Kosmos Energy reports strong Q3 progress with rising production, reduced costs, and enhanced balance sheet resilience amid commodity price volatility.

Jamie Buckland - Vice President of Investor Relations - (00:01:36)

Welcome to Cosmos Energy's third quarter 2025 conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded at this time. Let me turn the call over to Jamie Buckland, Vice President of Investor Relations at Cosmos Energy. Thank you operator and thanks to everyone. For joining us today. This morning we issued our third quarter 2025 earnings release. This release and the slide presentation to accompany today's call are available on the Investors page of our website. Joining me on the call today to go through the materials are Andy Ingalls, Chairman and CEO and Neil Schar, CFO. During today's presentation we will make forward. Looking statements that refer to our estimates, plans and expectations. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially due to factors we note in this presentation and in our UK and SEC filings. Please refer to our annual report, Stock. Exchange Announcement and SEC filings for more details. These documents are available on our website at this time. I'll turn the call over to Andy.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:02:50)

Thanks Jamie and good morning and afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our third quarter results call. I'll start off the call by taking you through Kosmos Energy priorities, reinforcing the consistent messages I gave last quarter before updating you on progress across the portfolio. Neil will then walk through the financials and the work we've done recently to enhance the resilience of the balance sheet before I wrap up with closing remarks. We'll then open up the call for QA starting on slide three as we navigate the ongoing commodity price volatility. Our key priorities have not changed in our first and second quarter results. I talked about growing production and reducing costs to prioritize free cash flow while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. We made important progress across all three of these areas this quarter, starting with production at Jubilee. The partnership brought the first producer well of the 2526 drilling campaign online in July. We continue to see strong performance from the well with gross production around TEN,000 barrels of oil per day. The drilling rig is now back in Ghana following a period of scheduled maintenance and has just spud the second producer well in the campaign and which is expected online around the end of the year. Through drilling efficiencies, the Partnership has increased the number of wells in the 26 drilling campaign from four to five while staying within the original budget, which I'll talk more about shortly on GTA. Production has continued to ramp up with the partnership lifting 13.5 gross LNG cargoes through the end of October along with the first condensate cargo, a new source of revenue for the project by the end of the year. We're targeting production to increase to the Floating LNG Nameplate capacity of 2.7 million tonnes per annum in the Gulf of America. Production remains consistently strong and we continue to progress future developments such as Tiberias and Gettysburg. And finally, Equatorial Guinea, production is set to increase with the partnership installing repaired subsea pumps at Sabre, with the first pump complete, the second in country and the third due to be delivered in the first quarter of 2026. We're pleased to see production near record highs for the company with further near term growth expected quarterly through 2026 as we push GTA towards nameplate capacity and bring on additional wells at Jubilee. Turning to costs, we're focused on three areas of making good progress across all first, on CapEx. CapEx continues to fall and we now expect CAPEX for the year to be below our $350 million forecast, an absolute reduction year on year of around $500 million. Second, on overhead, we remain on track to deliver the $25 million targeted savings by the end of the year with the full benefit being seen in 2026 and beyond. Third, on operating costs. They're coming down across all of our businesses. As discussed last quarter, the biggest opportunity for additional OPEX reduction going forward is on GTA where we're seeing unit costs improve as production ramps up and costs come down. We're targeting the refinancing of the GTA FPSO by year end and are working with the operator to implement a lower cost operating model. We should further drive down costs across the project and finally the balance sheet where we've done a lot in recent weeks on liquidity. We've taken important steps to address our upcoming debt maturities through the $250 million term loan from Shell with the proceeds being used to repay the outstanding 2026 bond maturities on the RBL. We successfully completed the semiannual redetermination in September and passed the maturity test for the 2027 bonds. At the same time we also added more hedges for 2026 during the period. Neil will talk about all of this in more detail later, but in summary we're making good progress against our financial objectives. The combination of rising production, lowering costs and lack of near term maturities gives us resilience to weather a period of volatility. I remain confident that we have a unique world class portfolio of assets and we remain focused on maximizing long term value for our shareholders. Turning to Slide 4, which looks at operations for the quarter starting In Ghana, total net production was around 31,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Jubilee Gross oil Production in the third quarter was around 62,500 barrels of oil per day, 13% higher quarter on quarter, helped by the first new well of the 2526 drilling campaign coming online in July. Gross gas Production was around 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the third quarter, sequentially lower due to period of extended scheduled maintenance of the onshore gas processing plant at TEN. Gross oil production in the quarter was around 16,000 barrels of oil per day at GTA in Senegal Mauritania third quarter net production was around 11,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day, an increase of just over 60% from the previous quarter. The partnership lifted 6.8 gross LNG cargoes during the quarter in line with guidance. We also lifted the first gross condensate cargo early in the fourth quarter. There was some startup maintenance on three of the four LNG trains during the third quarter that slightly curtailed production, but with all trains online we're now running around 2.6 million tonnes per annum equivalent and on the path to name blank production this quarter. Work on the last LNG train is planned for this quarter and has been incorporated in our guidance. In the Gulf of America, net production was around 16,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day in line with guidance driven by strong performance from Odd Job and Kodiak and no major storm activity during the quarter. This was offset by some unplanned facility downtime and the abandonment of the Winterfell 4 well, which I'll talk about in more detail in a following slide. On Tiberius project we executed the production handling agreement with Oxy, our 5050 partner on the project and also the operator of the Lucius production facility production facility which will host the volumes from the development when it comes online. We expect to take Final Investment Decision and farm down our interest to around a third in 2026. Nextor guinea net production was around 6200 barrels of oil per day down quarter on quarter due to the subsea pump issues flagged in May. As I mentioned, we're making good progress on the repair of those pumps with normalized production expected in the first half of 2026. Turning to slide 5, we talked in depth last quarter about Jubilee and the opportunity to deliver the field's full potential as a return to drilling. As the chart on the slide shows, the first well of the 2526 drilling campaign which drilled in the second quarter and came online in July, the well continues to perform in line with expectations delivering around TEN,000 barrels per day of gross oil production. Drilling of the second producer well has commenced and is expected online around the end of the year and we anticipate it will also be a strong producer. The next 12 months is an important period of activity for the field with a committed drilling program of five more wells in 2026. We'd initially plan to drill four producer wells next year, but have worked with the partnership to drive a more efficient program that allows for a fifth well awarded injector to be added in 2026 while maintaining the same budget. The blue dots on the chart show production moving higher through 2026 as the new wells come online, and while this upward trajectory won't be linear as individual wells contribute different volumes, we expect Jubilee production to be materially higher than current levels. As we finish the current drilling program in late 2026 with improved water injection and a regular follow on infill drilling program, we're targeting sustained production at those higher levels. The other important point to note on the chart is the Ocean Bottom Node Seismic acquisition which is taking place this quarter. The state of the art imaging technology that I talked about last quarter will further enhance our understanding of the subsurface, providing better data on historical fluid movements and help identify more undrilled lobes and unswept soil. This is a step change in imaging technology which we expect will support optimum well selection in future drilling campaigns, ultimately enhancing resource recovery and over the remaining. Life of the field. With the license extension expected to be completed by year end, the partnership can now plan on long term investment in Jubilee, which should drive a material uplift in 2P reserves. All the required documentation of the extension has now been prepared for submission to the government for their approval. Turning to Slide 6 at GTAA, we continue to see a lot of positive progress as we work with BP, the natural oil companies and the governments to improve profitability. As the green line on the chart shows, production continues to rise with net production of 11,400 barrels of oil equivalent in the quarter. This equates to 6.8 gross LNG cargoes during the quarter. In line with guidance, the partial cargo number reflects the cargo that was loaded over the quarter end, with the remainder of the cargo recognized in the following quarter. The project has now lifted 13.5 gross cargoes through October with 7 to 8.5 cargoes expected in the fourth quarter. Last month the first gross condensate cargo was listed, another important milestone for the project and was priced at a small discount to Brent. Looking ahead, we expect production to continue to rise targeting the 2.7 million 10 nameplate towards the end of the year. With its higher production level, we see the potential for the Cargo count in 2026 to be almost double what we expect to see this year. On cost, the blue bars on the chart show the absolute operating expenses continue to fall. We expect further progress into 2026 with the refinancing of the FPSO and as we work with the operator to implement a lower cost operating model through rising production and its focus on costs, we expect unit costs to fall by over 50% next year. That said, we continue to advance Phase One expansion targeting online in 2029, materially increasing the volume from our existing infrastructure. With that growth in production, we expect the unit economics to improve substantially on CapEx. Neil will talk more about it in the financials, but the working capital outflow in the third quarter was largely related to the crude GTAA CAPEX post project completion that was due in the third quarter, effectively marking the end of the capital outlay for Phase One of the project. Turning to slide seven in the Gulf of America, third quarter performance was in line with expectations with continued strong performance from Oddjob and Kodiak and a lack of storm activity offset by some unplanned facility downtime and the abandonment of the Winterfell 4 well. As we communicated in this morning's earnings release, Winterfell 4 was abandoned in September by the operator due to challenges encountered during completion operations arising from the collapse of the production casing. Unfortunately, the operator has recently struggled with completion issues. So while we like the resource upside at Winterfell, which contains around 100 million barrels oil equivalent of potential, we plan to focus next year's activity just on restoring production from the Winterfell 3 fault block. This will allow time to better plan and design the future wells to capture the full resource potential of the field. On our development activities, we continue to progress Siberius with Oxy with an improved lower cost development plan and an executed PHA which locks in attractive commercial terms. Final Investment Decision and farmdown are planned for next year. We also continue to advance Gettysburg with Shell, which is a discovered resource opportunity we acquired in a previous lease sale. We're progressing a single well development that would be tied back to Shell's operated Appomattox platform. That concludes the review of the portfolio and Neil will now take you through the financials.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:16:41)

Thanks Andy. Turning now to slide 8 which looks at the financials for the third quarter in detail. Production was again higher sequentially due to the first new well on Jubilee and GTA ramping up offset by expected downtime in the Gulf of America and EG and lower gas volumes in Ghana. Current production is now in the low 70s with more to come in the fourth quarter as GTA approaches nameplate and the second producer well on Jubilee is expected online. Around the end of the year, operating costs were down almost 40% quarter on quarter with improvements across all our business units reflecting the focus on costs that Andy talked about earlier and also the 10 lifting costs that fell in the second quarter. G& A was also lower, highlighting the progress we are making in reducing overhead. Capex of $67 million came in lower than Guidance and with year to date CAPEX of just under 240 million, we are firmly on track to close out the year with full year CAPEX below our $350 million forecast. Last quarter I flagged an expected working capital outflow in 3Q, largely associated with the final accrued CapEx on GTA. With phase one now delivered and the CapEx behind us, we don't expect any material capital outflows at GTA for several years. So to summarize, production is growing and approaching record high levels while capex, OPEX and overhead have all fallen quarter on quarter reflecting our efforts to improve the overall cost base of the business and enhance profitability and cash flow Generation turning to Slide 9 as Andy said in his opening remarks, one of the priorities for the company this year is enhancing the resilience of the balance sheet and we've made progress in several key areas recently. On liquidity, we announced a four year senior secured term loan with Shell for up to $250 million with attractive terms for Kosmos. We used the first tranche of the facility to repay $150 million of our 2026 unsecured notes early in the fourth quarter and anticipate using the remainder to repay the outstanding $100 million in the first quarter of 2026. On the Reserve Based Lending facility, we completed the semiannual redetermination with the borrowing base remaining in excess of the $1 30 facility size. Alongside the exercise with our lending banks, we updated the liquidity test for the 2027 bonds which was successfully passed. Our lenders remain supportive of the company as we complete our project delivery phase and we appreciate their continued support. With the Shell transaction complete, we have created more space until our nearest maturities. As can be seen on the top right chart, we remain proactive in securing additional sources of liquidity that enabled us to repay some of our other upcoming mat on hedging. We have continued to increase downside protection against near term commodity price volatility. For the remainder of 2025 we have 2.5 million barrels of oil production hedged with a $62 per barrel floor and a $77 per barrel ceiling. We also took advantage of higher prices in the third quarter to add more hedges for 2026. We now have 8.5 million barrels of oil hedge next year with a floor of $66 and a ceiling of $73 per barrel, with more than 50% of oil sales hedged through the first half of 2026. We've talked on today's call about our focus on costs and the chart on the right shows the progress we're making with quarterly capex reductions over the last year. As we start to look ahead to next year, the capital program is largely focused on Jubilee Drilling and we are confident we can stay within this year's budget or below to maximize near term cash generation and reduce leverage at current prices. Backwards leverage remains elevated given the ramp up in GTA and lower production in Jubilee in the first half of the year. We expect that to improve quickly into 2026 as production and cargo sales increase and the lower first half 2025 Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Exploration is adjusted out of the trailing 12 month leverage calculation. As you will see with our fourth quarter guidance, we remain close to our revised year end covenant but are actively working solutions such as the 10 Floating Production Storage and Offloading purchase to remain compliant. So to conclude, we will continue to be proactive in improving our financial position by reducing costs, raising new liquidity to manage our maturity schedule at attractive rates and adding new hedges. While we have more to do, I'm pleased with the progress we have made and we will continue to focus on delivery of that agenda. With that, I'll hand it back to Andy.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:21:20)

Thanks Neil. Turning now to slide 10 to conclude today's presentation, As I stated in my opening remarks, we have three clear near term priorities. We're growing production with current production approaching record highs with more to come through the end of the year and into 2026 with the Jubilee Drilling campaign and Greater Tortue Ahmeyim at nameplate. Longer term we have an attractive portfolio of growth opportunities across both oil and gas within our existing discovered resource base both internationally and in the Gulf of America. On cost, we're seeing solid progress across our three main areas of focus capex, OPEX and overhead and continue to work hard on further reductions. And finally, Neil just talked about the work we're doing to protect the balance sheet to ensure we have a sustainable business in a lower priced world while retaining the significant opportunities for future upside. We look forward to delivering on these near term objectives to support long term value creation for our investors. Thank you and I'd now like to turn the call over to the operator to open the session for questions.

OPERATOR - (00:22:37)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star2 to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star key. One moment please for your first questions. Our first questions come from the line of Matthew Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions. Hi there.

Matthew Smith - Equity Analyst at Bank of America - (00:23:09)

Morning, Andy. Morning, Neil. Thanks for taking my questions. Perhaps a couple could have first start with the reference to the TEN FPSO and the sale and repurchase agreement that you're finalizing. I mean, could you give us any sort of further details on the financial implications here and also just remind us on the timing for that lease finishing, please. I mean that would be the first one and then perhaps the second one just sort of taking a step back I guess. A million dollar production sort of finally now taking higher costs coming down as you've alluded to. Could you give us a bit of a sense of the already the cash flows and perhaps the deleveraging that you might expect for 2026?

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:23:53)

Yes, sure, sure, Matt, it's Neil. I'll take those. So if you start on 10 again, one of the themes we talked about today is sort of reducing the cost across the business. When we look at 10 specifically, it's been high operating costs at the field. A large portion of that is because of the lease. The lease makes up more than 60% of the operating cost at 10. And so it's been naturally an area for us in the partnership to focus on how do we get that cost down. And so we've been working a purchase option together with the rest of the partnership and the FPSO owner to get that included here in the fourth quarter in terms of specific details on consideration and things. We can't disclose those terms until it's signed. But what I can tell you is. What we're trying to do or what. We'Ve agreed to is sort of no additional payments in terms of what we're paying for the lease until a sort of closeout payment in 2027. And that payment would be basically a reduced buyout payment for the fpso and it would be done on very attractive terms with payback similar to what we've seen on MA transactions like Oxygon, et cetera, that we've looked at. So no additional cash up front. We serve out the lease until 27th. We have a discounted purchase option at that point, which lowers the operating cost and allows us to get access to the extended life of the field and additional sort of upside and opportunities in the future. And so, again, it's a good transaction. We're happy to see it progressing and hope to see more news on that here before the end of the fourth quarter. On your second question, just in terms of cash generation, you're absolutely right. We're sort of getting to that point to where production, quarter on quarter, we can see it increasing and costs across the business are coming down. Again, in terms of where we get to in terms of free cash flow into 26 and beyond, I don't think it's very different in terms of what we just said. We talked about a company that can break Even in the mid $50 per barrel range across all of the costs. And then how much excess free cash flow we generate will really be a function of oil prices beyond that. And what we've tried to do is remain proactive on the hedging side to ensure that there's some price floors at rates ahead of that, which ensure that we're generating some free cash flow into 26 and then have the optionality in the portfolio for the future. So, again, I think directionally, everything is headed the right way across both the production side and the cost side. You'll see progress Both in the fourth quarter and sequentially into subsequent quarters into 26.

Matthew Smith - Equity Analyst at Bank of America - (00:26:57)

Got it. Thank you, Neil. Appreciate the detail. Great.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:27:00)

Thanks, Matt.

Bob Brackett - Equity Analyst at Bernstein Research - (00:27:02)

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Bob Brackett with Bernstein Research. Please proceed with your questions. Good morning. We'd like to talk a little bit about GTA opex. You've disclosed a little more this quarter. It looks as if I got my. Math right, running around $60 a barrel. And you talk about taking half of that roughly away. Is that the right way to think about it, getting toward $30 of opex?

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:27:36)

Yeah. So again, I think 25 is a tricky year to baseline off of Bob. But if when you look at sort of the quarterly OpEx, we were at 70 million in 2Q, $60 million in 3Q, and we're expecting at the midpoint of guidance, about $50 million per quarter net to Cosmos in 4Q. And beyond that, we see upside or Downside in terms of being able to run into a slightly lower operating cost into 26. I'd say today we're closer to and again we're referencing in gas terms but closer to a $6 per MMBtu break-even on just where we are from a production perspective with the goal to get that a bit lower.

Bob Brackett - Equity Analyst at Bernstein Research - (00:28:16)

Very clear. And a follow up. Any lessons learned on Winterfell? Is there a common theme to some. Of the challenges or is it too early to know?

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:28:28)

Yeah, Bob, I'll take that. I think the first thing to say these are operational issues, not reservoir issues. We've had two mishaps.. The first was placing the screen in the horizontal wasn't fully packed off and therefore we had the screen collapse. So that's one issue. I think the issue of the casing collapse on Exit Assault patch. It's a little early to. Come to. A final conclusion on the root cause. But what it does mean when you step back from it is we need to be very rigorous now about the future operations. We are as Cosmos focused on a single activity in 2020 which will be coming back to the Winterfell three fold block. Probably reusing the wellbore to recomplete the well. But it will be a very simple completion. And I think if you were to just go to a very high level view of it. I think the lesson learned is to keep it simple, make sure you've got rigorous planning and then you execute. So I think there isn't anything new in that but I think it's something that we need to come back to.

Bob Brackett - Equity Analyst at Bernstein Research - (00:30:00)

Very clear.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:30:01)

Thanks. Great. Thanks Bob.

OPERATOR - (00:30:05)

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Charles Mead with Johnson Rice. Please proceed with your questions.

Charles Mead - Equity Analyst at Johnson Rice - (00:30:11)

Good morning Andy and Neil and to the rest of the Cosmos team. Andy on slide 5. Thank you for all this detail on the on Jubilee. But I want to ask a question about what's going to drive two cargoes versus three cargoes from Ghana in 4Q. Is it just the. Is the big variable just the performance or how well this J72 well holds up or is there a TEN cargo that may or may not fall in 4Q? Give a sense of what the drivers are there? No Bob, no Charles. It's just really just around. This is a year end cargo. So it's a timing issue and ultimately the timing of that will be dictated by performance. Is sort of holding flat at the moment where we can sort of see a relatively flat profile in Jubilee as we end the year. But it's going to be just around, literally around the timing effects of that on a year end cargo. Okay, great. And then another cargo question, but from gta, the condensate cargo that you mentioned you sold, how does that fit in your guidance and how is that going to appear when you report 4Q? Right, I'll let Neil handle the detail of that.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:31:36)

Yeah, and it's a bit tricky because you don't get them all the time. There's probably a lifting on a gross basis out of the field, maybe quarterly, but this is the first one for the partnership until we split it evenly. Again, the thinking going forward is they'll all be allocated on a sort of entitlement basis going forward. And so again, I think between US and the NOCs, potentially lifting every one out of or two out of every five condensate cargoes. So they'll be a bit irregular.

Charles Mead - Equity Analyst at Johnson Rice - (00:32:09)

Charles.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:32:10)

But there will be again, a nice source of additional income for the partnership.

Charles Mead - Equity Analyst at Johnson Rice - (00:32:18)

So if I understand you correctly, Neil, you're taking turns the way you are at Ghana. And so even though you've lifted this first cargo, it's someone else's cargo and it's not going to have no financial impact on Cosmos for 4Q, is that right?

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:32:34)

No, no. This one we listed altogether. I'm saying going forward. So we'll get our, we'll get our pro rat a piece of that cash flow in 4Q. Going forward, we'll lift it like as you mentioned, which is sort of taking turns between US and the NOCs and.

Charles Mead - Equity Analyst at Johnson Rice - (00:32:54)

Okay, great. Thanks for the detail. Great, thanks, Gels.

OPERATOR - (00:32:59)

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Neo Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

Neo Mehta - (00:33:07)

Good morning, Andy. Good morning, Neil. You know, there's been obviously a lot. Of focus on the balance sheet and the credit hasn't traded very well here because of the macro, but also because of some of the challenges you guys talked about. So maybe you could just take some time for investors who are worried about the balance sheet to talk about how you're feeling about liquidity, why you have confidence, what are you doing to mitigate some of the risks and spell it out in good detail.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:33:34)

No, great, thanks, Neil. I'll get Neil to talk through it. But I think the first point actually to make is sort of how much progress we've sort of made actually this quarter. Neil will talk you through the Gong term loan, the RBL redetermination that's allowed us to deal with the most immediate issue, which is the 26 bond maturity. But then thereafter, what are the steps we're going to take to address the upcoming maturities beyond that. So I think it is a real close focus for the company and it's one where I believe that we're genuinely making the right progress at the right pace. But Neil, just the details.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:34:20)

Yeah, like Andy said, I think we continue to be proactive in terms of getting ahead of the financing, getting in front of the refinancing issues and so the shelf term loan was important to get to early repay the 26s. Yeah, we've gotten through the redetermination liquidity test where people had some questions around that hopefully have addressed some concerns on that side and then now we're being proactive around the 27. So and looking at as I mentioned, secured debt options potentially at the Ms. Level to early attack, clear the maturities and create a better Runway so that we can focus on with the near term volatility in the oil price we've created a lower cost company without any debt maturities. We can use all the free cash flow to repay debt on the revolver and and then create more financial resilience to that process. So again I think we're doing all the things we said we would. We're going in a step by step fashion and continuing to look for cost effective ways for us to get ahead of issues while we're finishing out the project delivery phase. And again like I said, I think the most important thing for us as well as the creditors and the equity holders is we're seeing the benefit of rising production coming through as well as the lower the overall cost cost structure. So again I think we're doing the right things and the business will continue to be proactive around securing the financial resilience of the company as we go through sort of a bit of wobble in the macro. Yeah.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:35:59)

What I'd add just Neil is in addition to looking at secured debt against the GTA asset, I think we're also looking at divestments of non core assets with we're through the build phase, we have some very strong assets both in Ghana and in Ms. Gulf of Mexico. So what are the options we have now to sort of high grade the portfolio and use that as an additional source of debt reduction. So I think that's another area where we're being proactive. So I think there are two big agenda items that Neil's working on, both secured debt against Ms. And the non core assets.

Neo Mehta - (00:36:52)

Yeah, thanks Andy and Neil, that was very thorough. And then the follow up is just. Can you talk about the upfront investment required for the GTA expansion? And how do you think about the differences in leaps rates for a 5mtpa floating LNG facility versus the golar facility we had previously?

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:37:14)

Yeah, no thanks Neil. I think it's sort of maybe that is an important question and I think it'd be good to give you a little bit of detail. I'm fresh back from a meeting where last week in Paris where we spent a lot of time with the NOCs and, and governments of Mauritania and Senegal, sort of thinking through their future needs. And it's clear in both countries, but in particular in Senegal the need for additional near term domestic gas. So I think that we see the next phase effect, Stage one plus expansion actually targeting the domestic market. I think we're sort of almost ambivalent to the pricing there. We were sort of looking at pricing that would be equivalent to the FOB of the LNG without the liquefaction costs. So ultimately it's a win win for everybody. At that point the government gets a source of gas which is very competitively priced and we can secure the expansion of phase one plus without having to go through complicated redesign of the facilities. So I think that's the way to think about it Neil. And I think the other thing that I'd add to you on the cost side is that actually the FPSO and the current well stock can supply around 200 million standard cubic feet feet of additional gas without any investment, with zero investment. And that means that from the government's perspective they could get domestic gas earlier. Clearly they need to build out the infrastructure to do that. There's a pipeline system being built in Senegal to get access to the power stations. The power stations are being both new build and modifications to gas burning. And their view would be that they could probably accelerate their demand to pull gas earlier than the 29 date that we talked about. So actually one of the things that we talked about in Paris was getting on with negotiation of a gas sales agreement. So I think if you think about it, there's sort of 200 that you can get at zero cost today. That's the way to think about about it. Then there's another hundred that you would get if you debottleneck the fpso. And that is just debottlenecking, that is small modifications to the gas system to give you that extra hundred. So I think the great thing about GTA is you can expand it now at very, very low cost so there's no additional cost to go in other than the FPS. And then at some point you will need additional wealth, but that's sometime in the future. So it is about an aligned agenda, I think with both how do you get the most out of the infrastructure with the least amount of capital going in and then how do you get the most benefit actually for the host countries and build a true win win. That for me is the way to think about the project, Neil, rather than, I think, I think phase 2 and 3 can be more biased towards LNG, but I think that initial sort of expansion, as we call it, phase one plus of the existing facilities being more targeted to the domestic gas now there is some debottlement you can do on the GIMI as well. So move it beyond the 2.7 nameplate. So I think there's an increment of LNG to come there. And so when you think about it, there's a, there's a piece of. It goes to that increment of the gimme, but it's not 5 million tons, it's an increment on the gimme and then there's the residual amount that would go to domestic gas. So all in all essentially comes at very, very low Capex.

Neo Mehta - (00:41:20)

Thank you, Andy. Good. Thanks Neil.

OPERATOR - (00:41:24)

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Christopher Baque with Clarksons. Please proceed with your questions.

Christopher Baque - (00:41:33)

Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions today, if I may. So the first is on Jubilee performance. First of all, could you briefly touch upon the underlying decline rates at Jubilee right now and what exit rate should we expect from Jubilee in 2025? The second question is related to capex. Capex came in below expectations this quarter and full year guidance is now below $350 million. Is this primarily driven by timing and deferrals or is it real cost savings? And in addition to that related to the FTSO lease refinancing for gta, what kind of cost savings should be realized once completed? I think we can start with these two.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:42:23)

There's a lot there, Chris. Right, I'll do the first one on Jubilee and then probably I'll hand over to Neil on Jubilee. I think the way to think about it, Chris, is this and how to keep it sort of simple but straightforward. What I would say filtering around 62,000, 63,000 barrels of oil per day. Today we've got a new well coming on, just started drilling by the way, we're drilling the 26 in section as we speak peak and I think they're pleased to get back to drilling and sort of actually getting back on the timeline that we Targeted. So we expect that well to be on at the end of the year. And so you're going to exit at around 70,000 barrels of oil per day on Jubilee. So as you go into 26, the question is, of course, well, what's going to happen and what's your view of the future? We've got four more producers to drill. We've always talked about them doing between 5 and 10,000 barrels a day. So if you sort of say, okay, 7.5 or something on average, that adds, if you add it up in a simplistic that gets you around 100,000 barrels a day, then you've got to put on the decline rate. So let's say you put on the decline rate of 20% both on the new wells, which is probably a little high on aggregate. If you apply that 20%, then it brings you down to the 80s and that's the rate we'd anticipate getting to as we go through the year. So I think we've got a clear path going forward. We're clear about the well selection. I'd say that producers where we're targeting in the main part of the field, they're targeting areas where we got good pressure support in terms of challenges we've had in the past. At the end of the last drilling program, we're in Jubilee southeast area where there's less cost, concentration of injectors. And therefore I think we had challenges around the connectivity in particular on one well. So you can't, you know, you've got to be careful when you talk about decline rates, as you've got to think about it, both the two dynamics, where you put in the wells, what's the precious sport and also the difference in the, as you change the well. The. Production between the new wells and the existing wells. But I think that's the right way to sort of think about Jubilees. I think there are things to monitor going forward. First thing, have you started drilling? Yes, we have. The objective then would be to get the well on production around the end of the year. What production rate do we get there? And then you start to build it up as you drill the Next. So it's four producers in 26. And as I said in remarks, we've actually sort of high graded the program a bit to optimize it so we can squeeze in a water injector, which is important for the next program or within the original capital budget.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:45:43)

Yes, and that, Chris, goes to your second question, which is what are the savings? Again, I think there's a bit from Ghana, which is, as Andy alluded to, from drilling efficiencies and some lower contract rates for the program in Ghana. And that's part of what allows us to squeeze an additional well into 26. And so those are real savings in 25. And then there's part in terms of lower costs in the Gulf into the 25 program in terms of why we think we'll be lower than the 350 in terms of what we're projecting for this year. So those are real savings, not just deferrals of capital from 25.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:46:21)

Yeah, that might be. The thing I'd add to that is, Chris, is it's a lot of small things that add up. And I think one of the big messages we want to get across, I think to today in the results is we're really managing our cost base rigorously. So every dollar counts, whether it's CapEx, whether it's OpEx. And you can see the momentum on the OPEX side. You can see us continuing to make progress on CapEx. And then how do we sustain that as we go forward into the 26 program? But it's about the rigor and discipline. And I'd say both in Ghana and the Gulf, it's adding up small things that ultimately allow you then to make savings of 10 million to 20 million overall in the year.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:47:05)

And again, that sort of feeds to your third question as well, around sort of the FPSO lease cost. And we're spending about $60 million this year, 15 million a quarter on the lease, and the goal would be sort of get that 40 million to $50 million range. So again, I think there's still some work to be done and figure out where exactly we get an instrument priced. But it would be a material CAPEX savings or an OPEX savings as we get that complete, perfectly clear. One last question on dtfma, and I know you touched upon this earlier, but with the Phase one narrowing nameplate now, how do discussions or evaluation for phase one look like and what are the key factors for FID timing? And to follow up on that as well, what upside do you see on Gimme from current nameplate capacity?

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:47:58)

Okay, yeah, I don't want to sort of repeat everything I said in answering Bob's question, but I think. Sorry, Neil's question, but if you go back to Phase one Plus and you ask a question about FID timing, the point I'd like to make is that you can get 200 million today of extra gas without spending any money. So no FIB required. On that, actually, the big driver is you need to get a GSA signed. And that was a big action item that came out of the conversation in Paris with the NOCs and the government in particular in Senegal is they want to accelerate that. They've got a very strong domestic demand. Those of you who are Senegal watchers will know that the President and the Prime Minister have been clear about the importance of getting domestic gas, and therefore this is a real win win where you're able to leverage that. So that comes sort of without any extra money. The last hundred does require us to do some work on the fpso. What we've got to do is do the feed work. To do that fiding is probably within the next 12 months. What happens is you've got to get the work done in the 28 turnaround, so you need lead time to get you to that time period. So when the FPSO has a normal shutdown, that's when you do the work. Then that means that the additional 100 million would be available in 29. In terms of the gimme, it can do. We're targeting getting up to nameplate and I think we're demonstrating that. So I think the progress we're making, literally month on month, quarter on quarter, we'll get to that position at. The. End of this year. Beyond the nameplate, you really have to do some modifications to the gimme, which is really about better cooling and more power. Those are the two things that influence LNG plants. And that work's ongoing with GOLO at the moment. So I don't want to give you a hard number, Chris, until we get through that work, but it's probably in the range of maybe 10 to 20%, depending on where that work comes out. So there is more. You can get more out of the gimme, but the two things you've got to work on are the power and the cooling. And again, when would you do that? You'd probably do it at the turnaround time, so that you did it at the same time as the FPSO work was going on. So I don't think in terms of pulling out spreadsheets, I wouldn't include anything until sort of 29 on that. Right, very good. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.

OPERATOR - (00:50:59)

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Stella Cridge with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions.

Stella Cridge - Equity Analyst at Barclays - (00:51:06)

Hi there. Afternoon, everyone. Many thanks for all the updates today. I wondered if I could just follow up on the point of looking at secured borrowing on gta. Could you just say what you think the borrowing capacity of this business might be at the moment what sort of structure might be possible given that it has a different profile to the more kind of liquid businesses that you have elsewhere. That would be great.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:51:29)

Thanks. Yeah. So again, without sort of getting too far ahead of ourselves, but we think there's enough capacity there to take care of the 27 bonds from a secured cluster capacity perspective at like I said, relatively attractive rates. And we're looking for sort of more bond like solutions for that access. And again, we're pretty, we test the options before we look at anything and go live. But again, I think I feel pretty good about our ability to go do something there at the right time.

Stella Cridge - Equity Analyst at Barclays - (00:52:08)

Super. Thank you.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:52:10)

Good, thanks.

OPERATOR - (00:52:13)

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Nikhil Bhatt with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Nikhil Bhatt - Equity Analyst at JP Morgan - (00:52:22)

Morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have a couple. First one, the second quarter report mentioned that your net leverage covenant on the RBI raised to four times as of September 25th. The quarter end leverage is higher than this threshold. Can I check if Cosmos is under a cure period or the covenant has been waived. Sorry, this has affected the March 26 covenant test as well. And then you. Sorry, there's also a question I had on the liquidity Test for the 2027 does this by any chance need to be redone in March 26th or now that you completed the test in September, there's no more of redoing this test. Correct, Nikhil? So just to your two questions. So the waiver we got through four times was for the September test, which uses the June financials on an LPM basis. So the June financials we were at 3.8 times. We increased it to 4 times from banks. So that gets officially tested as of September 30th not using the September 30th financials. So the September 30th financials don't technically get tested from a leverage covenant perspective. So again, I think we got the waiver in advance of any breach to avoid any issues. The four and a quarter is the relevant test at the the end of this year, which get tested using December 31st financials. That actually gets tested by the end of March. And that's what I referred to on the call that we're pretty close to that and we're working some mitigation options to make sure we're compliant with that. But there wouldn't be any test of that covenant until all the way until the end of March. From a timing perspective, does that make sense? It does. Thank you.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:54:23)

Thank you, Akhil.

OPERATOR - (00:54:25)

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Mark Wilson with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions.

Mark Wilson - (00:54:32)

Thank you. Most of my questions have been answered already, but I would like to know, just to check a big drilling program now underway at Jubilee and there was the additional ocean bottom seismic that was being taken and reprocessing of other seismic. I just wonder where that is. Do you have all that and what it has given you in terms of new knowledge? Thank you. Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks Mark. Yeah, there's a lot going on at Jubilee. We start the current drilling program, as I said in the earlier remarks, we're targeting that the main field areas where we have really good well control and therefore we're drilling low risk targets. We've used the fast track of the NAS for that. So it's an early product, but incredibly good when I look back in my days at what a fast track looked like to what you're getting today. So in essence we have been able to leverage that NAS data, which is the 40, therefore the comparator of the 40 on a 2025 back to 2027. So I think that's a. That drilling program is well underpinned by the nature of the targets that we picked, the well control and the ability to leverage the early products of the nas. Then I think you sort of think through time is to sustain Jubilee production at the elevated levels that we've talked about. You need to be drilling three to four wells per year. And we've been clear about that. And we have a deep hopper of opportunities that will only get high graded as we start to leverage the full final product of the NASA. But most importantly obn, which ultimately gets you a much better velocity model. And that velocity model therefore high grades, the quality of that 4D picture and we think will lead to greater clarity on that high grading of the hopper and all. I'd say it's early days, but we've got a really good view now today of new targets that we haven't been able to see before. It's all about identifying unswept oil undrilled loads. Correlation of that from the 4D with a much higher uplift in the seismic ground. Truthing it with the history match reservoir model gives you much, much better view of future. So what I'd say is our view of the long term potential of the field remains absolutely unchanged. I'd say that three months on having had a chance to play with the nas, we've probably got a stronger view. There's more opportunity rather than Less and then ultimately it's about now high grading the next set of wells for a drilling program that we would target starting in. So I think that's sort of where we are with the program, Mark. And again I think we'll see the results of this 25, 26 program. The first well has gone well, the next well on by the end of the year you then got four more producers and an award injector that will take us through the back end of 26. And then it's about off optimizing the next set of wells. And the only bit I'd add is that the 40 does help you optimize the water injection patterns as well. So I think that we've talked about voidage replacement. I think we know we need to be above 100%, we need to be targeting water injection levels above that. We're now at a level today where we're injecting water, where we can do that. But then it's a about where you put it. And I think the AI driven reservoir model we've got now is bringing up some new ideas about how you optimize the water injection patterns. So I think all of that is to say big step change in technology. The opportunity set is probably larger and now it's about delivery. And as you've rightly sort of pushed at times, you've now got the drip deliver those five producers going forward and that's our objective. Very clear. And yeah, good luck with the forward plans. Thank you. Great, thanks Mark.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (00:59:18)

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Kay Hope with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.

OPERATOR - (00:59:25)

Hi, thanks so much for taking my question. I just have a quick one. I can see on slide 11 you say you expect production in 4Q66 to 72,000 barrels a day, but you mentioned in the comments that you're at about 72,000 barrels a day now. Is there a reason we should expect that average to be as low as 66? Yes.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (00:59:48)

Hi Kay, this is Neil. Yes, we have started off production pretty good in October so far. Again I'd say there's normally some downtime both planned and unplanned. We talked about about there's one more train in GTA that will be down for a few days within the quarter that stops you from producing full rates and then we have some sort of recurring downtime through the field. So again I think on a regular basis we should be doing better than that. But again we allocate some for sort of unplanned downtime and things to go wrong, but that's just generally how we see get into the forecasting process.

Kay Hope - Equity Analyst at Bank of America - (01:00:29)

Okay, perfect. And then I know that you flagged the working capital issue on the second quarter call on, I think it was August 5th, I'm not sure. But on that call, should we expect any of that to come back? Or alternatively, do you expect to be free cash flow positive for the fourth quarter alone for the full year? It may be a bit tough, but what about the fourth quarter on its own?

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (01:00:52)

Yes. And so you're right in terms of we saw some big working capital flags as GTA sort of finished the commissioning phase and went into the operational phase at the end of the second quarter, into the early part of the third quarter. So we flagged that into the third quarter calls. We haven't seen any of those into 4Q. Again, working capital is really hard to predict in terms of where we are. And again, I think Andy mentioned sort of there's a cargo timing piece that sort of moves on one side or the other, which has an impact as well. But again, I think we don't flag. If we see any big working capital, we'll usually flag it. We don't see any at the moment and there's no reason to expect that to sort of occur going forward, given we were in the project delivery phase before and now we're into more normalized operations. But cargo counts still make a sort of quarterly difference in terms of variation and then some of the cash, it will be sort of different. But again, I think with our view today, it's hard. We don't see anything immediately, but it's something we're just. We'll have to continue to manage.

Kay Hope - Equity Analyst at Bank of America - (01:01:58)

But you're not telling me that you're going to be free cash flow positive in the fourth quarter.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (01:02:03)

If you tell me what oil prices are going to be.

Kay Hope - Equity Analyst at Bank of America - (01:02:08)

Well, we're up to November. We'll cross our fingers.

Neil Schar - Chief Financial Officer - (01:02:11)

Yeah.

Andy Ingalls - Chairman and CEO - (01:02:11)

What I'd say, Kay, is we've had a strong start to the first month. So obviously we sit here today, we know what October was like and we're well within the guidance that you Talked about for 4Q. So I think this is about. You talked about the downside of what would cause you to hit 66. The alternative question would be what would you have to do to be at the upper end of that range? And that's clearly what we're targeting. We're targeting to deliver well within the range in 4Q. And all I'd say is we're off to a strong start so far in the quarter.

OPERATOR - (01:02:52)

Thank you. Since there are no further questions at this time, I would like to bring the call to a close. Thanks to everyone joining today. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.