Central Petroleum Limited (CTP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. I'm Leon Devaney, CEO and Managing Director of Central Petroleum. I'm joined today by Damian Galvin, our CFO. Today's presentation will cover Central's financial results for the June 2024 quarter, along with other updates. I'll also talk about our recent gas sales agreement, which I believe is one of the most important transactions this company has ever executed. You can see on your screen, an opportunity to lodge questions online throughout the presentation today. We will look to answer those at the end of the presentation. But before we get into the presentation itself, I'd like to begin by recognizing the great safety record we have been maintaining. Our total recordable injury frequency rate, or TRIFR, has been 0 for more than 18 months, which is a great testament to our operations team on site and here in Brisbane. Well done, and let's continue to keep that focus on safety as we close out 2024. I'd like to now hand it over to Damian to discuss last quarter's results.

Thanks, Leon. The June quarter was again impacted by the ongoing closure of the oil and gas pipeline, which reduced sales for most April as we were prevented from delivering gas to our Mount Isa customers and into the East Coast spot markets. Importantly, our alternative gas sale agreement with Power and Water Corporation saw us redirect gas production into the Northern Territory market from late April. And this allowed production at Mereenie and Palm Valley to return to full capacity from the end of April with a brief turndown in June due to the seasonal demand fluctuations. So as a result, the June quarter production volumes were 3% higher than the lows that we experienced in the March quarter. The revenues followed that recovery with $8.4 million of revenue for the quarter. That was up 2% with a slightly lower average sales price across the portfolio. And for the full year, sales revenues were down 10% at $34 million, thus reflecting the lower volumes and the restricted deliveries to higher-priced contracts due to the interruptions to the Northern Gas Pipeline throughout the year. And the good news is that the outlook is now very positive, and as we'll explain shortly, as our recently announced firm gas supply agreement with Northern Territory Government commences at the start of next year on January 2025, and it continues all the way through to 2030, largely removing the pipeline risk and elevating our average portfolio pricing. The other good news is that our balance sheet is stronger than it's ever been. So for the first time in a decade, we're in a net cash rather than a net debt position. So our net -- cash balance of $25 million or about $1 million net of bank debt and leases puts us in a pretty strong financial position. That includes improving cash flows from these newer higher-priced contracts, a declining debt service and the conclusion of the presold gas contract which ended last December. Before we look beyond 2024, I want to quickly revisit the impact of the Northern Gas Pipeline closures on FY '24. And I think this chart illustrates pretty clearly how the year has unfolded. So you can see the dips there where the pipeline was closed in September and November, and it's been closed from February onwards. And had we not acted to put in place that alternative contract with Power and Water Corp in April, production would have remained down around 20 terajoules per day on a full field basis for the whole of the June quarter and right through -- continuing through today. So the new contract covers the remainder of calendar year 2024 on an as-available basis. And this means the customer can choose if they want to buy the gas on any given day. So it's not a firm contract, and production can still be turned down. You'll see that there were a couple of shorter reductions, one in July and one in August, due to that lower seasonal demand and some pipeline works, remembering that winter tends to have a seasonally lower gas demand in the NT as lower temperatures result in reduced electricity generation. But look, we would expect to be at full production on a more consistent basis as we move into spring and into those peak summer months. Now in addition, the NT gas market is likely to tighten through the remainder of this year as the Blacktip field declines and the Bayu-Undan gas, which is supplied through the closed Darwin LNG plant, tails off. Where's new gas coming from? Look, we've got additional gas from a new Blacktip well, could eventuate at the end of this year. And then -- but any gas from Beetaloo would still seem to be at least 12 months away. So I think the upside is gas from Mereenie and Palm Valley is, at present, the most reliable source of gas in the NT. It's currently supplying about 50% of the Northern Territory's gas demand from those 2 fields. And that gives us confidence that the remainder of this year, 2024, will be significantly better than what we've seen in the last 12 months. And the new contracts that we've just secured for 2025 and beyond certainly provide a very healthy outlook. So back to Leon to explain in more detail what that might look like.

Thanks, Damian. Three months ago, we announced a formal marketing process via an expression of interest for the sale of our uncontracted gas through 2030. We had 3 critical objectives for the EOI process. Our primary objective was to secure a term gas price that reflected the growing risk of a shortfall of firm gas in the NT and East Coast markets. A second objective was to mitigate the NGP risk that was emerging and [ headed merge ] is a real challenge over the past year. Damian spoke to this earlier. We could accomplish this by contracting at least 20 TJs per day to the East Coast customers, which would then ensure that there was enough gas in the NGP to keep it operating on a firm basis; or alternatively, we could sell all of our firm gas to NT customers with high take-or-pay provisions to remove our reliance on the NGP. Final objective of the EOI process was to structure gas agreements that could underwrite 2 proposed development wells at Mereenie that would increase production back to above 30 TJs per day at that field. Two weeks ago, we announced that we had successfully concluded our EOI process by entering into gas sale agreements with the Northern Territory Government or NTG, commencing 1 January 2025. These supply agreements covered our firm gas from Mereenie and Palm Valley. This transaction is not just another GSA. This is a major milestone for Central and in my view, one of the most important transactions that Central has ever executed. Here are some reasons why. First and foremost, our marketing strategy with the EOI process created the competitive tension necessary to get term gas price that reflected our view that the gas market is increasingly at risk of being short on firm gas supply. Locking in gas prices within this market dynamic on a firm basis bolsters our future cash flow. This is something that will start to become visible once the NTG GSA commences at the start of next year. To put the financial impact of gas prices into some perspective, based on last quarter's results, we can generate an estimated 50% increase in our operating margin and free cash flow from operations by increasing our average realized portfolio price by $2 per gigajoule equivalent. Our recent average portfolio price was just under $8 per gigajoule equivalent. So in short, an increase in the portfolio gas price has twice the impact on our free cash flow, which opens the possibility of bringing forward distributions to shareholders. Second, Central has about 1.5 petajoules of gas currently contracted to East Coast customers in 2025. This equals about $12 million in revenue using our recent average portfolio price. This revenue was at risk of not being fully realized if the NGP closures continue to occur through next year. The NTG GSA allows us to meet our obligations to our East Coast customers when the NGP is operational, but it also provides a backstop provision where we sell that gas on a firm basis to the NT government when the NGP is not open. This removes a major financial risk for the company in 2025, which you can see in this chart as the yellow striped area. Third, the NTG GSA recognizes our production as a base gas supply through strong take-or-pay provisions that ensure we can sell and generate cash flow from our existing firm production over the next 60 years. Finally, the NTG GSA gives us the option to increase the firm contracted volume under the agreement by up to 6 TJs per day following the successful drilling of any new wells, essentially underwriting that investment. Accordingly, we recently announced that the Mereenie JV has formally approved the drilling of 2 new development wells that are intended to return production at the Mereenie field to above 30 TJs per day. We also executed a drilling contract to use Ventia Australia's Rig 101 to drill these 2 development wells, which will be targeting crestal locations. We have already completed planning and permitting for the wells, so commencement of drilling is anticipated in late December of this year or early January 2025 when the rig finishes its current campaign in Queensland. Each Mereenie well takes out 30 days to drill, so production from the first well could come online before March of next year. A couple of other aspects to our recent marketing activities that are worth mentioning at this time. First, in coordination with the NTG GSA, we have restructured our existing GSA with Arafura. The CP under that GSA has a completion date now of 31 December 2024, with first gas scheduled to commence 1 January 2028, as shown in this chart in blue. You can see in the chart that the NTG GSA is structured to essentially wrap around the restructured Arafura GSA so that all existing firm gas from both Mereenie and Palm Valley are now contracted through 2030. I want to clarify that the contracted volumes shown in this chart reflect only annual firm production from both fields. It does not include shorter-term firm production that might be available or as available production, which we will be looking to sell over the next 6 years in a way that takes advantage of market conditions at those times. The chart also does not include any production from any further drilling at Mereenie or any new wells at Palm Valley. We are currently planning for 2 more wells at Palm Valley. These wells would be extended lateral wells similar in design to the wells that we drilled at PV13 and PV12. Both of those were very successful with initial production rates averaging over 8 TJs per day per well. If we drill 2 similarly successful Palm Valley wells, we could increase Palm Valley production back to above the plant capacity of about 15 TJs per day for a sustained period. Central's 50% share of production from these 2 wells could be around 3 petajoules in the first year. This would essentially be doubling the existing contracted volumes shown in this chart. Given the current market pricing signals, the new wells at Palm Valley would deliver compelling economics and have a significant impact on future cash flows as early as next year. We've already been progressing planning and approvals for those wells prior to any final investment decision in order to preserve the opportunity to commence drilling in 2025. But I need to highlight that this investment still remains subject to joint venture approval. Moving on to other growth areas. We continue working to farm out our sub-salt permits in the Southern Amadeus Basin so that we can return to exploration drilling. I understand that following completion of a farm out drilling could commence as early as within 6 to 9 months because we do have permitting and approvals for Mount Kitty already advanced and long lead items are already in inventory with Santos. Mount Kitty is likely to be the first prospect drilled under a new farm out given the first well at Mount Kitty discovered gas containing 9% helium, which is obviously a very high concentration for any project focusing on helium revenues. Drilling a new well at Dukas or Mahler could then follow. Helium and gas prices in Australia certainly support investment in sub-salt drilling at Mount Kitty and Dukas, both of which are potential company makers for Central. We continue to look for a partner to drill an exploration well in EP 115, the exploration permit that is on strike with Mereenie and contains the Zevon sub-salt lead. We think this is an exciting piece of acreage. We're certainly looking to get new insights from our recently acquired seismic test line. We're presently reviewing that data and firming up some leads and prospects that potentially could attract farminees with further seismic and exploration drilling potential next step. Finally, our helium recovery project at Mereenie continues to progress albeit slowly. The expanded project now includes the helium liquefaction unit and the helium membrane separator. Helium liquefaction is very specialized with the required equipment concentrated with a few major global helium players. As we announced during the last webinar, we are working closely with a major helium supplier in the Australian market who is highly experienced in producing liquefied helium and marketing that project to a the set of helium users that require a highly purified liquid helium product. The expanded HRU project has some technical complexities with the presence of hydrogen and some noble gases, which has made progress slower than we'd like over the past year. As I've said in previous updates, this is not a quick and easy project, but we have a good team assembled, and the economics remain very strong. So I believe we can get to a final investment decision in the months ahead. In wrapping up, I think the fiscal year 2024 as a whole was a fairly slow year for us. We had the strategic review wrap up and conclude at the beginning of this year. And since then, we have been reengaging and getting back into a lot of the activities that we think will add value to the company and have a positive impact on the share price. So far, since the end of the fiscal year, we've completed the EOI process and executed the NTG GSA, which, as I mentioned, is a major contract for this company and will have a huge impact on our financial capacity and free cash flows going forward, which should be visible from the 1st of January next year. Subsequently, we've also now completed, as we mentioned, the final investment decision for 2 new wells at Mereenie, again, looking to increase production and sell into these attractive markets. So that's a real positive. We're going to continue to look at other opportunities to increase production. Those include the potential wells at Palm Valley, which I spoke to, but also potentially appraisal at the Mereenie Stairway, which we think is a contingent resource that looks very attractive and could add significant value and field life to the Mereenie field. We're also looking to complete that sub-salt farm out, as I spoke to, by the end of this year and get ourselves back into company-making exploration drilling, which would be very exciting. We intend to wrap up a restructure and extension of our existing debt facilities that will assist us in our free cash flows and our ability to accelerate a return to shareholders and finally, as I mentioned, looking to try and get to a final investment decision for the HRU project. So quite a bit on. I think we've made some great progress over the past few months, and we intend to continue that momentum by closing out the remainder of these target milestones over the next few months. At this point, I think we can open the webinar to questions.

Thanks, Leon. So we do have some questions coming in. And of course, people can continue to send them in. [Operator Instructions] So we'll get started in no particular order. A question here on the Stairway. How well planned appraisal of the Stairway Sandstone to be different to previous unsuccessful attempts?

Yes, it's a good question. Internally, we have spent quite a bit of time since the last drilling program in the Stairway to better understand the Stairway formation. There's several horizons in there providing opportunity for additional gas. We've looked at the fracturing network. And one of the big things we've done is take a look at the gas shows that we've seen over time as we drill vertically through those to get to our other producing formations. We've consolidated all of that, and we think we've got a very good read on where the best potential is for drilling and appraisal testing of those Stairway zones. So really probably the answer to the question is we've done a lot of technical work. We think we've got better locations, higher probability of success. And obviously, Stairway is a real significant opportunity for Mereenie to increase its reserve base and also increase production back significantly above the 30 TJs a day that we're currently targeting. So we're very optimistic. Obviously, it needs to go through joint venture discussions and ultimately, a joint venture approval. But we think it's got a lot of potential for the JV, and we're very excited to see where we can go with it.

Okay. Thanks, Leon. So a question here around the 2 new Mereenie wells. When could the full effect of the 2 new Mereenie wells be expected to come online? That is the production profile impacting FY '25, '26.

Sure. We've accelerated those. Over the past year, we have been in advance of FID essentially pre-investing in those wells. We've done that through permitting and approval activities. We've also invested in some long lead items. And what that's allowed us to do is shorten the time frame between a joint venture final investment decision for the wells and the point in time where we can begin drilling. So as I've said, those wells can commence drilling at the back end of December or early January. They take about 30 days each to drill, and that would allow us then to start initial production from those wells at some time prior to March of next year. So it's really quite a shortened time frame when you consider start to finish program for drilling can take in the order of 12 months usually.

Okay. Leon, what would be the approximate cost of the 2 Palm Valley laterals program and can Central fund these out of cash flow?

Yes. So the cost at Palm Valley for each well probably are in the same ballpark as what we've seen at Mereenie, maybe slightly higher given we are going lateral on these wells at Palm Valley. We're looking to drill laterally for 500 to a kilometer -- 500 meters to a kilometer. Obviously, the intent there is we want to intersect natural fractures. We're not going to be artificially fracturing the field in this program. So the longer we can get those laterals, the more natural fractures, we can hit and therefore, the higher recovery and flow rates we get from each well. Having said that, the wells aren't -- from a cost perspective, for the target formations we're going after, aren't -- they're well known. We've drilled these in the past, and we have a good read on geological control and costs associated with it. So it's roughly in the same park as what you see at Mereenie, maybe a bit more. In terms of funding, we do have some good cash reserves, and we do have obviously improved cash flows beginning on the 1st of January 2025 as a result of this new GSA. So those are options to fund it internally. There's a few things competing for capital. Those include our sub-salt exploration programs and the Stairway, for example, and some other things that we might want to do outside of reinvesting in the field. There's obviously opportunities to pay down debt, return to shareholders. So there's quite a bit of discussion at the Board level as to how we want to fund any further development wells at Palm Valley should that decision be made by the joint venture.

Okay. Back to the Stairway drilling. A question here. Is Stairway drilling involving different technology? Or is it simply applying expanded knowledge?

It's really taking the lessons we've learned from the previous Stairway program, lessons we've learned drilling at Mereenie more generally. I think probably the most significant benefit that we do have is understanding the high potential areas of the field for that Stairway resource, really picking those locations that we think have the highest probability for good flow rates, good recovery. And as I said before, we've done quite a bit of technical work on fracture modeling, looking at where we've seen gas flows when we go vertically through the formation, using all of that information to identify a couple of priority spots that we have identified that we think are really the best opportunity for success in this first round of appraisal.

Okay. A question here about the Surprise Oil Field. Any plans for the original Surprise Oil Field? As the reader recalls out, it was drilled next to a fault and the prospects were much higher on the other side of the fault.

That's true. So we do understand there's a fault through the field, which was unfortunate. It did limit the drainage area that we could get down to the first well at Surprise. It's a much, much smaller field than what the company believed back when it first discovered it. And obviously, that was disappointing for investors. The other side of the fault certainly has potential. There's obviously risk associated with it. Ultimately, it's a small field. There's limited wells that you'll be able to actually drill in there to recover the oil. One of the issues that we do have is because it is remote, it's got a high cost to produce given the size of the field itself. We also have environmental regulations that have changed dramatically since we first put in surface facilities and started testing that well. To get that back up to compliance and put the well in a position where we could produce on a sustained basis will take some significant capital investment. It could still be economic, but we see it as a field that will benefit from other oil discoveries in the area where you can aggregate it and get critical mass. And particularly, I'm thinking of the Mamlambo target. And we have been looking for partners to come in and farm into that area to get some drilling done. It's a field that has some seismic, but the feedback we've been getting is that most parties interested in taking a look at it would prefer an additional seismic program just to get further clarity about the extent of the formation and the closure around it. So we are working on that farm out activity for Mamlambo. Again, our priority to date has been some of the sub-salt, and there hasn't been a lot of action on Mamlambo, but we do want to get that tested. We don't want to have a farm out closed at some point where we can really give Mamlambo a crack. If that's successful, the size of that field could be extremely large, and I see Surprise feeding into that and leveraging off that infrastructure and logistics quite well, and it could have significant value under that scenario.

Okay. Question just around one of the slides, the chart, if you recall, Leon, with the forward sales book, the chart showing the contracted portfolio. So does the shaded crosshatch portion in 2025 imply that the Northern Territory Government will take 1.5 petajoules of the -- what is otherwise the East Coast volume, whether the NGP is open or not?

So what the arrangement is, is when the NGP is operational, we have firm obligations to supply to those East Coast customers. So all of our gas will go to meet those nominations. We'll be able to deliver that gas. We'll get the revenues associated with that contract. Where it changes is when the NGP is not operational. We're unable to deliver in those contracts. We don't have a liability for nondelivery because it is an event with the pipeline. Similarly, the customers don't have an obligation to take because of the event with the pipeline. But both parties are certainly in a position of trying to find alternative sources or customers for their gas. That was a large risk for us, a very significant one that we very much needed to mitigate going into 2025. And how we've done that is under the NTG GSA. We have an agreement with the Northern Territory Government, where on those days where the NGP is not operational and we're unable to deliver gas to our East Coast customers, on those days, there is a firm contract in place to sell that gas to the Northern Territory Government. So regardless of the operational status of the NGP, we're in a very good position to sell all of that gas that had been at risk in 2025 previously.

Okay. Maybe just building on that a little bit, Leon, a question to you. Could you elaborate on the optics of the counterpart risk? That is does the NT government GSA imply that supplying to government means that Central's inherent risk is vastly mitigated and therefore, assist in locking in further debt funding?

Absolutely. So any time you're able to contract with a government entity, credit risk is on the higher end of what's possible. As you contract with smaller companies or companies that are in development stages, there is credit risk. We try and deal with that through letters of credit and other credit support mechanisms. But the NTG is about as good a credit as you're going to be able to walk in for a long-term GSA of this nature, which is great. It does help with banking in terms of their ability to have confidence that revenue stream will be there over the 6-year term. The other key thing in the bankability of this is that we have structured it with very high take-or-pay. So typically, firm contracts will have a substantial amount of flex. That means the purchasing customer can, on a day, [ nom ] less than maybe the annual quantity. And they do have some flex, so there is a situation where you can leave a fairly substantial amount of gas uncontracted or unsold on a day. What we've approached this agreement as was this volume was intended to be a base supply, a core supply that the NT government could rely on. We delivered on a firm basis. And likewise, they take it with a very high take-or-pay position. So that does lock in a revenue stream for the company going forward for an extended period. That obviously helps our cash flow planning but also does significantly improve our ability to look at debt and the terms on which we can get that debt.

Okay. So comment here, well done on achieving the take-or-pay agreements with Northern Territory Government. Given the certainty of take-and-pay agreements, is Central planning to provide profit guidance for future financial years? And will there be a dividend payout ratio policy developed for shareholders? And I might tack on, there's another question around dividends as well.

Yes. So at this point, I think it's premature to have those types of forward estimates. There's a lot that needs to be done before we can determine timing and quantum for any return to shareholders. There's a few things that obviously need to play out before we get a bit more clarity on it. Some examples are we -- as we've said, we're in active discussions on a farm out for Mount Kitty and Dukas and the other sub-salt permits in the Southern Amadeus Basin. There will likely be a requirement for us to put up a portion of the cash, perhaps not all as we're trying to farm these out on a promote basis. But until those farm out agreements are completed, we really don't know what our exposure is to these future exploration wells for the sub-salt permits So we have to understand that first. Damian mentioned that we are working closely with our bank to look at restructuring and extending that facility. That gives us a lot of confidence in terms of what debt service payments are going to be over a medium term and allows us to plan accordingly. And also the reshape, clearly, we've been, over the past couple of years, significantly paying down our liabilities whether it's the debt facility from Macquarie; the presale, which we've now fully paid off and I think that was about $5 million a year in value that we had been paying off; and we have the GBA, which will be paid off in 2026, so not too far away. And again, that's of a similar type of cost to us. So if we can reshape our debt around that, smooth out the liability costs we have, that will have an impact on how we can accelerate or consider potential dividends. But I would highlight at this point that the Board is considering all options. Obviously, we've got the ability to reinvest some of that in additional production, so for example Palm Valley wells that we talked to earlier, exploration in terms of the sub-salt activities that we have, and obviously, accelerating dividends is another option but even paying down the debt. And as Damian said, we're at a position where our net debt is actually a positive number for the first time in a decade, which is great. But we do have potentially the ability to accelerate even further the repayment of that and in theory, if you're going to go and focus on that as a priority, the potential that we have very low or little or possibly no debt coming out of 2026, 2027. So there's a lot to go into it. We are working through all of those options. We're considering them all, and the Board will be taking a look at that and coming up with a plan of action as a lot of these pieces fall together.

Okay. Thanks, Leon. So another one here. Several years ago, a buyout for $0.20 was voted down because it wasn't deemed enough. The current share price is 1/4 of that offer and has been for years. So when will investors see a return anywhere near that historical offer?

Difficult for me to answer, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to sort of speculate on when equity markets might see the value in Central. Our focus right now is to ensure that we continue to put together the building blocks that will become visible to the market to demonstrate the value that we do have. We've started to do that. This GSA that we've done is a very significant first step in that, getting additional exploration in our sub-salt underway and being drilled in the near term. On a promote basis would be another leg to that. Refinancing our debt would be another leg to that. So there's a lot of things that we have, and I've listed those in the back of the presentation, as target milestones for 2024 that, I think, will really continue the momentum that we've had over the past month or so with the GSA and now these development wells at Mereenie. And our job is to make sure we close these things and close these things in a timely manner and also then communicate that to shareholders. And that includes, obviously, once we get some resolution on where these are at, doing road shows in the very near term, talking to instos about the story and about where we're going and the value that we see in the company but also some of the major shareholders and other shareholders in the company to continue to communicate where we are because I truly believe we are now at a real turning point for the company. We've paid some hard yards in terms of getting through COVID. We paid some -- gone through the challenges of the NGP outages, which have happened over the past 12 months and have been a very difficult thing for us to manage through. We've done that well. And we're at a point now where the gas market is extremely strong. We're in a position to benefit from that. And we've got some real opportunities to complete some additional transactions that will demonstrate and crystallize value for the company going forward. So my message is that we have turned the corner. We have got some very good news over the past couple of months, and that is something that we think we can maintain in terms of momentum with additional good news. And as that becomes recognized and known by the investor community as we go out and share that message over the next few months. My hope is that starts translating into an increased share price.

Thanks, Leon. I think that's sort of getting close to the end of the question. We have another one here. Without being drawn to specifics, could investors logically assume that the full value of the new GSA is greater than the market cap of Central? That is a value gap between the share price and this announcement.

I probably need to understand that in terms of are they referring to the headline price of the contract. Obviously, it's a very significant contract. Your headline revenues are going to be in excess of our market cap. Obviously, we have a broader business with operational profits but also some exploration. I do think that once the value of the contract that we recently signed starts to become visible to investors, and that would be from 1 January 2025, which is not too far away, I think it'll be clear as to the opportunity this company has to generate some really strong operating cash flows. The flexibility it has in terms of being able to undertake a few capital strategies, whether it's organic investment in new production, accelerating return to shareholders, paying down debt or a mix of all of that, I think that will be more and more visible. I think the balance of this year, as we've highlighted, will remain choppy. The NGP is still going to be off and on. I'd expect it to be mostly off. So the impact on our cash flows won't be visible tomorrow. It won't be visible in the next quarter, but 1 January 2025 is when we start to flip into our new GSAs. And I think at that point in time, our investors will see what that means for the company.

Okay. And I know you already touched on dividends, Leon, but just there was a specific question regarding the statement, I think, we make in the presentation around the accelerating -- we're looking to accelerate the timing of shareholder returns. Shareholder you're asking, can we be more specific.

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, it really depends on quite a few things. As I said, we've got to work through a sub-salt farm out, see where that takes us. We've got the remainder of this year with some uncertainty, and hopefully, we're able to sell all our production through the course of this year. But we still have a number of months where the NGP could remain closed and the demand in the NT could soften and, again, were turned down to some extent. That obviously has an impact on our cash reserves. We're hopeful that doesn't happen. We're optimistically confident that we'll be able to sell everything we produce over the next few months as we get to the end of the year and the new contract kicks in. But again, debt restructuring, debt repayment, timing and quantum of dividends, all of that is all part of a broader discussion that the Board is going to have a look at. Our goal has been to accelerate the point in time where our cash flows on a sustainable basis can support dividends. As we've said in some guidance, in 2026, our GBA liability expires and that does free up quite a substantial amount of cash that we haven't been receiving to date. That's combined with the presale, and again, I think it's over $10 million a year type of thing, so a very substantial number. And our debt service should be decreasing as we bring that balance down. So that would be probably an obvious point in time naturally to look at the opportunity for a return to shareholders. But by accelerating that, we are hoping that additional and stronger cash flows plus a restructure of the debt and some of the decisions around where we want to put capital could give us the flexibility to consider moving that forward if possible. But at this point, I'd be hesitant to pick a specific date or a quantum of what that might look like.

Okay. Look, there's another message there just wishing management all the best. So thank you for that. Another one here just around share price. The share price is miserable. What is the intrinsic value of Central, which I guess is the million-dollar question? I mean I could point people perhaps to our website. We do have some commissioned research on there from MST Access. I think there's about a 30- or 40-page report in there, which you could peruse at your leisure, and that gives a pretty detailed view or relatively independent view of what an analyst from MST Access thinks Central shares are worth. And I think it's about $0.15 by his latest report, and there should be a new report coming out, no doubt, in the next couple of weeks.

Yes. And I'd add to that, the NZOG and Horizon acquisition of 50% of Mereenie not too long ago provided a very good transparent, see-through pricing for that asset. That obviously is a substantial number when you consider the see-through pricing for 25% of just Mereenie. That purchase price, I understand -- I believe that the joint venture would be quite happy with that number at this point given the contracts that we've signed with the NTG over the next 6 years. So that's another good, I guess, benchmarking for the intrinsic value of the company. I think we've got some great opportunity as we turn this corner and reduce liabilities to really communicate and show the free cash flow potential of our operations. We have said under the strategic view that we are going to be very, very disciplined in terms of applying those funds towards exploration programs. And what we're looking to do is invest in exploration where we can get a promote, use other people's money, more mature, lower risk things at this point and not have perhaps the substantial amount of value leaking out of our operating assets to support exploration. I think we're trying to be much more deliberate in we put that money and make sure it's going to the highest and best use in consideration of the alternatives being infield production growth, repaying debt or returning it to shareholders.

Okay. All right. Well, we've been through a lot of questions, Leon. There's no more new ones here at the moment, so I think that it's been a pretty good session.

Great. Well, I appreciate everyone tuning in, and thank you for the questions. And as I've said in the presentation, we've had a very good first few months coming into the start of fiscal year 2025. My expectation is we've got a lot on, and we are fully focused on completing those and in doing so, creating value in the company and starting to get that message out to investors and starting to create the visibility for the market to see where this value can come from, from the company because I believe it is quite substantial, and we're heading into a phase where Central's financial condition is going to be a step change from where it has in the past, and that's quite exciting.

Right. Thanks.