United Oil & Gas (LSE:UOG) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the United Oil and Gas PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, I would like to submit

0:33 the following poll, which will just appear on your screens now. And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Brian Larkin. Brian, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, and thank you everybody for joining today's call. We've obviously had a difficult and challenging start to 2024, which has culminated in an equity raise that we announced last week. I'm aware that a number of shareholders are unhappy about the placing, so I wanted to host a call and a brief presentation today to give an update on where we're at and the context of events that's led us here and to take any questions that you may have of which I'm I'm sure there's plenty. There's a question box on your screen, so please do submit any questions or comments or any points that you'd like me to clarify further, and I'll address those as best I can at the back end of what will be a reasonably short presentation, today.

1:28 I'll skip through the disclaimer, but just to start with a summary of where we're at, particularly with Egypt. We've taken clear action to address the challenges that we face in Egypt, especially around the availability of US dollar. And to provide some context around that, for every million dollar of revenue we took in last year, we were losing between 200 to $400,000 in FX losses. In addition, for 2024, the asset was projected to lose money. And even just this morning, Egypt announced a further currency devaluation of over 30%. So the macroeconomic situation has deteriorated considerably for the last three to six months. Also, we haven't been getting any value in the share price for the asset. In fact, it's continued to slip.

2:14 We announced over the Christmas period a discovery a thousand barrel a day discovery, and the share price actually went down, which cemented their view that now is the right time to exit the license. So we made that decision to divest. All terms of the deal were agreed, and it was for a nominal amount given the context of US challenges USD challenges that we were facing along with projected asset performance. However, the buyer, QA Energy, the operator, insisted on certain inserting closing clauses in the sale and purchase purchase agreement, which were in breach of UK law. The operator threatened us with default if we didn't sign the SPA. And as a board, we decided to accept that default because there was no way we'd consider breaching UK law.

3:00 There comes a point in time where you have to say enough is enough and walk away, and particularly given the context of the asset performance, we decided to do that. That decision gives us back bandwidth to grow the company and start restoring what was eroding share shareholder value largely driven by the Egyptian asset performance. In Jamaica, we've secured a two year license extension, and we'll be kicking off the 2020 work program shortly, which has started with the appointment of Verona Thompson as country manager. In Waddlecross, the operator has confirmed the plans are progressing well to restart production on that license in 2020 early twenty twenty five in q one, and I'll talk a little bit about that in a bit more detail shortly.

3:47 But just to provide a bit more color on Egypt, since the war in Ukraine broke out, US dollar has been hoovered out of the region, particularly in North Africa. The problem's been further exacerbated with the conflict in Gaza. So sourcing US dollar in the last six months has become increasingly impossible. And in fact, since we came into Egypt almost four years ago, we've only received 13% of our revenue in US dollar. Now that wasn't a problem for us up until recently because we could source US dollar in country and there was minimal FX cost. But since that problem has has gotten momentum and has become more difficult for us, the FX cost of converting or translating Egyptian pounds into US dollar has just not become it's become unsustainable for our balance sheet and our company.

4:35 The problem was further enhanced when the operator informed us late last summer that they would no longer accept payment in new in Egyptian pounds, which had been the common course of events, up to that period. They're also feeling the challenges of sourcing US dollar. We did reference this challenge in every r and s that we put out on Egypt throughout last year. We particularly highlighted the challenges we were facing with repatriating US dollar and sourcing US dollar and bringing US funds back to Dublin. Decision to exit Egypt frees us from an asset that has struggled to deliver value for shareholders since we acquired it. Now we could justify retaining the asset because it was cash positive, and we felt that there was shareholder value because it was generating cash, which we may not have seen that reflected in the share price.

5:25 But once the asset was projected to lose money for 2024, coupled with the US dollar problems, it just made no sense to retain the asset any further. This decision will also generate significant cost savings in head office g and a and our own management time, which allows myself, my board, and my team to start focusing on growing the business again, not just within our existing asset base, but also looking at new opportunities to grow the business.

5:56 Just to recap on Jamaica, some of these numbers are well known to ensure most of our shareholders on the call this morning, but it's important just to rehighlight them. We secured a two year extension on the license in January, which is critical, particularly given that there was other interest from other interested parties in the acreage. I get getting the award at the extension is real testament to the close relationship that we have as a team, as a management team with the ministry and the government. And in fact, I'm actually in Kingston right now, and I'm heading to meet the ministry shortly after this call today. But just to recap on some of the key info, particularly highlighted on this slide, we've over $40,000,000 of invested technical work in our hands, which includes modern two d and three d seismic over the key areas of prospectivity in our acreage.

6:45 There's compelling evidence of a working hydrocarbon system in Jamaica. There's been 11 wells previously drilled, nine onshore, two offshore, all of which had indicators of hydrocarbons. And if I could draw your attention to the map of Jamaica on this slide, on the top right of this slide. If you can see in the bottom left of our acreage position, you'll see a little target, a Petrobank one, and one just above it slightly to the right. You'll also see those targets dotted around the island of Jamaica. They're the 11 wells that have been historically drilled and all found indicators of hydrocarbons. The black blobs you'll see on this map are also the oil seeps that we've sampled. There's also gas seeps, which are not highlighted on this this map, but there is gas seeps also to the north of the island. Also on this slide is photographs that my team took on a field trip, and you can clearly see oil staining in the soils.

7:38 This is quite compelling evidence and exciting evidence of a working hydrocarbon system, and it gives us great confidence moving forward. Like all of these projects with frontier exploration, you do as much work as you can to derisk the project. But clearly, oil seeps, oil samples, oil standing in muds, and soils is obviously compelling evidence of a of a working hydrocarbon system. Just to talk very briefly about the Cleary prospect that we have ourselves, which has a stand alone NPV value of over 4,000,000,000. And the good news for shareholders is we have we have 11 of those prospects and leads, and they're just the ones that we've had audited by Gaffney Klein. There's a further potential 20 prospects and leads that we haven't even scratched the surface of just yet. The sheer size of this project is absolutely colossal.

8:25 It's about the equivalent size of a 100 North Sea blocks or a thousand blocks in the Gulf Of Mexico.

8:36 Just to talk a little bit about the work program for 2024. Following the two year license extension announced last month, we formally kicked off the 2020 work 2024 work program, and that started with the appointment of Verona Thompson as country manager. Verona is Jamaican, and she's an experienced oil and gas professional. And in fact, we kicked off the 2024 work program yesterday morning with a preplanning meeting with some stakeholders, for the piston core survey, which we hoped will take place over the summer period. And we started the we commenced that work, that preplanning work, which we're very excited about. And it's nice to be doing work like this instead of firefighting in Egypt. We're now looking at building, adding value to our existing asset base in Jamaica and in Watercross.

9:26 To touch upon Watercross briefly, we own our whole 26 and a quarter percent interest in the asset. The operator, we're working closely with to bring the asset into production in q one next year. It was a field that was in production previously, so there's slightly less permitting and planning regulations that we need to navigate. But the asset was previously in production up to 2014, and it was shut in because of a high water cut. Since then, there's been quite a lot of technical work, particularly in the last six to twelve months that we've participated in alongside the operator. And we've identified a new a new area to target to drill, which is updip of the previous well where we believe there will be significant less water and could deliver significant revenue for United Oil and Gas with production anticipated between somewhere between five hundred and eight hundred barrels of oil equivalent per day with potentially 57,000,000 barrels of stope, which is stock tank oil initially in place. So it could be quite a significant little asset for us. And our intention when we decided to divest out of Egypt was to divest out of Egypt and focus our attention and our resources into developing this asset.

10:37 Although the production levels are probably a lot less to us than they would have been in Egypt, this asset would actually be significantly more cash positive and also significantly more profitable than our Egyptian asset was.

10:53 Just finally, before we open up to taking some questions, any comments that you may have, I just wanna talk a little bit briefly about the recent placing that we announced. We exhausted every potential avenue of fundraising for the company. We spoke with potential equity partners. We spoke with some private equity capital groups. We also spoke to our oil companies about potential strategic partnerships. We also explored bringing in strategic shareholders, and we spoke to one or two high net worth individuals. But we just couldn't get them over the line for various reasons. So, ultimately, we were left with no choice but to issue equity, and we haven't done that in four years. It's not a decision we took lightly, but we believe it's in the best interest to move the company forward. To not do it will be catastrophic for the company. We needed to strengthen the balance sheet so that we could kick off the work in Jamaica while simultaneously moving forward with our farm effort, but also to develop a water cross license.

11:49 Without the equity raise, we would be sitting on our hands hoping that we can move things forward rather than taking ownership of the problems we face, solving them, and driving the company forward far more quickly so that we can start generating shareholder value again and restoring shareholder value. I've covered quite a lot, very brief few minutes, but I'm very happy to take any comments or questions, that you guys have at this stage. Perfect. Brian, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. If I may just jump back in before we move to questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company takes a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard.

12:43 Brian, we obviously received a number of presubmitted questions ahead of today's event. And as you can see there in the q and a tab, we've also received a number of questions throughout your presentation this afternoon as well. So firstly, thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. And, Brian, perhaps if we dive straight into it, the first question that we have here asks, what about law investors who have supported UNITED on the words, from Brian to be patient? Your support isn't taken for granted and is very much appreciated and will reap the rewards. The question then goes on to say when will, long term investors, you know, look to see a return on their investment? Well, look. We we've been dealt some difficult cards, particularly with Egypt, and we've done our best to navigate that. It has been frustrating. It's been very disappointing, and we share the pain.

13:29 I'm a shareholder myself, a large shareholder, as is my board and my team. It's been difficult. There's no question about that. But what we have to do now is grasp the nettle, accept the pain so that we can start restoring shareholder value. And the only way we do that is with the support of our shareholders in driving the company forward. I appreciate the pain, and I've spoken to quite a lot of shareholders in the last fortnight. And I understand the pain. I understand the stress that that the share price performance has has caused shareholders. But we have to now draw a line in the sand and move on and start rebuilding value.

14:07 Perfect. Thank you, Brian. The next two questions, relate to Egypt. So we'll we'll take these, this one first, and then we'll stick with the second question after. Why was not more information published on the unfolding events in Egypt? I I we we published quite a lot of information on the unfolding events in Egypt as I referenced in in the presentation. Every RNS on any update we had on Jamaica, referenced the challenges we were facing in sourcing US dollar and in repatriating funds back to Dublin. The situation deteriorated quite rapidly, bleeding into the Christmas period and over the Christmas period. And during that time frame, we were actually working on a divestment of the asset. It was only in, I think, the first or second week of January where the operator gave us an ultimatum to either sell the asset or they would default us.

14:56 And, also, I think, globally, there's been so much media coverage on on Egypt's performance that, you know, I think it's been quite public that Egypt has struggled. And we're not the only company. Every other company in our peer group in Egypt has really struggled over the last twelve months to to to keep operations ongoing.

15:14 And that coupled with the forecast for 2024, which we only saw at the back end of last year as well, mind you, really left us with a clear decision that, you know, exiting Egypt was the only way forward for for for for United and getting out of the asset. So we we did we did we did try to keep our shareholders up to date. In fact, on on every shareholder call we had as well, we also briefed shareholders that, you know, the situation was challenging. We were doing the best we could to manage our working capital and to to avoid an equity issuance. We do that to the best of our ability, and I think it's a testament to our team that we were able to do that for the second half of last year. But we we did reference as much as we could in in in our RNSs to the market. Perfect. Thank you. The next question asks, you said Egypt was a transformational asset. How could you get it so wrong?

16:04 Well, certainly, when we bought the asset, it was transformational for the company. We were we were very much aligned on the equity market to fund the business. We hadn't been a producer, and we hadn't got a track record of raising debt. We now have a track record in the debt market. We haven't had to issue equity in in in four years. So it did strengthen the business. We learned a hell of a lot as well, some expensive lessons, but also some very valuable lessons.

16:29 And, unfortunately, Egypt just didn't deliver the value we would have liked it to deliver. And we could live with we could we could live with that to an extent that it wasn't delivering value for shareholders no matter what we seem to do with it. We just couldn't seem to move the share price on it. But we could live with that because it was generating cash, which meant we didn't have to raise equity. But once that began to turn a corner and as we our forecast for this year was that the asset actually lose money, it made sense then to to to exit. So the last two years certainly has been very unfortunate. The last twelve months has been very challenging for the asset, and it's been very difficult and disappointing.

17:10 Perfect. The next question asks, this call has been very helpful. Does the company plan to hold another similar call? And if so, when? We've no balance at the minute, but I'm very happy. You know, look, I've spoken to quite a few shareholders in in in in the last week or two. They've reached out to me, and I I've spoken with them, and they've also sent me quite a lot of email, as you can imagine. I've read every I've read every email. I've responded where I could respond, and I've I've I've spoken to shareholders. But there has been, you know, consistent feedback about my engagement with shareholders needs to improve. And I accept that. The board's engagement with shareholder needs to improve, and and the board accept that. So certainly going forward, you will see a much more engaged management team with our shareholders to reenfranchise them in the story, which is their company after all, the shareholders on the company. So it's very important that we reengage with shareholders more consistently.

18:06 We spent so much time in the last six months in particular firefighting with the asset, and it's taken up so much of our bandwidth that it's been very difficult to carve out time to to to speak to shareholders. But certainly going forward, it's something that we need to embrace.

18:22 Perfect. Thanks for that. Just turning to the next question, which asks, what is the estimated $20.24 cost associated with the piston survey in Jamaica? Well, we kicked off the preplanning yesterday, and that would be subject to tendering. So I I don't really want to disclose that because I don't want to jeopardize under any tendering process of what we believe the estimate would would be. But it's suffice to say that the equity raise that we are looking to complete at the GM next week will con will will will will more than fund that that piece of work. It it will be sub $400,000, but I don't wanna say more than that because I don't wanna jeopardize any tendering process.

19:03 Perfect. Thank you. And just just sticking with Jamaica, another question, which asked, when is this piston core work due to begin? Was it really in our interest to raise at these levels to execute this work now rather than wait and do it at a higher price? Well, I think doing the equity raise now is absolutely critical, particularly given this morning's announcement in Egypt where they have further evaluated the currency by 30%. An equity raise in a in two weeks, three weeks, or a month's time, or two months' time could have been even more challenging for us with with a legacy footprint in in in Egypt. So I'm I'm quite relieved that we've actually managed to get this equity done in the time frame that we that we did. We plan on kicking off that process, and we need to be careful because we will come up against hurricane season. But we plan on kicking that that that work off early summer. But, again, that is subject to us being able to get the permitting, the tendering, and all over the line in time for that. But we are gonna move pretty quick quick on it, and it'll be Hirona's number one key delivery for us in in the immediate term is is getting the permitting sorted, and we've done this before. We've experienced in it when we when we were doing the the three d seismic acquisition with Tullow. We know our way around that. And in fact, her own actually worked on that project for Tullow previously. So we've we've we we we know we know what we need to do.

20:27 We are in a bit of a tight timeline, but we're working hard to to get that get that kicked off before hurricane season kicks in. If we miss the hurricane season, it'd be it'd be late summer before we we get that work done. But it's important we start the preplanning now, and we start tendering. We start the environmental impact work, and we also start the permitting work.

20:50 Well, I reiterate what I said in the in the presentation. It it's it's really exciting to be doing stuff positive again. It's it's quite a while since we've been able to to get this type of work done that, you know, is positive. It's value accretive for the asset, which should should come true into into value in the company. It's exciting to be doing this stuff again rather than firefighting, as I've said, and and trying to manage really tight cash flows out of out of Egypt and the the pressure we're under regarding sourcing US dollar. This is this is much more beneficial for shareholders to be doing this type of work. Perfect. Thank you. The next question asks, Brian, can you tell us a bit more about your commitment in the placing?

21:31 My own commitment, personally, is that is that what's been asked? I'll assume that's what's what's what's been asked. I I've I'm I'm doing as much as I can in this current placing from my own personal circumstances. This is as much as I can do right now at this moment in time. Same for my board. But we need to get this placing done. It's important that it gets done in order to drive the business forward. Perfect. Thank you. And and just sticking with that, a follow on question which asks, can you tell me a bit more about how shareholders could participate in the placing? Well, there's two ways. It's a really good question. I'm glad it's been asked because I I understand there's been a lot of commentary on social media about it. There's two ways to do a placing. The first one is it's announced as a fate to complete that it's been done.

22:17 The second one is to announce an advanced book build, and that gives shareholders a small window, but a window nonetheless to participate in in the equity raise. And and that's what we did. We announced an advanced book build at a quarter past four on on on the day itself, and that gave shareholders some time to submit any orders if they wanted to. And quite a number of shareholders did, and they got their full allocation. Everybody else was predominantly scaled back, but shareholders who did put in an order of stock got their full allocation. And the way it normally works is brokers would normally pick up the RNS and pick up the phone to their private clients, particularly those clients who are existing shareholders in UNITED. So I'm sorry if shareholders didn't get a call from their broker.

23:04 I'm sorry if they missed the RNS, but

23:06 we can only leave the information public for a short period of time because, you know, it could be detrimental to the to the existing participants in in in the placing insofar as the share price could drop considerably. They could withdraw. So we are under pretty tight timelines in how far in insofar as how long we can leave it open. We normally, it's it's you announce a quarter past four before the market closes. You give shareholders some time while the market's open, but also overnight into the next day to submit any orders that they may have. And in fact, we got several orders from existing shareholders overnight and into the into the early morning before we announced the the closure of the book build. And those shareholders and I'm assuming some of them are on the call today because they told me they would be joining. They they got they got their full allocation. So I'm sorry if shareholders

23:58 missed out on this. We did the best we could to do an advanced book build to to in order to allow shareholders to have a chance to to participate. I'm sorry if if if brokers are are didn't reach out, and I'm sorry if the were were missed. You can subscribe to various platforms where you will be emailed copies of RNSs. And also on our website, you can sign up, and and we will issue the RNS to you directly as soon as it's announced as well, so in order to avoid that that that happening again. Perfect. Thank you. And, another fundraise related question. Are there any institutions, in the book, investments rather than trading institutions? No. It's it's it's predominantly led by long term institutions. And in fact, one or two existing shareholders have participated in the placing.

24:51 So it is we anticipate it being tightly held. There's no guarantees on that. I you know, there's always a little bit of trading around the edges, but it's the book is predominantly institutional led. It's not trading houses. It's not it's not flippers. It's it's it's it's a really in fact, it's probably you know, we've we've done about five or six equity raises since the formation of the company or sorry, since the IPO in 2017, and it's probably the best book we've we've we've put together, actually. It's it's it's really solid. There are shareholders who will be with us for the long term as well and will support us in in in what is our growth ambitions. Perfect. Thank you. Does the company look for further m and a activity? Absolutely. Our bandwidth has obviously changed considerably, because of the share price performance, so, you know, we have to be cognizant of that.

25:41 But that's always been a challenge for us. You know, if if you look at our ingredients and our ability to transact, so, you know, we've got our relationship with BP, which is still in place. It's very important to to highlight that. Our relationship or our agreements with BP are still all in place. Nothing has changed. We have that capacity, obviously. We've we've got the vehicle in in in in the company now, and we've got the team to transact. The missing ingredient or or or the challenge within within that is the equity. That's obviously gotten harder in the last two weeks. But sometimes you have to take a step back, sometimes two or three steps back to take four, five, or six joint leaps forward. We've had to do that, you know, in January and February. We've had to swallow a lot of pain, make some very difficult decisions in order to springboard forward.

26:33 So the the challenge for us is always equity, but that that challenge, whether we have a market cap of 2,000,000 or a market cap of 10,000,000 or 20,000,000, that that equity challenge is always gonna gonna be there. And one of the things that, you know, I think we have been good at the last four or five years is is is the protection of equity. This has been difficult for us, this equity raise, obviously, and we haven't taken the decision to do this lightly at all. In fact, we we exhausted every other avenue to recapitalize the business rather than this. But it's one we've had to do, and we have have to swallow it. But we've always looked at opportunities whereby there's no or minimum equity component. So, you know and we can see transactions, and we've we've we've hit the crossbar and we've hit the post on a few potential opportunities last year, whereby the deal would have been structured largely by debt.

27:23 And then the fair contingent payment out of out of revenue or or success based payments or contingent based payments structured around various success milestones. So deals can be done, regardless of, you know, our market cap been low been been, you know, 2,000,000 or 20,000,000. You know, deals still can still can get done without, you know, equity components. We obviously have a challenge that is gonna be very difficult for us now to go out and do, you know, a $20,000,000 deal. It would have been easier for us to do that a year ago. That's obvious. But what we were really good at, and anybody that's been a long term show shareholder shareholder will tell you this, what we were really good at after our IPO in 2017 was doing small incremental deals. And in fact, we did a two year period. We did a deal every six months, which included Jamaica. We did Italy. We did something in the North Sea. We took an option on an asset in Benin.

28:16 So we did we did quite a lot of small incremental deals that were actually quite value accretive. You know? It's not that long ago that our share price was up to 5 p. Really, the focus for us now in terms of driving value again will be small incremental transactions like the one I've just mentioned. Getting back to doing small, sensible deals that create quick value for shareholders. And in order to do that, we need to get this placing over the line so our balance sheet is strengthened that we can go and actually it gives us a platform to start doing what we were doing so well back in 2017. We're gaining some momentum back in the share price, restoring value, adding value through assets, and then been able to take another swing

28:58 at a bit at the at a bigger opportunity. As I said, all the ingredients are still there. The BP relationship is still there. It's as strong as it ever was. And I should also thank them for their support, particularly around how things progress with with Egypt. They were very supportive in our in our decision to walk away. And in fact, it was their advice as well was to guys, you brought this as far as you can in terms of a divestment. You cannot you cannot move it any fur further than what you've done. We've always acted with you, Sean, clear transparency with with with BP, obviously. So they they they they're very supportive. They're very much in our corner. The vehicle is still in place. The team is in place. The the hard part for us is is the equity component, but we we believe we can solve that with, you know, sensible sellers of assets who who will take contingent deferred payment. And, you we see deals structured like that that all the time.

29:47 We normally have several opportunities under evaluation at any one point in time. And and and when we do, we we we always know maybe five or six of them are just not for us. Maybe one or two are are worth a closer look. Today, we wouldn't have seven opportunities under review. We've probably got a smaller handful. We've probably got about three of which one or two we we we quite like. And, you know, we would hope that there'd be no minute there'd be no equity component required if we were to move forward with one of those. So we see we are seeing opportunities. You know, we want to we want to we wanna scale back up. We wanna regrow the company and recreate value for our shareholders. And and and in order to do that, you know, it will be by developing our existing assets, which is our our our organic growth strategy, and then inorganically via, you know, smaller incremental deals that that that can add value. You know, we we so, say, I point back to period from 2017 into 2019, you know, before we we we did the Egyptian deal whereby we were doing deals every six months, literally announcing deals a deal every six months.

30:56 That started with Selva in Italy, and then we did a North Sea asset, and then we did Jamaica. We did something in Benin as well. So we we wanna get back to doing that where we're actually creating a portfolio of assets, spreading some risk across the portfolio, very minimum CapEx requirement to maintain the assets, but huge potential upside. And we wanna get back to building a small platform of assets like that so that then we can go and take a swing

31:22 at the bat somewhere else on something bigger that that that can generate some revenue. But I it's also very important just to remember that we will have revenue coming back from our Watercross license in q one next year. So, really, you know, we just need to bridge a financing gap between now and then, and and displacing will help do that. Perfect. Thank you, Brian. Just turning to the next question, it asks, it would be great if Brian could please expand upon the value, that this piston core work might add. Would it allow United Oil and Gas a stronger hand in JV deals? Why does the ministry need this piece done when so much work has been done already? Okay. There's a couple of points in that. Let let me let me try I I I'll try and capture all of them. So just give me that again. So value the ministry, why they want it done, and and may maybe it'll help if I explain what it is as well.

32:19 So so pissing corn survey is relatively cheap, low hanging fruit piece of work, but can be quite value accretive. So we announced last year just to give a little bit more context first, because we announced in in q three, q four last year, we we we didn't have a preferred partner for Jamaica. We were well advanced in our discussions. That preferred partner withdrew almost at the eleventh hour and withdrew because of a change in in strategy for them. They they they wanted to go in a different strategic direction. But we're obviously very frustrated about that. And to be perfectly honest, I think that my language is a little bit colorful around it as well. But nonetheless, the positive takeaway from that was that company had commercially completed all of their due diligence and technically completed all of their due diligence, and the project had had ticked every box.

33:11 That was without the piss and corn survey done. We decided to go ahead and do this. It's not a ministry requirement. We wanted to do it, just to be clear, because we believe it will significantly devalue sorry. Significantly. The opposite should happen. We should significantly derisk the follow on exploration

33:31 potential and development potential within the acreage. So, essentially, what it is is it's putting a vessel to sea, and it's taking a core sample of where we've seen oil seeps to check for the migration or check sorry. Check for the presence of of hydrocarbons within the rock. It's relatively shallow core samples we'll extract and and take them, send them off to the lab to check for the the the the presence of of of hydrocarbons. It's naturally something like that would devalue or sorry, in in would derisk project con considerably. So it's an important piece of work, but it doesn't stop our fondant efforts. Our fondant efforts will run concurrent with that. It's just more value added work that we can do. You know, you you never you never stop trying to derisk an exploration project.

34:19 You never can fully derisk an exploration project by its nature, but you do every piece of work that you can.

34:26 And we think that this piece of work could be quite valuable in in both the farm out effort, but also around planning for for for future wells. We kicked off the process yesterday at a meeting here. I I flew to Kingston on Monday. I'm in Kingston today. I was in Kingston yesterday and today. I fly back to to Dublin tonight. I've been here for forty eight hours. But we kicked off the preplanning meeting yesterday with some stakeholders to to to to essentially start planning for the processes that we need to go through in order to kick off off that survey. We were we were we were with MCET, the ministry, this morning. It's it's morning time here, obviously, but I'll be with MCET this morning as well, the ministry, to to go through the 2024 work program with them again in more detail and and and also to to inform them of our planning around this inquiry survey.

35:16 So it wasn't a ministry requirement. It was one that we put forward, which they which they agreed with. They've seen the value in it. We feel that it will add value to to the process, and it will it will also help derisk the exploration well that we we we'd like to drill, but also the follow on exploration within the acreage. And we believe it will be a hugely valuable piece of work to have in the data room. And, also, we wanted to say to potential partners that, look, we're not waiting around. You know, we're getting on with this. We're not gonna wait around. If you wanna participate, you know, you you you've gotta get you you you know, you gotta work to our timeline too here. It's very hard to get large companies to work to our timeline naturally because, you know, they have their own procedures and that they need to go through for project approval.

36:06 But we we don't wanna sit in our hands, and and sitting on our hands is

36:10 creating value for nobody. By by by raising this capital, we can put it to work straight away in Jamaica and developing the asset as much as we can whilst we continue to try and bring in in a partner. And it's positive work. It's value adding work. You know, we're we're we're back developing the business. We're back working on the business rather than working in the business by creating value in in in in this asset. Perfect. Thank you. Just turning to the next question, which asks, is UK onshore an area of interest for further growth?

36:42 Well, absolutely. We, you know, we've got an onshore UK license. We're also looking at the performance of some of our UK peers and how they performed, not just from a share price perspective, but also how their assets have performed for them. Onshore UK is highly profitable. The barrels are hugely profitable. The operating costs are extremely low. There's no payment risk. There's no US dollar risk, and it was our intention, you know, towards the back end of last summer. We made a decision as a board that we would divest out of Egypt and and and essentially, you know, reallocate our resources into developing the UK asset because although it would be a lot less barrels of production, we're actually far more profitable and and and far more cash generative than than Egypt was.

37:33 And I look at the performance of some of the other peer groups, you know, and and their cash balances relative to their levels of production, relative to our market cap. And, you know, if we wanna restore value, you know, we need to we need to look at how we can do that and how we can do it quickly. We've got a UK asset previously in production.

37:54 We've got a partner on that, Egden, who some of you may be familiar with, but Egden successfully navigated the challenges that were around our wrestle asset, particularly around planning, permitting, and and things like that that you go through various appeals. So they're extremely experienced in the planning and permitting process of of of The UK, and they're a good partner. We've been working with them since in fact, it was the very first license that that I bought when I started the company before we even listed it. We bought it out of administration for a pound. We're very good at doing deals like that. We need to get back to that. But it was it was our very first license, and the fact we we we built a company on it. We IPO ed on the back of it, and it would be great to finally get it into production early next year. Now the revenue number is not gonna be particularly high off it, but the cash number will be, and and, we're excited about that. And and the importance of this equity placing is to bridge the gap between now and then.

38:48 Like, that's all the good news. The bad news is we got to issue equity at at point two p, but but there is quite a lot of good news in terms of how we move forward. We move forward. We're kicking off the the Jamaican work program. We If get a partner in Jamaica, the share price is gonna move considerably. And that's just a no brainer. The share price will will will move considerably. You know, doing this equity raise allows us to to to to it gives us a chance of advancing that. You know? By sitting on our hands, we're not really advancing it. We're kind of in everybody else's we're in everybody else's hands to move that project forward. Instead, we graft a nettle. We move forward with a clear plan to deliver value on this asset. We've also got Watercross, obviously. So so there's there's a lot of positives.

39:36 The negative is we've had to place a point too. If we can get over that, we can see the way forward very clearly with with Watercross, with Jamaica, and also with potential other assets we can bring into the portfolio. I'll go back to to my point of what we were doing in 2017. We were doing a deal every six months. It's a hugely exciting period for the company with huge support from the stock exchange, with huge support from shareholders, with a lot of momentum. Share price at one stage is up to 5 p. We were at 6 p once, but that's for the week. But we we we had a lot of momentum behind us because we were transacting, because we were creating value, and we wanna get back to doing that. Perfect. Thank you. The next question asks, you mentioned the Piston core survey. Are you able to tell us a little bit more about the extent, of the work program in Jamaica that that will be funded?

40:25 Yeah. So there there there is some internal work we'd like to do. So, again, you're always we have an excellent team. And, you know, I speak about them probably not enough, actually, but we have technically, we have an extremely strong team in in sitting in Dublin. And I hope some are on the call this morning as I'm sitting in Kingston, and they hear it directly from me. But they're constantly monitoring new and advancing technologies. In our industry, the technology, particularly in things like seismic, it evolves very quickly. And there is a subset of the seismic that we'd like to have another look at in terms of reprocessing it, and the team are gonna kick that off internally in Dublin. And and that will kick off very, very shortly in the coming weeks. So that's the plan is to is to is to do that work alongside doing the piston core survey, and we will be announcing the results of that work. You know, one of the things and I take onboard the feedback, you know, shareholders have given me in the last couple of weeks is is our engagement.

41:22 One of things we haven't been great at is is keeping the mark up to date keep the market up to date on on progress, not just, you know, in Egypt where we would have just announced splitting of a well or a well result, but more of the technical studies that we're completing, the technical work that what they're doing, but also explaining what it means, the value it it creates. So it's our intention now moving forward to to to RNS much more, the different value trigger stages in the work that we're doing. So, you know, we'll announce the the tendering, the award of the tender for for the piston foreign survey. We'll obviously announce that's completed. There'll be quite a lot of imagery taken from that work that we shared in social media, and we'll announce the results of that. And we'll also announce the results of the planning work and preplanning work for for for Water Cross, obviously. So I think I think one of things we've been guilty at, and we haven't been good at it, is is keeping the market informed.

42:13 And, look, we take that feedback on board, and and we will we will change in that regard. It's it's it's something that we have to do, and and it will demonstrate clear value to shareholders as well of of the value of that work and and the hard work that my team are are putting in all year round. Thanks, Brian. The next question that we have here relates to Jamaica and asks, what's the interest really like here? Please provide some detail in relation to the deal which never happened. Interesting this morning that two UK juniors separately announced deals on early stage exploration assets with super majors, exactly like what United and Oil and Gas are trying to do. Do you see the big end of town coming back to do deals like this in Jamaica?

43:01 Yeah. The the answer is yes. And all boats rise in a high tide. So it was when I seen that news this morning, I was punched in the air. Bear in mind that I'm five hours behind you, so I only picked it up about two hours ago. But I think it's I think it's super news to see super majors coming back into expiration. I think it's one of the I don't think I've seen a pharma deal like it announced in quite a while that's for for expiration. So the answer is yes. We we we are seeing, you know, we've spoken about this over the last six months on on on a real shareholder calls. We are seeing super majors coming back into exploration projects. But, you know, that that was kind of predictable because, you know, as they as they use up their their resource bank of of barrels, the only way they replace those barrels is is really by exploration or buying other production companies.

43:52 You know? And there's only so many of those out there. So so exploration projects is really where they they they source our future barrels. And, you know, the world has been so much focused on producing barrels for the last four or five years. The cycle was bound to come back eventually, and this morning's news is is good news for for all companies with with exploration projects. What makes Jamaica quite interesting is it's it's essentially drill ready. Although we're doing quite a bit of technical work this year, it it is it is pretty much it is essentially drill ready project. And what the major is like and a large company is like is drill ready projects that they can they can turn the drill bit fairly quickly to to they don't, you know, they don't want a long lead of five years into into an exploration drilling.

44:38 I can't share the the the the the deal details of the previous conversations that we were having. That wouldn't be commercially smart for me to do that. There could be some other companies on this call today that that that may be interested in Jamaica. So I don't think it would be wise to to share share details of of of anything that we've discussed previously with any of interested party. Not only is it not wise, but I also am under NDA. Those nondisclosure agreements tend to be watertight and keep us bound, you know, not to disclose conversations that we that have taken place. So, unfortunately, I can't. But, you know, we will be working towards getting the best possible farm out deal we can for our shareholders.

45:26 That's obviously our key deliverable on this asset. It's it's it's the it's the only deliverable that that is the most value adding deliverable for our shareholders is getting the best possible deal we can. And and and we're we we have we have an experienced board who's been through many farm outs and and many farm ins for that matter who who will be who will be advising me and and my team on on getting the best possible deal for for our shareholders. Perfect. Thank you. Just turning to the next question, which asks, is there a legal restriction on BP becoming partners in Jamaica? Should they and UNITED OIL and GAS wish so? There have been rumors of a conflict of interest for them due to the credit facilities, so it would be good to get clarity on this.

46:12 Well, we do have a we do have the credit we do have a a relationship with BP, obviously. And I I don't wanna really speak for BP. I can't really do that. But we obviously have an existing relationship with them. There's potentially a conflict in that if they were to come in as as as a partner at the expiration side, the potential internal conflicts with them. But I don't wanna talk on behalf of BP. I don't think that's that that's appropriate. I'm sorry. Can't be more give more flavor on it, but but I don't feel that I I it's right of me to speak on behalf of of BP. Thank you. The next question that we have here asks, does the company feel the current cash burn and staffing levels are sustainable? Yes.

46:57 Obviously, to raise money, you have to get Nomad approval, you also have to get the broking team to to sign off and approve approve that. And in order to do that, you gotta demonstrate a cash flow forecast for at least twelve months. And we've also been able to do that because the Nomad has signed off on on replacing us as the broking team. So we do have sufficient cash resources to move the business forward. Staffing level, we we've obviously lost a couple of people over the last year. We just won't be replacing them. We've a very small team in Dublin made up of five people. That's essentially it now. There has been cost savings, obviously, with g and a cost savings with with stepping out of Egypt. We'll see them wash through over the next couple of weeks and months as well. So there has been cost savings, but the like, I think the biggest saving really for shareholders is is bandwidth and management time and board time. So much has been spent trying to manage the Egyptian asset flying up and down to Cairo to make sure to try and source dollars.

47:58 It was a huge amount of our time was taken up, and it made it very difficult to look at other opportunities to to scale up, you know, to to bring other assets into the portfolio because it just took up so much time. I've been free of that. You know, we've been we've been able to start working on the business again rather than always working in it. We've been able to start working on it and and and, you know, trying to look at ways of how can we create value, how can we restore shareholder value and the share price. You know, first thing we can do is we can well, we can we we let's let's not sit on our hands. Let's we have a credible plan. Let's go and make it happen. Look. I know myself. Look. We we lose some people along the way. I I get that. I understand that. I understand that. But I am gonna drive this forward. This we have a plan. We're gonna action that plan.

48:45 It starts with kicking off the Jamaica work program, which I'm here in Kingston yesterday and today to do. We're working with Egton to get to move what across forward. We're looking at a couple of other opportunities, which we could potentially do, which would be I believe would add some value and and give us some some more optionality within the portfolio. You know, we need to go and do these things, and and we haven't been able to do anything like that for the last six months because Egypt has just been so time consuming for for for us as a team. We don't have we don't have a big team. We don't have a large g and a burn. There's there's there's no fat in our in our p and l. I'm an accountant at the end of the day, so I understand it better than most, but but there's certainly there's no there's no fat. And we've we've reduced costs across the company last year. We did it again in January this year. We ripped any cost that wasn't absolute necessity is gone.

49:44 The important thing is that, you know, every pound, dollar, and euro we spend is going into creating value in the assets. We gotta be mindful that, you know, we gotta make our cash last us, but it is it is imperative that we we we get this placing approved by shareholders next week. It's absolutely imperative. It's catastrophic not to get it done. We We could be sitting on our hands for quite a while, not creating value for anybody while the share price continues to slip. And we have explored every other possible avenue to source capital to avoid an equity placing, and we just we it just couldn't be done in the in the current climate. So we we we have to swallow the pain so that we can start rebuilding. If we don't swallow the pain, we can't rebuild. It's as simple as that. Thank you, Brian. And perhaps the final question here, which asks, do you have a final message for the shareholders about the future of the company?

50:35 Yep. I do. We have to I I I think I mentioned it a few minutes ago, but, you know, we we've been dealt a very difficult hand of cards, in Egypt. As a born, as a team, we played the played our hand as best as we possibly could. We we may not have gotten everything right, but I think we've got most things right over the last two or three months, as painful as they have been. And just because they're painful, you know, it doesn't mean they're wrong. The right decision sometimes can be very painful ones to to to carry out. And this is this equity placing has been very painful on on on all of us. The stress on our shareholders, particularly around the share price performance, I feel and I understand. I'm a shareholder myself. Everything I've got is in this company. I started it, you know, back in 2015, and and I'm I'm totally committed to to to rebuilding it and regrowing it.

51:32 But the future is bright now. We can we need to get this equity raise out of the way, and and then we can focus on delivering good news for shareholders instead of bad news around asset performance or production levels or wells not coming in or workovers not working. We can now start delivering good news for shareholders, you know, starting with the piston coring survey, the Jamaica extension been secured, Herona's appointment. You know, we have a pathway on e on on Jamaica for the next eight to twelve months to to to really get after some of the the the value and locking the value via the Bissencoran survey, but also the three d seismic reprocessing. We'll be moving forward with water cross into getting that well into production or that asset into production in q one next year.

52:17 We can also get on and start looking at one or two smaller opportunities that would deliver incremental value for our shareholders and start scaling again. I'm really excited about you know, I wanna get through next week. I wanna get this placing approved. It's imperative that we do. And I'm excited then about next Monday morning when we can come back to our desk and start saying, right. Let's really drive things forward now. The company's on solid footing for the next while. We have an opportunity now to to to regrow the company, add value, engage our shareholders more frequently, and and and and drive drive the company forward. Displacing is absolutely imperative. We get it done. We just have to swallow the pain so that we can restore shareholder value. To not do it could be catastrophic for any value for shareholders. It's so important we get this done and move on.

53:08 Brian, thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors. And, of course, we will be able to give you back any further questions that do come through, immediately after the presentation has ended just for you to review, to then add any additional responses, of course, where it's appropriate to do so. And we'll publish all those responses out on the platform. But, Brian, perhaps before really just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that would be great. Yeah. Look. I think we've covered quite a lot in a in a in a short period of time. Like, I understand shareholders' frustrations when we, you know, we we had to make a decision in the last couple of weeks. It wasn't our intention, you know, in January to raise equity.

53:54 It was our intention to try and manage through, and navigate the challenges that were betrothed at us and the curveballs that were were coming our way. It's our intention not to raise equity and and and and try and manage as best we could. But as a board, we decided strategically that that just wasn't in the best interest of shareholders because that meant we could be sitting on our hands for quite a while, relying on other people to to bring value to us rather than us actually saying, well, look. You know what? We're gonna own this. We're not gonna bury our head in the sands. We understand the problems we've got. Now we're gonna go and solve them and start working through them so that we can regrow the company. I'm urging shareholders to vote this placing through. It's absolutely imperative that we do this so that we can start restoring value for you. If we don't vote this through, it could be catastrophic for the company, and it will erode future value for the it'll erode value immediately if this is not bolted through. The share price will will will will limp further down in our opinion. It's imperative that we get this through so that we can start restoring value for you and that we can start rebuilding the company. We've we've had to swallow a lot of pain in Egypt in the last two months.

55:05 We we get this place in your grade next week. We draw a line in the sand on Egypt, we move on, and we start rebuilding value. And I would hope in a year's time we're saying, Christ almighty, we're glad we got out of Egypt. Look at where we are now. And that's fully that's that's been our that's been in our power to deliver that. But I cannot I cannot deliver, that value back to shareholders without displacing getting approved next week. It's absolutely imperative. We've learned some difficult lessons which we have to take on board. And as a board and as a CEO, I hold my hands up. We didn't get everything right, but we've learned we we learned from those, from from from what we've been through, and we tried to we tried to take our shareholders' feedback on board as well. And but but we did we did our best with some of the core balls we were thrown.

55:56 But now it's time to talk about the future. It's time to start talking about the way forward. The way forward is Jamaica. It's Water Cross. It's potentially bringing other things into the portfolio that will create value for shareholders. That's the way forward, and that's what we need to focus on now. That's the good news. That's the good bit. The bad bit's the placing price, but let's focus on the good bit. We we kicked off the work program here in Kingston meeting next in the next hour with with the ministry, which would be a really good meeting, really positive meeting. I'll fly back to to to Dublin tonight. We gotta focus on on on the positives now and and moving the company forward, the good stuff, Jamaica, Watercross, and what else we can add into the business. Perfect. Brian, thank you once again for updating investors, this afternoon.

56:43 Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of UNITED OIL and GAS PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.