I think this is one of those believe it when you see it, but, you know, watch the press. I think, there's a good chance that we will have an announcement on a partnership before the end of the year. Next slide. Again, I think, you've probably seen this slide before. I mean, to me, this is, you know, why we buy Africa Oil. I think you buy it because you've got Nigeria as the core value. You're getting Nigeria at a pretty significant discount, depending on what oil price you want to use.
You know, if you use today's oil price, you're going to get more than a 50% discount. If you use a longer-term price, $60-$70, you're still getting a pretty significant discount on just the Nigeria portion, and you get everything else for free. Not everything is going to come good on that right side of that slide, but you know, Venus in itself could be almost the same value as our market cap if it come if the appraisal wells prove up the pay. Kenya is worth, you know, that's a risked Kenya value. You know, the risked Kenya value is worth at least a couple hundred million, maybe as much as 500 million to us in the long run. Then we've got this portfolio investments.
You know, Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas is not only drilling a well now, but they've put together a nice little portfolio. They have some interesting stuff in Guyana, across the water. I think, you know, Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas to me is very, very interesting because I think it's got a lot of upside exploration potential. Obviously, the discoveries we've made in South Africa with Africa Energy, Total is working hard to push those forward and monetize those. They also have a lot of upside in undrilled parts of the basin, potentially even oil upside. I think, you know, Venus is probably the most interesting thing on the right side of that slide, but I think there's quite a few other things that are quite interesting as well.
I think that's kind of, at the end of the day, you know, why am I a big shareholder of Africa Oil, and why would I buy more? It's because I think the optionality you get from all of the stuff on that right side and the very low risk you've got from all of the stuff on the left side makes it a very attractive investment thesis. I think that's all we wanted to say in the presentation. I think we let you read the advisories at your leisure, and I think we're ready to field some questions.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Alternatively, if you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link. Please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take the first question. The first question comes from the line of Teodor Sveen-Nilsen from SpareBank 1 Markets. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on a strong set of Q3 numbers. Many questions, but I think I'll limit myself to three now. The first one is on just the production trend. I noticed there's been recent decline during the year. I think the Q3 production was substantially lower than Q1 production. I just wonder, should we expect this trend to continue into 2023, or should we expect then the new Egina wells to offset some more of the decline we've seen recently? Second question on Preowei. Exciting development. When should we expect Preowei to commence production?
My third question is on just the overall structure of Africa Oil, Africa Energy, Eco, Impact, of course, you're the largest shareholder of all, directly or indirectly in several of these companies. Do you see this structure going also forward, or should we expect some kind of clean, let's say, net structure? Thanks.
I kind of missed the middle question. When the production is starting at Preowei, is that it?
That's correct, Preowei. Timing on going forward and when should we expect production from Preowei?
Okay. I'll take them in order. Yes, decline is, you know, we hate that trend. The only reason it's declining is because, you know, normally we would've been out there drilling wells in March of this year, to shore up that production, arrest the decline for sure, and have a very minor decline and with a little luck, maybe even have an increase in production. It all came down to the rig that we had identified. The operator couldn't come to an agreement with the local partner to get that rig up and running. They had to go into the market and get another rig.
We've got a rig identified that they're already under contract with Total, and we're just going through the approvals. If we get that and we get drilling, I think we'll be able to stem that decline and level that off, you know, maybe even increase to where the current day production is. You know, the history of each field, all three, you know, especially the two older fields, Akpo and Agbami, is that every 18 months, they drill three to five development wells, and that's what keeps the plateau going. Unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to do that.
I think once we do that, I'm pretty confident we'll be able to stem that decline because the field is operating just about the way we expect it to under the reservoir models, and there are places in the field that have untapped fault blocks that haven't even got development wells in them yet. Those are what are really earmarked for the first program. I feel confident about that. Preowei is really kind of waiting on this license renewal. Even though license renewal is automatic in Nigeria, you know, there's never been a license that hasn't been renewed. Once you've fulfilled your work commitments and paid your taxes, both of which we have done, license renews automatically.
I think given that we're going to be putting a significant investment in, we won't see production until after the license extension date. I think the partnership feels more comfortable going out and spending the money on Preowei after we have that license extension. Like I said in my talk, I think there's a very good chance we'll have that done by the end of the month, but nothing's done till it's done. I think if you see that announcement on the license extension, you will see us also moving very aggressively forward on Preowei. We've done the field development plan. We've done all the engineering studies. We're pretty ready to pull the trigger. We just want to see that license extension before we do that.
Once we pull the trigger, we're talking about two to two and a half years for production. The last one, you know, I do think it's unsustainable, this portfolio approach that we have with our exploration companies. I think we set it up as a matter of convenience to get into some very good exploration plays, and it worked. You know, we are in some of the hottest plays in certainly in Southern Africa and even in Guyana. I think at some point, we need to put this on a regular basis. We're not a portfolio company. We're an oil company. I think like the key well drilling right now is Gazania.
You know, it is held by both Akpo and Africa Energy. You know, between the two of them, they've got 87.5%. So I think that one, we need to see the results on that before we know what we want to do. If we've got a development project going forward or appraisal well project even on Gazania, then I think we may have one option. If we're not fortunate on Gazania, I think it's maybe another path. But I think my board has told me by the end of next year we need to get that sorted out and get away from being a portfolio company and holding those blocks.
As I said, I think there's three options. You either absorb them, which is something, you know, we would look at all three of those companies, you know, buying out the interest we don't have. We divest them, you know, selling them off to someone else. You know, in the cases of, you know, projects that have been discovered and developed, you know, like Brulpadda, Luiperd and, you know, potentially even Venus, once we drill the appraisal wells, you know, an outright sale of those prospect projects. Or we even look at spinning out some of these into exploration vehicles. I think it's too early to make that judgment until we see what happens in Venus, what happens with the development project in Luiperd, Brulpadda, what happens in Gazania.
Once we have that data, I think the goal is by the end of next year to have those no longer be portfolio investments in Africa Oil.
Okay, thank you. Just, if I may ask fourth question, the timing of the final announcement, is that like your shortlist? Should we expect anything this week?
Not sure. We're still drilling, so I think it's probably not going to be this week.
Okay. Understood. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes from the line of James Hosie from Barclays. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi there. Good afternoon. Could you talk a bit more about the OML 130 conversion and renewal. Just what's outstanding to secure this? And can you also just quantify the scale, the step up in investment that'll follow that conversion against what you've got Egina drilling, infill wells plus Preowei, plus the exploration that you mentioned as well. Just trying to get an idea of how much more you're going to be spending on that asset in the next few years.
Yeah, I think the renewal is down to one factor, which is the fee. I think that there's a fee that we're willing to pay, and there's a fee that the government is willing to get, and there's still a little bit of gap between those two. I'm hoping that that closes off before the end of the month, and we get that done. As far as our decision to invest in the core fields is not really dependent on that at all. All of the wells that we drill at all the appraisal, all the development wells at Egina, Akpo, even the near field appraisal/exploration wells will be drilled regardless of whether we get extension. The only thing that's really dependent is Preowei.
Even on that, you know, I think we will continue to move that project forward as much as we can. I think the spending the big dollars on it, we won't do until extension. I think we, you know, we have put so little capital into these projects since we bought them, and you do need to take care of these fields. I think, you know, drilling the eight to nine development wells is critical. Those will be done as soon as we can get a rig in, and we may even extend that program to keep production up. I think as far as license extension, the only one that's really dependent is Preowei.
Okay. I guess you talked about the, I guess the fee being the standing issue. Is that just the fee determined by formulas and I guess you're negotiating around some impacts to that formula? Is that the case?
Yeah. There's a, you know, it is fairly standard and, you know, it's already been done on several licenses in Nigeria, so we're not breaking new ground. It comes down to what you use. You know, this is essentially a percentage of the NPV going forward that you pay for license renewal. How you calculate that NPV, what reserves you use, what oil price you use, all the param go in that's the negotiation.
Okay.
It's fairly standard, and we're not that far apart, to be honest with you. You know, I think we Africa Oil are in a position. Let's just finish this and move on, and then we can get after Preowei and really start developing these fields.
Just as a second question, I was just wondering about supply chain capacity and really, have you now secured all the rig capacity and other sort of, let's say, long lead items you need for what you plan to do in 2023, or are you able to go out to market for some of that still?
Yeah. Assuming we get this rig under contract to Total already, I think we're fine on both. You know, I can't give you a detailed answer on all the supply chain stuff, like casing and well heads and things like that. Total's a pretty good operator, and I'm sure that they have that sorted out. You know, the second rig going down to Venus, I think is one that still needs to be a bit sorted out. I think they've got some candidates and they're out to tender, but that hasn't been secured yet.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question over the phone, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we will take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Matt Cooper from Peel Hunt. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Thank you, and thanks for the presentation. A bit of a follow-up to an earlier question is, I wonder if you could quantify how much the delay to Egina drilling has impacted your 2022 production, and how much this is offset by the four well interventions is my first question.
Yeah. We did the four well interventions, and three of them turned out pretty well, which kind of helped stem some of that decline. We are looking at doing some more interventions as well just to try to do that. You know, we're not. It's not like we're losing production. We're just delaying production. Not drilling those wells, you know, the reserves remain the same, and we will get those barrels. Obviously, especially in our nice high oil price environment that we had in the H2 of 2022, we would love to have those barrels coming sooner than later. I can't give you a number, you know, off the top of my head of what it's cost us.
You know, again, it's really more of a delay than an actual cost. Of course, we didn't spend the CapEx, so we did enjoy the cash flow out of that. You know, it is. You know, the things that keep me up at night, that's kind of one of my biggest ones. You know, we need to get the rig in there, and we need to start drilling these wells and make sure we keep that production going because that is kind of the lifeblood of the company.
Okay.
I think it's important. Sorry, Matt, I just wanted to reiterate that our expectation is to end the year with the full year 2022 management guidance.
Sorry, a bit of a delay. I guess maybe advise that, you know, a lot of that production from the Egina wells was maybe going to come in at the back end of this year and into next year. Hence why it's maybe not had a massive impact on this year's production and why it's still within guidance, well within guidance.
Yeah. Akpo field has always been an overachiever, so it's definitely it's producing about 109% of target. Even Agbami has actually had a pretty good year. Agbami, which we had a little trouble with in previous years, especially with gas, you know, the gas handling capabilities, has actually done much better this year. I think if we can get in with that rig and drill development wells, we'll be back on track.
Okay, great. I just wondered if you could give a little bit more color on why the Gazania new well result has moved back slightly.
Yeah. I've got two reasons. I don't know, I guess I shouldn't go into too much detail. There was a weather delay at the beginning, and then the drilling has been, you know, taking longer than expected. We're about 15-20 days behind current analysis on it. So far, you know, operations are ongoing. There's no serious problems with the well, and it's just taking a bit longer than we'd like.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. The speakers are open for the questions that we found on audio lines. Mr. Amini, please continue.
Thank you very much, Nadia. Yes, we do have a lot of questions in the webcast. I'm mindful that we don't have much time, so we'll try and get through as many of these as we can. Keith Hill, there's been a number of. One thing that keeps being repeated, and let's tackle this first, is it really is about Africa Oil's growing cash pile and also where are we currently being updated on our business development activities. Perhaps, Keith , you want to just share your views on what is your plan?
Yeah. I mean, the two are kind of hand in hand. I mean, we've got, you know, quite a bit of cash on hand, and we've got, you know, at least $200 million, you know, once we get the license extension, we'll have $200 million of undrawn debt as well. We do have a good, you know, cash pile to go hunting with. You know, we do have, I would say, a half a dozen, what I think are pretty attractive acquisition opportunities. As we've talked before, we will always compare those against buying our own shares back.
I can tell you when our shares were priced at CAD 2.30-2.40, things like, you know, levels like that, it was pretty hard to find anything that was better than buying our own shares. We've got a little bit more, you know, potential in the market. You know, we got our share price up to CAD 3.30-3.40. It's even though it's dropped back just a little bit in the last few days. I still think it's a bargain at that price. You know, I think, you know, if you look at that NAV slide that we put up and do your own NAV calculations, I still think even the, you know, what we paid our maximum price, I think was about CAD 3.38 per share.
It's still a bargain at that price. You know, we are continuing our buyback program, and we still think it's a good deal at that price. You know, when you look at these acquisitions, it will always be, are these accretive or not? You know, and I think that's an important thing. We also want to look at, you know, production assets that are going to infill going forward. You know, we are in Nigeria on a declining asset base. You know, even with Preowei coming in, you know, we would like to see some longer-term robust producing assets to kind of fill in, shall we say, our cash flow from 2024, 2025, 2026 onwards. There are still deals to be made. There are still more sellers than buyers.
I think you have to be prudent and careful in this market. We're not going to be out there paying $70-$80 dollar oil price for these assets, but that's not what the majors are looking for. You know, they carry these on their books at $50. As long as they don't have to write down, and they can get out of a non-strategic asset and have cash to use on their more strategic assets, I do think there's deals to be done. You know, that will be a big focus. For us as a management team, you know, if you say kind of what are the three things I would really push forward in 2023, one is a strategic acquisition of a producing asset.
You know, two is getting the Venus results, and three is continuing to, you know, return money to shareholders as appropriate.
I'm very pleased. Question for Pascal. Once we have OML 130 license renewal and Total does its half-yearly filing, what are your expectations in terms of could there be additional debt?
Well, the plan at the moment is really to refinance towards the RBL and the PXF debt as soon as we get the license extension. Currently the RBL is slightly below $700 million, and the PXF debt is $300 million. The plan is not to generate a massive amount of new money with the license extension. We will probably sign a revised RBL refinancing about $1.05 billion. We are not going to generate a massive amount of money. The whole purpose of this refinancing is really to extend the maturity of the debt again and, of course, to defer all the future amortization of the RBL facility.
We are going to reset the maturity to, basically, a five-year tenor from the date when we sign the refinancing. While today, the maturity of this debt is mid-2024.
Thank you, Pascal. There are a number of questions on Kenya. Keith, perhaps we put this to you now. The question is, how are the negotiations progressing in Kenya? Obviously you covered this area in the presentation. But there's a follow-on question about this FDP approval and what is the timing for that?
Yeah, I'm not sure I can say too much more about negotiations than I have. We had, you know, two interested parties. We're moving forward with one of the two interested parties. No deal is done. You know, we feel we're fairly close. I think there's a you know each person can put his own percentage of chance of success on that. You know, I think we have a fairly high chance to get a deal done there. The FDP process is something different. We're working with the government. As you know, there's an election there, so there's a little changeover of some of the administration there. I don't see that as a big issue. We've submitted the FDP, and it's in for approval, and we're just going through the normal course of getting that development plan approved.
Very good. Shifting gears to exploration. The question here is a bit more philosophical, but I'm sure this is something that you could share your views on, Keith. The comment is that Africa Oil has a great exploration portfolio of great prospects. How can Africa Oil try and facilitate speeding up its developments, which at present seems to be rather slow?
I'm not sure. I guess you have to almost take them one at a time. I mean, the South Africa Luiperd, Brulpadda is really a negotiation about monetizing that gas and getting gas prices and getting guarantees, and the operator is very focused on that. The CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, was recently in South Africa discussing this issue. I think that's the key to unlocking that value on at least the existing discoveries. We're also quite keen on some of the exploration on the eastern side of the block, which we think has oil potential. You know, oil will always be easier to monetize than gas. I think at some point, we'd love to see some wells drilled in the eastern part of the block as well.
I think for Venus, you know, I think it can go very fast once we prove it. You know, right now we have one well that's not tested. When we have at least two wells that are tested, and you know, proving that not only the lateral continuity of those reservoirs, but the deliverability of those reservoirs, I think you'll see Total move very quickly into an early production phase. I think on both of those, it's a question of do we want to stay in or not, you know? And I think, you know, we'll just have to look at that at the time, check our balance sheet, check you know the timing of that. I think what we see is both of those are potential fast-track developments.
If you look at what was done in Guyana, you know, three to five years from discovery to first production is not an unrealistic target for either one of those projects. I think the Brulpadda and Luiperd, the only delay is getting all the gas terms set and getting the commercial agreements set. I think we're in a good position to move those forward. It's really a question of how long do we want to stay in those projects, or do we seek to monetize them early?
Very good. There are a couple of other questions specific on the M'zwané well, but I don't think it's appropriate for us to comment on that. I'm sure that the operators and other partners in due course will give updates on that well. Let's move on. There are a number of questions on our share buyback program. First one is the announcement that the Canadian government is looking to impose a new tax on share buybacks. The question is, well, how is that going to impact on our program? If I may, Keith, we are looking into this matter in detail, and we'll give an update if necessary in due course. Something we are aware of, but at this present time, we are just looking at the details.
Keith, a couple of investors are asking about the potential for a substantial issuer bid, so to go above and beyond our normal course issuer bids. Do you have any views on that?
Yeah. Just to follow up on that first point too, you know, the tax they're talking about wouldn't take effect till 2024 anyway. So we don't really see it as a big issue right now, the tax on buybacks. Yes, I mean, we would look at that. I mean, I think our sister company, IPC, has been very successful doing that. You know, at the end of the day, it's looking at the amount of money we've got and what we want to spend it on. Again, certainly is on our laundry list of ways to spend that money, you know, to potentially do a larger, you know, substantial issue with it on buying back more shares.
I think we also have to keep in mind that we've, you know, the M&A opportunities that we have and, you know, where best to spend our money is the big question.
Yeah. Very good. There was actually a question on the daily dynamics and daily orders for share buybacks, and people were wondering, well, can Africa Oil change those param? Just want to remind everyone that Africa Oil is in a blackout period. During the blackout period, we have had this automatic share purchase plan which allows our two brokers to continue with purchasing shares on our behalf, and we cannot actually change those param until we come out of blackout period. Question for Pascal and Keith, once we come out of blackout, what are going to be the medium to longer term plan for the share buyback?
Keith, you want to take the question or I can answer if you want?
Go ahead, Pascal.
I think first, it's important to note that we are daily limited in the amount we can buy back. We are limited by that daily liquidity. This program has proved to be very successful. We certainly continue to keep that in mind in terms of a return to shareholders. I think it's important also to know that we want to keep flexibility going forward, especially in M&A and doing acquisition of producing assets. We want to keep flexibility and keep our options open going forward. As Keith mentioned, we sit on more than $70 million cash.
We have this undrawn corporate facility, and all this is certainly will be useful if we do an acquisition. We are currently weighing our options between doing more M&A or continuing the share buyback program as we did in September.
Yeah. Thank you, Pascal. Actually got a question, Keith, you may want to tackle this one. Can you just provide some color on the differentials that Prime's currently getting on top of Brent for its production? Any views on that?
Yeah. So far, you know, we've had a couple of nice big spikes. We had like, I think, $9 premium to Brent on one of our Egina cargoes. We've averaged about $4-$5. The market really likes these crudes in Akpo and Egina. You know, generally, I think that's what we would plan to get in that $4 plus or minus range premium to Brent.
Very good. There's a couple of questions about, well, what is your shares outstanding balance? We provided a share capital update. You can see the press release with the number on our website. There is a question which has been baffling me since the markets opened this morning. Share price is down 7%. Why? Well, Keith, we've been discussing this over the last couple of hours. I don't know whether you have any comments or.
I only have a guess. I mean, it's a bit of a mystery to me that you can put up these good numbers and have your share price go down.
Yeah. Obviously, I've been very quickly going through the trading data that's available since the markets opened. I've also been speaking to a couple of expert friends in Scandinavia. One of the hypotheses which we're looking into in more detail is that possibly even investors in Scandinavia may have been taking leveraged warrants in order to have leveraged exposure to Africa Oil share price performance. Those positions, because of technical trading, may have started to unwind. That's why in the first hour we had this, quite frankly, unreasonable, irrational reaction to our results. That is one hypothesis which we are looking at.
Certainly, management team at Africa Oil does not see anything in our results or anything else to explain that sudden drop at the trading start. That's our hypothesis for now. On that note, let's see if there are any other questions. A number of questions on Prime, which we have responded to. There's one question on tax, Pascal, and the fact that the tax rate at Prime seems to be going up. Can you just cover that quickly for us?
Yeah. I think the main reason is that, actually what we're trying to bring you is that we have exhausted our investment tax credits in Nigeria. We are not able to offset PPT with any further costs. Going forward, we are going to pay a larger effective tax rate than PPT rate, and that's the main reason why it has increased. It has also translated into a lower pre-tax rate standpoint.
Very good. If I may just bring one point into this, and perhaps, you know, Keith can also comment on it. Is it possible to have the conversion to the new PIA without extending the license, i.e., I suppose what I'm trying to communicate with the market is the scope for us to benefit from a lower tax rate under the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Act.
Yeah, the answer is yes. If anything, correct, we could convert to PIA immediately without getting that extension. But of course, we are using that conversion to the new PIA terms as a leverage to get license extension early. I think, we need this license extension to be able to refinance our only facility on the RBL at prime level. It would be really in our interest to get license extension and switch to PIA terms immediately. Of course, if we can't get a license extension immediately for whatever reason, we would still consider switching to the PIA terms.
Okay. The big attraction of switching to the PIA is the headline tax rates in that.
It goes from 50% to 30%. We move into a pure corporate tax system while we are in the PPT system at the moment.
Very good. Well, I think we've tackled most of the questions, and as we're running out of time, I just want to thank everyone for joining us. Keith, do you have any final comments?
No. I mean, I'm feeling very good about the company. I think going to be some exciting wells next year, especially at Venus. Fingers crossed we get Kenya over the line and you know, put some money back into our investments in Nigeria. I think I'm still a big oil bull. I think you know, the transition is moving forward. We're going to be part of that transition, and we're going to be you know, in the top quartile or decile of ESG performers. That's our goal. You know, the transition is going to take 30, 40 years and I think there's still a lot of room for oil and gas as long as you do your business right.
Appreciate everyone taking the time today, and I'm very excited about moving ahead.
Well, thank you everyone, and I'll hand back to the operator.
Thank you. Dear participants, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.