Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Valeura Energy's 2023 AGM. This event is being recorded and is being broadcast live today, June 20th. I'm gonna hand the podium over in a moment to our Chairman, Tim Marchant. Before we get started, just a couple of housekeeping events, housekeeping items, rather. For those of you in the room, no fire drills planned today. If we hear an alarm, it's the real deal. We'll exit through the conference entrance, down the escalators, out the doors, and across the street toward Petro-Canada. For those online, you'll be in listen-only mode for the duration of the call. We will do a Q&A event at the end. For those in the room, we'll do that by way of a microphone. For those online, you can register your Q&A by using the Q&A button in Microsoft Teams.
With that, I will hand over to Tim.
Good afternoon, everyone. It's now 4:00 P.M., Calgary time, a little after, I will ask that this meeting come to order. My name is Tim Marchant. I'm the Chairman of the Board of Valeura, I will act as chair for today's meeting. On behalf of Valeura, I'd like to welcome everybody to today's meeting, both in person and online. I'd also like to welcome people who are listening to the live webcast. I hope you find that a good way to participate. Before we proceed with the formal business of today's meeting, I'd like to introduce the directors and management who are present today, I would like each to stand momentarily when I call their name. Jim McFarland, Director, Robin Martin, VP Communications, who you've already met. The rest of our directors are connected remotely.
In addition, the executive team who are joining us from Asia include Sean Guest, who is a Director, also the President and CEO of the company, and Yacine Ben-Meriem, who is the new Chief Financial Officer of our company. For this meeting, Stephanie Stimpson from Torys LLP will act as secretary, and I appoint the representatives of the TSX Trust Company to act as the scrutineers. The notice calling this meeting, the information circular, a form of proxy, and a mailing request form were mailed to all registered shareholders on May 16th, 2023. The declaration of mailing is available for inspection by any shareholder. I would ask that the secretary file a copy, such with the minutes. I've been advised by the scrutineers that a quorum has been set for the meeting.
The scrutineers report, is available for inspection by any shareholder, and I would ask that the secretary similarly file a copy of such with the minutes. With that said, I declare that the meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business today. For convenience, we've divided the meeting into two parts. The first part will deal with the formal business of this meeting. The second part will consist of a presentation by Sean Guest, our President and CEO, on the operations of Valeura, which will be followed by questions from registered shareholders and proxy holders. To facilitate the timely completion of the exciting formal business, arrangements have been made with certain shareholders to move and second the resolutions to be considered.
Votes will be conducted by way of a ballot, except for the appointment of auditors, who will be voted on by a way of show of hands vote. If you are a registered shareholder and have not submitted a form of proxy or a proxy holder, and you have not received a ballot, please identify yourself to the scrutineers and a ballot will be prepared for you. The first item of business is the presentation of the 2022 audited financial statements of Valeura and the auditors' report thereon. The financial statements are available on SEDAR and have been sent to those shareholders who have requested copies. The next item of business is the appointment of the auditors. May I please have a motion for such business?
Mr. Chair, I move that KPMG as the auditors of Valeura and all of the same style, as the next, and or its successors, or comes in as such, as may be.
Is there a seconder?
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Any discussion? All those in favor of this resolution, please signify by raising your hand. Contrary? I declare the motion is carried. The next item of business is the election of the directors. Valeura has nominated seven directors for election and did not receive any nominations from shareholders in accordance with our bylaws. Accordingly, I will now receive the corporation's director nomination.
Here I nominate the following for election as directors of Valeura: William Sean Guest, Timothy R. Marchant, James D. McFarland, Ronald W. Royal, Russell J. Hiscock, Kimberley Wood, and Timothy Chapman.
May I now have a motion for such business?
Sure. I move that the corporation's director nominees be elected as directors of the board to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting, or until their successors are elected.
Is there a seconder?
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
In accordance with Valeura's majority voting policy, the directors will be elected individually by way of ballot. For a nominee to be elected as a director, he or she must receive a majority of the votes cast in favor of his or her election. If you have not received a ballot, please identify yourself to the scrutineers. I'm advised by the scrutineers that each director nominee has received greater than 50% of the votes cast in favor of his or her election, as required by our majority voting policy. Accordingly, I declare the motion carried and that each nominee is elected as a director. The next item of business is the approval of all unallocated options under the stock option plan of Valeura. May I please have a motion for such business?
Sure, I move the resolution on page 17 of the-
Is there a seconder?
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Any discussion? As previously stated, the approval of all unallocated options under the stock option plan of the corporation will be voted on by way of ballot. If you have not received a ballot, please identify yourself to the scrutineers. I'm advised by the scrutineers that the motion has been carried by the necessary majority. Accordingly, I declare the motion carried. The last item of business is the approval of all unallocated performance share units and restricted share units under the performance and restricted share unit plan of Valeura. May I please have a motion for such business?
Sure, I move that page 18.
Is there a seconder?
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Any discussion? As previously stated, the approval of all unallocated performance share units and restricted share units under the performance and restricted share unit plan of the corporation will be voted on by way of ballot. If you have not received a ballot, please identify yourself to the scrutineers. I'm advised by the scrutineers that the motion has been carried by the necessary majority. Accordingly, I declare the motion carried. That now concludes the formal business of the meeting. I declare the formal part of the meeting terminated, and thank you all for attending. Now that the formalities are completed, Sean Guest, our President and CEO, will give an update on Valeura's operations.
If you have any questions at the end of our presentation, we ask that you raise your hand and wait to be acknowledged and to be handed a microphone, and then begin your question by identifying yourself and indicating whether you're a registered shareholder or a proxy holder. As Robin has previously stated, there is a Q&A button in the teams window, and if you wish to ask a question online, please do so, and we will broadcast it to the meeting. Please bear with us for a minute while we connect Sean to the meeting.
Sean, if you could unmute your microphone now.
Yes, am I unmuted, Robin?
Perfect. Go ahead.
Okay. Thank you very much, Robin, and thank you everyone for joining us here today. I'm currently in Bangkok, in our office here over in Thailand, also with the CFO, Yacine Ben-Meriem. It has been an interesting year since really the last time that we were together for an AGM. If I just step forward a couple slides, Robin, to the first one. From that time, we've really changed from the company where we're just starting. We just started to do our first acquisition in Thailand, but in the end, in 2022, we ended up completing two acquisitions in Thailand. That really left us for to TSX and TSXV is one of the top performing companies there with a significant share rise.
What was also nice for us was that growth that we demonstrated and that change in the company was really appreciated over here in Asia, where 2 weeks ago we were awarded kind of the best new entrant company of the year by the Energy Council meeting over here in Singapore. We also received nominations and were shortlisted for several other awards, like Deal of the Year and Executive of the Year. It's really vaulted us from a position of working in Turkey to really an established independent over here in Thailand. The other key aspect is the focus is not on the upside from a large exploration play as we had in Turkey. We're a cash-generating business with prices that are linked to Brent oil pricing. We currently now have 4 fields that we're operating.
All of those fields are performing well and delivering the cash flow into the business. The other point we wanna make is that we've been able to make this very significant growth. We see more growth as we move ahead. We have the team. We have the experience in this area to actually deliver more deals. Next slide, Robin. We've also changed the team during that time. Really, it was through a move of the executive over to Southeast Asia and recognizing it's just too difficult to really run a Southeast Asian business, a significant Southeast Asian business, from over in Calgary. Most of my career and experience has actually been in Southeast Asia and Australia, in this region. For me, it was really coming back home to this region.
With some of the changes we've made in moving the executive over here is Yacine Ben-Meriem's been brought on as the CFO. Yacine's background is in investment banking. Almost all of his career has been here in Singapore, and he's been involved in a number of significant M&A deals in the region over the past number of years. Kelvin Tang has joined us as EVP Corporate and our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Kelvin has been involved with the assets we've acquired, actually back to the original, picking up the blocks, discovery of the assets, and development. He's got a strong experience, again, working in Thailand, working in this region, and as well, has been very involved in new business throughout the region, both commercially and legally.
Finally, I'll point to Dr. Ian Warrilow, that we brought on to run our Thai country business. The key point here is that Ian and I crossed paths in Shell and Woodside in our careers, but Ian was really number two in Thailand for Mubadala on the same assets we've now acquired, and had other roles like Mubadala's Country Manager for Indonesia, developing a gas field there, as well as executive roles back in Mubadala's office in Abu Dhabi. Ian was well known to the staff, well known to the regulator, and has really moved in. It's the only position that was changed in the organization when we acquired Mubadala here. Next slide. Just summarizing the two acquisitions, which really took us from having no position in Thailand to now being the second-largest oil producer in Thailand after the national oil company, PTTEP.
The KrisEnergy acquisition was out of receivership, where we bought 2 assets. 1 was a suspended oil field, and 1 was an oil field capable of development. Then we went in and also bought out of another receivership, the production unit. We have got that suspended oil field, Wassana, back on production now, and we've got that producing. That's really the fourth of our assets there. The second more significant acquisition is buying all of Mubadala Energy, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, their energy company, buying all of their oil production in the Gulf of Thailand. Really for a very low headline price, considering at the time, we were buying approximately 21,000 barrels a day of production.
In this case, we really took advantage of pressure on the major companies around the world to transition their portfolio and exit from oil production. Therefore, we're able to acquire these assets at very low cost, where we still see a lot more potential in them with getting a focus back on the team. You can see the assets we acquired there. Jasmine was acquired from Mubadala, largest field. Nong Yao, still significant growth in that asset. Manora, interesting field that was due to be abandoned last year, but is still producing extremely well. Then the Wassana field that we've bought on production. That's really a summary of the asset base. Next slide.
This is just really highlighting in the bottom left, the change that we went through from going after the new business in Southeast Asia, where we started with cash of, you know, $35 million-$40 million, and what we've actually achieved in the end. We're looking at between 23,000-24,000 barrels a day of net production. The revenue now, based on current pricing, is going to come in about $600 million a year. When we closed the deal, there was about $270 million in cash in the accounts. Now, we have since made a large tax payment, but still have significant cash in the company and jumping up that asset base. Again, when we look at this, we've got that large bump in price to that Mubadala acquisition.
However, what we have not seen is really a true value related to these assets. We're currently trading at just over half of what is our reserves value, which we believe is lean, and there's more potential there. Not really much above cash at this point in time, and yet we have 4 assets that are producing extremely well and producing as we expected. Yeah. Next slide. I'm just gonna show a quick slide on each one of the assets to give you some background. Now, the Jasmine field has been online for the longest. The key point we really want to make here is in that center box, is a history of reserve renewal, where you can see there that this field, they took the investment decision in 2005. It was supposed to recover 7 million barrels.
A couple of weeks ago, we did an announcement that the field had produced 90 million barrels. The great thing with Thailand is you can find that initial pool of oil, develop it, get cash flow, and then continue to extend out. What would have been an initial 1-platform development in the upper right, you can now see is 7 platforms tied back to the FPSO. This is a mid to late life asset. We're still seeing activity, we're still able to add, you know, to the production and the reserves in this case. You can see that it really has gone from about 20,000 barrels a day to now it's come down to around 10,000 barrels a day. Our objective here in this asset is really to maintain that stable production.
It will slowly decline as we go forward, you know, just let it slowly decline. It still has more life in it, and we completed a very successful drilling program on it in the first four months of the year to bring the production up to even higher than it was last year. Now that's likely gonna slowly decline as we move forward. Next slide. Nong Yao field. This is a field that where we still see growth, and it's just in the early days, right? We have 90% working interest here, and again, are operated. It reiterates that point that we saw for the Gulf of Thailand, where you've got that history of reserve renewal. This field was supposed to have 3 million barrels when they took investment decision with a single platform.
It's now done, as you can see, you've produced 25, but added 34, so there's still 12 million barrels reserves at year end last year. Right now, you can see the production for this year is planned to be slightly lower than last year, but that's because we still have growth in this per asset. In Q4 this year, we'll be installing a new platform, Platform C. We'll then drill nine wells on that, and then we anticipate to bring those on to production next year, around late Q1, and that will jump up the production of this field. The average for next year, we're looking at around 11,000 barrels a day. This is still a growth asset. When you look at it compared to Jasmine, we're at the stage here of two platforms.
We're installing that 3rd one this year, and we're already looking at putting on the sequence for next year. What is called Nong Yao D is really a test of the next step out to see where the next development would go. We still see much more growth in this asset. We're able to push it out further. Next slide. The Manora field is the smallest, and our working interest here is 70%. The most interesting thing about Manora was that when we were looking to acquire these assets starting in 2021 and into 2022, this field was supposed to have been abandoned a year ago, right? Now, with slightly higher oil prices, better production.
Instead, the venture drilled 2 wells last year that were successful at maintaining the production. We currently have the rig back on site, drilling 3 more infill wells this year. You're getting production on this field now that's still above the level you were looking at, you know, a year before it was due to be abandoned. That's really the key thing here, is to take what was an abandonment that was planned for 2022. Last year, we moved that to 2025. With successful drilling this year, we'll see if it can even be pushed out further. That's really the success of these fields, and to be able to do this not just on Manora, but on the other fields. Next slide. The Wassana oil field, the one we bought from KrisEnergy. We have got the FSO out there.
It's installed. The field's now been on production for a couple of months. It's producing slightly less than we would have liked. We've had a couple of wells that have had pumps go down. However, it is got stable production, and the rig will move, after Manora, will move here to first get those pumps fixed, to get the production up from those wells, and then it will actually drill 5 horizontal wells, long reach wells, to try and look at developing that, you know, 2 reservoir that was not fully developed prior to the field being shut in. Really looking ahead to 2024, we see that production should be averaging around 5,000 barrels a day. Again, a growth story still here. Okay.
Look, this is one of the key components when we put this story out and we put the guidance out, a couple of months ago. The CapEx we have for this year is high in the $180 million-$200 million range, and historically, that is above what these assets would have. Generally, the KrisEnergy, the Mubadala Energy, the three fields there would have had CapEx numbers to maintain the production in the $70 million-$85 million a year end. Adding on another field, we had expectations you should be looking at a $105 million-$110 million type of CapEx per year. As we've noted, this year is high because we're looking at two growth projects.
Bringing on Wassana, those five horizontal wells to look at least at 50%, and even looking from where it's at now, probably more than doubling production. Then the building of the Nong Yao C facility, which should come on in Q1. That's really when we see those projects and we look out to Q2 in 2024, so about 12 months from now, we expect that we should be producing above 25,000 barrels a day at that time, right? A few other projects this year is obviously bringing the two companies together and really starting to look for the synergies, both financial and in people and in operations, that we can start to look at for saving costs. Next slide.
Just a point as we look at the production going forward, and the key things here is we do see production growth for next year, given those two projects. Our objective for these assets is really to look at trying to maintain that production in a relatively stable level and to keep pushing the fields out. That's the issue of when you look at our reserve value now, which is, I think, $267 million USD, it's about that point that each year we're able to replace reserves and push those fields out. Robin, next slide. We've shown this slide before, but these are the data we've taken from the government website. Again, the blue bars are from the government site, the proven reserve number, not the probable, the proven reserve number at the end of each year, gross for just Mubadala fields.
The red numbers are the actual production for that year, right? What you can see as you look back for the past six years, is that every year, the reserves have remained largely stable at year-end, even though each year you're producing half of the 1P, half of about half of the proven. What that's saying is that every year, going back to 2017, you've been able to pretty well fully replace the reserves. We see that trend continuing further into the future. When you look at a value of $270 million for the reserves, well, that value is largely not changed as you step back through time, because the reserves have remained largely stable as you're getting full reserve additions in that case.
That's what, as we push that out further, able to continue that stable production going forward and take the cash flow from these assets. That's really one of the key points here, is that these assets we see, they've got strong cash flow now, and we see that the geology, the system, and the growth we can still achieve will deliver that cash flow as we continue to go forward. Okay, next slide. Those are the asset base that we have. When we start to look at what else we can do with the deals that we did last year to get ourselves into Thailand, we're really now recognized as a significant independent player in the region, and we're seeing more opportunities start to come to us.
When we did these deals, we took advantage of energy transition that was going on in the industry, and we targeted oil specifically and significant oil assets. That'll be a little bit harder as we go forward because we've now seen the likes of Shell and BP starting to back away from this, removing oil from their assets, and a recognition that oil is gonna continue to be a major component as we go forward. We will be looking to transition. We do like gas. My background mostly has been in gas assets, and we'd like to get into that. For the moment, it's about where we can deliver the most value to shareholders. Again, then why Southeast Asia? Why are we focused here? Obviously, the key thing is, this is where the team's background is, experience are in contacts.
Proven hydrocarbon basin, so the geology is good, and, you know, experience of myself and the team as we've developed assets and produced assets in this region. Importantly, though, where we sit over here in Bangkok right now, within 5 hours flight, we've got half the world's population. When you're over here, the energy, the growth that is coming out of Asia, you can see that this is an area that will be driving the world economy as we move forward, and they're energy starved. This is where the demand is for energy. We've worked around the region and have the skill sets to really add more deals into this region. Robin? Just a final point on that is that the Mubadala team, the assets that we acquired, and we acquired that full business unit. They have excellent environmental experience in the area.
The team works very well in the communities in which we're working. We have not really made changes in that team. They're continuing to do what they've done through the past number of years, which is operate in a safe, sustainable way with the same team. As I noted before, the only thing we've done is replace the country manager. Right? We're very proud of that team, and as we kinda nest the other KrisEnergy team in there, we'll look at the synergies that we get there. We will, though, start to look at now. These are producing oil assets.
This year, we'll get our full baseline measured, understand what are our emissions, and then we'll produce our first sustainability report in 2024, and we'll look for ways that we can reduce the emissions from these fields beyond the natural declines that will take place over the next 10 years on these assets. Okay, next slide. A final note, because many of you have been involved in the company since we had the Turkish tight gas play. We still have those assets in Turkey. We still hold a significant position of it. We have ideas as to where we would drill the next well, but for the past few years, we've been looking at a farm-in, as we would rather not be drilling here at a 100% level in these, in this area.
Our plans going forward are we have submitted to the government applications for extension, for another two years, and those are in processing by the government currently. We have, you know, I've mentioned we've been looking to farm it out, and obviously, it's been a time that it should have been a good time to farm out things in Turkey. We haven't really seen, any formal offers come to us that would be acceptable. We believe part of it is it's still viewed as exploration and still kind of viewed as unconventional, neither of which are very vogue at the moment. The new deals that we've got, what it does give us is actually the commercial flexibility now to talk to people about how we would go forward together. Most, up until now, we've been looking for a full carry by someone.
Whereas now we could be looking at even carrying a portion of the well ourself to get someone in for larger carries going forward. We still have the asset. We've submitted the extension applications for another two years to the government, which should take it up to June 2025. Robin, next slide. Looking back recently, we announced the KrisEnergy deal last year and got that closed last year. We announced Mubadala at the end of the year and closed that in March. We got our guidance numbers out, which really pointed to the amount of cash that was even in the company. We've got the production started on Wassana. We've got two infill programs completed on Jasmine and Nong Yao. We got the Q1 results out back in May.
Now, the one thing about the Q1 results is it really was a balance sheet matter. You could see, obviously, the asset base had increased up to about $900 million. But what was not there was any real revenue in the company. There was no production really for the quarter because the deal closed right at the quarter. We believe this might be something that the market is still looking for. While we can point to the production from these assets, we don't have any of this revenue in our books, and we see that as really an important upcoming event, is in the second week of August, after that board meeting, is to get the Q2 financials out, to show the production numbers and to show the cash flows that these things are generated.
Other events that are key is, you know, in Q4, we will have the installation of the Nong Yao facility and start the drilling there. Then we'll also get on to Wassana, probably in about a month from now, as we start that 5-well program, which is really looking to jump the production from Wassana up significantly. Then moving forward, again, that important time to focus on for us is Q2 next year, where we believe we'll have the highest production, over 25,000, could even be towards 30,000 barrels a day for a short period within that quarter in Q2. It's a high point once we get these projects on. Next slide. The final slide is really pushing out.
We talked about we have the cash flow, and we have the cash flow going forward, which is really forming the foundation to the business. We will see other growth projects, like we've done, you know, a couple of small equity deals recently, but we're looking at other projects in the region that can still be highly accretive to our shareholders. The main thing that we see is the share price we're at right now is not right, given that we're at a very significant discount to their 2P reserves value. When you compare as to how we trade to our peers, we're trading well below this.
We're looking at activities to try and get out there, get the story out there further, but really a lot of it, we believe, seems to be hinged around getting the actual revenue introduced into our financials, so we're able to speak to it. With that, I'll conclude the presentation. Thank you all for joining today, and we'll take any questions. Robin?
Great. Thanks, Sean. Questions from the room. Any takers? No questions. Okay, think about it. There's a couple that have come in online. I'll just, I'll just voice them for you, Sean. First question is on taxes. The question is: "Is our corporate restructuring still on track such that we can eventually take advantage of the KrisEnergy tax losses? If so, can you please give an approximate timeline?
Yeah, well, we see that, you know, obviously, we need to be restructuring the companies over here, as we've talked about, and that's on track. You know, I think we stated before, this is a process that goes on. It will take, you know, 6-9 months, we really need to get that restructuring together to bring these companies together all into one tax-efficient structure.
Okay. Next question: "When do you expect you'll do your next operational update? Everyone is aware that August is when we report our Q2 results. Is there any opportunity for us to announce something earlier than that?
Well, two things. I think we were probably at the right at the end of the quarter, we can obviously speak to what the production was for the quarter and some of the, you know, the finance numbers that are set immediately at that point in time. We do also have another announcement here. We have an intent to announce a COO for the company, which we'll do that shortly, having just come to arrangements. We have a couple announcements kind of coming, but to us, really, the main focus has to be on those August results. We've been delivering operational results. We, you know, on Nong Yao, we're currently drilling on Manora. Results have been coming in very well.
At this point, it hasn't seemed to have gotten any traction, so we really believe it has to get down to the financial numbers.
Okay, a follow-up question online here as well. Your cash position, will you announce that with an operational update, or will you make us wait until August?
I think we can probably announce cash. That's a number that we can sweep through the bank accounts and say, "This is how much is in there.
Okay, next question is on future inorganic growth. What sort of magnitude of opportunities are you seeing? Is there anything that's as large as the Mubadala Energy in Thailand or in the region?
Yes. We're seeing a number of things that are as large as that in the region.
Okay.
No, we still see there is good deal space in the region. Maybe the strategically, it's changed a little bit because, as I pointed out, you know, it's no longer the majors looking to shed these oil assets at the same pace. However, there is still different strategies going on, as, you know, major companies look at their global distribution, decide, you know, where are we moving out of this company, changing our position here. There has been a bit of a retreat from Asia, believing a lack of materiality for those companies over here. We'll look at a number of opportunities that could be related to that strategy.
Okay, great. That's it for our online questions. Any questions from the room? Quiet group. All right, just a reminder for anyone online, if you do have any follow-up questions after the fact, feel free to email us on ir@valeuraenergy.com. A replay of this call will be made available on the website later today. Sean, over to you for concluding remarks.
Yeah, just, it was obviously a very exciting year for us in the past 12 months, and the transformation of the company has been very significant. I think what's been really interesting to be over here and to be part of that, is the way that we've really almost been welcomed into the region, and that's just by not only the government of Thailand, the regulator here, but the NOC. They obviously look to us as coming in as a significant player. What we can see is, as we talked about with some of the majors leaving, there's a recognition over here that there is a change going on as to how the industry is likely going to work as we go forward.
They now see us as a part of that, and that we could be filling the gap that is kind of left by these other players. It's really very exciting. Going to meetings, going there to meet the government officials, other companies. It's great to be back in the region.