Jadestone Energy plc (JSE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Jadestone Energy Half Year 2025 Results Conference Call. I am Adel Chaouch, the Executive Chairman of Jason Energy; and I'm joined on the call here with -- by Mitch Little, our CEO; as well as Andrew, our CFO. I will introduce the presentation before handing over to Andrew to walk you through the financials. And after that, Mitch will walk us through the operational review. I'll be taking you through a presentation which can be viewed through this link on the webcast you have now and also can be accessed on our website. We have prepared remarks and comments. After that, we will open the decision for question and answers, moderated by Ezra. Moving on past to Slide #2, which outlines our standard disclaimers. Let's go now to Slide #3, which we'll use to remind everyone of the Jadestone strategy and investment case. We believe that the key to successful strategy is strong governance and effective leadership team. As such, we have reshaped that as a first priority, our Board over the past 12 months, we refreshed the makeup by strengthening technical and strategic capabilities. We have also trimmed down the size of the Board to be more efficient in decision-making without compromising the mix of the executives and non-executive directors. We have also worked hard to reshape and revitalize our leadership team with our latest addition, Mitch, our CEO. We believe that Mitch has the right skills and expertise to lead the enterprise for their success and to deliver on the strategy that we have shared with you to deploy in the next 3 years. Mitch and I worked alongside for 2 decades, and pleased to join us our leader team. I would like to ask him to share his early thoughts in his first 120 days. Mitch?

Great. Thanks, Adel. It's really good to be rejoining forces with you. I'd like to welcome and say thank you to everyone joining our call and the presentation today. And I'm really excited to be speaking with all of you for the first time as CEO of Jadestone. Since joining the company, of course, I've been spending a lot of time getting to know our people, our stakeholders and of course, our assets to make sure I've got an informed view both of the opportunities within the portfolio and any challenges. And I'll say for starters, I've been really impressed with the capabilities and the commitments of our people and the opportunities that the existing portfolio has to offer. It's fair to say, I've also recognized a few opportunities where we can enhance some of our existing processes, and that allow us to drive further improvements in our late life asset management approach. As you know, Adel and hopefully some of you on the call, my background is in running operations at scale. As the former COO of a large independent E&P where we had multinational onshore and offshore operations, production of about 350,000 boes a day. I run the value of disciplined execution, safety and reliability excellence, and that's really what I'm focused on instilling here at Jadestone. This will, of course, take a bit of time and no doubt, there'll be a few challenges we'll have to address along the way. I mean that's just the nature of managing mature oil and gas assets. However, I'm confident we're on the right track. And by working closely with our dedicated teams, we've already begun enhancing practices and processes that are going to further advance our operational excellence focus and discipline. We look forward to meeting many of you on the call in due course. While we continue our work to demonstrate the full potential of this business and deliver the underlying value for our shareholders. I'll be sharing some more of my thoughts later, but for now, I'll hand it back to Adel.

Thanks for the very thorough thoughts. Back to Slide #3. So as you can see, Jadestone had a significant growing footprint across Asia and the Pacific region. We have established a material presence across Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, 3 of the top 5 upstream producers in the region. We are targeting production goal of around 20,000 barrels of equivalent oil per day this year, which will be an annual record for the third successive year, very proud of that. we aim to extend the trajectory -- growth trajectory through organic options particularly our [indiscernible] gas discoveries and acquiring further producing assets in oil or in developed gas assets in our core areas. We have created and strengthen key stakeholder relations in our core areas, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, which we plan on leverage to enhance the value of our existing businesses and assets and pursuing new opportunities in these regions. We will be disciplined in pursuit of growth. This year, we have prioritized operational performance of our existing business. Looking very positive results that we will talk about in the next few slides. However, there are areas we have to do better and we are revisiting existing processes and procedures to be a best-in-class operator and most importantly the partner of choice in these areas. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet in order to protect us against any period of weaknesses in near-term oil prices as well as providing us with financial firepower to grow. We are confident that we are on track to achieve our goals and becoming the leading independent upstream company in the Asia Pacific region. With that, I ask Ezra to the Slide# 4, where I will cover the highlights in the first half of 2025. Very pleased to report that the first half production -- first half year production increased by 20% year-on-year to around [ 20,400 ] barrels of equivalent oil per day, a new record for the first half this year. We also achieved this with an excellent health and and safety record. There were no lost time injuries across our assets in the first half and nearly 12 million aggregate man hours have been worked across Jadestone businesses since the last lost time injury. As we said we would, we have delivered this uplift in operational performance and managing cost in our business with an adjusted cost down 22% year-on-year. This is not simply about cutting costs. It is making sure that our operation and [indiscernible] business are run efficiently and without waste. I will reiterate again, we will not sacrifice the health of our people and integrity of assets. The increase in production and good cost control is presented in a a much improved financial performance year-on-year which Andrew will walk us through later on. We also today reiterate our and cost guidance. One of our priorities in the first half was building financial resilience. The disposal of our [indiscernible] assets and the new working capital facility was put in place to [indiscernible]. We've also added new back hedges to protect against any near-term weaknesses in oil prices. We've also been very busy good on the [indiscernible] group wider strategic aims.n We progressed several options to refinance our existing debt and perhaps more importantly, we made re-progress in the key agreements acquired to move our Vietnam discoveries significantly forward. We are increasingly confident that Nam Du and U Minh developments are near site. With that, I will hand it over to you, Andrew to walk us through the financials.

Thank you, Adel. On Slide 5, we have set out key metrics for the business in the first half of '2025. As Adel has highlighted, production in the first half of the year reached a record level for Jadestone with lifted volumes increasing 52% to 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, underpinned by a production increase of 21% to just over 20,300 boe per day, driving revenue and cash flow growth. While the average realized oil price for the half year was 13% below H1 2024 at $77.45 per barrel and the average realized premium was $3.54 per barrel versus $4.59 for the comparative period. The average realized gas price significantly improved to over $5 per Mcf through the contribution of gas production from the Akatara in the period. These, together with increased production, generated revenues of $228 million, which was an increase of 23% over the comparative period. Reported production costs were 16% lower to just under $115 million. And if we look at the underlying asset operating costs being the cost of operations, workovers, logistics repairs and maintenance and transportation. This was 22% lower half year-on-half year with adjusted unit OpEx being $24.70 per boe. A combination of revenue growth and improved costs together with a gain on the sale of our Thailand assets in April supported the positive momentum we saw at the full year and generated a $32.8 million post-tax profit in the first half. These also translated into a significant increase in operating cash flow, pre-working capital, which has more than doubled that generated in the first half of 2024. Capital expenditure increased period-on-period, reflecting the activity of the Skua-11 well for the first half compared to lower levels of activity in the final stages of development for the Akatara gas plant in 2024. Net debt at 30th of June was $108 million, having repaid $33 million to the RBL facility. And in July, we received a further $62.5 million of proceeds for Stag and Montara lifting which were completed in June. Moving to Slide 6. Reported production costs are set out on the left-hand side of the slide. Split between field level operating costs in dark green section, royalties and noncash inventory lifting effects. Field level operating costs were $19 million lower at $91 million, which you can see from the right-hand chart is across Stag, Montara and Peninsular Malaysia assets with a small increase of CWLH following full ownership in the period of the additional 16.7% interest that was applied in February 2024 and at Akatara, which was reflecting a full period of production. The first half has benefited to some degree from the phasing of workover activity, particularly at Stag, where we expect activity to be more weighted into the second half of the year. However, picking up on Adel's earlier point, a focus on increasing efficiencies and improving margins should continue to positively impact operating cost trends. And on a period-on-period basis, adjusted operating costs per barrel fell per from about $32 per boe last year, just under $25 per boe this year. Slide 7 summarizes cash flows in the business over the half year. And moving left to right, we can see that cash from operations in the first half after working capital was $36.2 million. Working capital includes receivables of $62.5 million, which as I mentioned related to the Stag and Montara lifting, which occurred in June. Cash CapEx of $60.3 million was predominantly related to Skua-11 sidetrack drilling campaign. We received $39.4 million on the disposal of our Thai interest in April, and we repaid $33.3 million of RBL scheduled redetermination at the end of March. Other financing cash flows of $20 million were roughly split equally between RBL interest and lease payments. That gave us consolidated cash flows of $59 million at 30th of June. Going forward, Slide 8, as of the end of August, the cash balance stood at $113 million, including restricted cash, which included the Stag and Montara lifting proceeds. And total equity was $143 million, including a $30 million working capital facility, which remains undrawn. Ongoing notable expenditures related to the closeout of tail end of the Skua-11 well costs and the next RBL repayment. The current RBL balance stands at $167 million, with the late lease redetermination currently being finalized, and we expect to revise the borrowing base to be reset at $150 million based on current loan [indiscernible]. We executed a number of hedges in June, totaling 1.8 million barrels over the next 12 months with a weighted-average stock price of approximately $70 a barrel. This represents about 40% of forecast crude oil production over the period and provides us with a [ loan ] protection against any near-term oil price weakness. As I've mentioned before, we're now in the advertising phase of the RBL facility, which is a logical time to look at the capital structure and the options available to us, and we're actively pursuing this. Our goal is to deliver a capital structure that will support continued investment into our business in order to drive future growth. And with that, I'll hand back to Mitch.

Great. Thank you, Andrew. Picking up on Slide 9. I'll start with a review of first half asset performance, beginning with Akatara, which really is firing on all cylinders. On the back of outstanding reliability, the field averaged nearly 5,800 boe per day in the period, which was split roughly equally between gas and liquids. We're extremely proud that this was delivered against the backdrop of continued strong HSE performance with 8.8 million man hours and counting now worked without a lost time injury. In May, we executed a week-long planned shutdown, performing work to improve the reliability and robustness of the production facilities. And since returning to production, we've achieved nearly 98% uptime. During the shutdown, we also took an opportunity to implement the first phase of debottlenecking of the gas processing facility to increase production capacity by nearly 10% for minimal cost. We've since demonstrated that we can consistently deliver higher rates and our gas buyer has responded with higher nominations, resulting in daily production, routinely hitting 6,800 boe BOE per day in recent months. We're, of course, very proud of our Indonesian team and what they've accomplished and the performance of the asset since it was fully commissioned at the end of last year. We'll be showcasing the facility by hosting a site visit with some sell-side analysts in early November. Akatara also prides us with an excellent platform from which to build our Indonesia business further, which brings us on to Slide 10. We're looking to expand our footprint in Indonesia, both in Indonesia, both organically and inorganically. Work continues on reprocessing the existing 2D seismic data over the Lemang PSC. And on the basis of that work, we've been working with the host government and are proposing to replace our original 3D seismic acquisition commitment with an additional well. We expect to conclude the PSC amendment process to incorporate this change by the end of the year. If successful, subsurface work and prospect generation will continue throughout '26 in order to prepare for drilling as early as 2027. For the avoidance of doubt, Jadestone's strategy is unchanged. We are not greenfield explorers, and we will not be participating in licensing rounds on that basis. The activities on the Lemang PSC are fulfilling our commitments under the license, and our priority is on identifying near-field prospects where we can deliver incremental value quickly by tying in any gas discoveries to the existing infrastructure. On the back of our successful Akatara project, we've established a strong and positive relationship with Indonesian upstream stakeholders, both regionally in the Jambi province and nationally with SKKMIGAS, the upstream regulator. We're actively looking to leverage those relationships and our Ruben development capability into accessing other opportunities in the country. Moving now to Slide 11 and our Nam Du/U Minh development project in Vietnam. I'm really pleased to share the positive momentum we are achieving here. In recent months, we've made meaningful progress on the commercial and contractual agreements, which will underpin the development of the significant gas resource. The key agreements are the field development plan and gas sales agreement. The FDP is in the final stage of government approval after being endorsed by the regulator, Petrovietnam. We're down to a small number of outstanding points before we can finalize the gas sales agreement. In conjunction with this significant progress, we've also recently issued tenders for the FPSO and remaining field facilities. We're also preparing to engage with interested parties to participate in the development with us. One of the objectives of the new Board and management team is to bring in strong partners to codevelop opportunities like this alongside the Jadestone team. The right partner brings complementary technical skills and experience while also sharing the development costs, which allows us to both manage risk concentration and pursue further diversification in our portfolio. It's difficult to guide to a precise time line for finalization of the key agreements, but it's safe to say that this is not only an important project for Jadestone, it's equally an important project for the host country. The development will represent the country's first production hub in Vietnam waters off the Southwest coast and contributes to their national objective to develop indigenous supplies for key regional infrastructure like the Ca Mau power generation and industrial complex where our gas will be delivered. As further evidence of their national priorities, they recently issued into law Decree 100, which prioritizes domestic gas over imported LNG and provides legal framework for pass-through take-or-pay commitments from the gas buyer to the electricity provider, both of which are very constructive for our project. As you can see from the photo on this slide, I had the pleasure of visiting Vietnam in July with the Jadestone team where we met with Petrovietnam and other key stakeholders. Petrovietnam statements from that meeting are a visible sign of the positive relationship we have developed with the regulator and their commitment to bringing Nam Du/U Minh gas to market. I look forward to being able to share more good news with you on this key project in the not-too-distant future. Lastly, our team has significant experience and subsurface understanding of the Malay Basin has identified additional unrisked resources in excess of 1 Tcf within our existing licenses. A significant portion of which is proximal to the planned development facilities. So we certainly hope that the Nam Du/U Minh developed is just the first chapter of Jadestone future story in Vietnam. Let me now turn to Montara, beginning Slide 12. The most notable activity at Montara during 2025 was the drilling of Skua-11 sidetrack earlier this year. As we've previously disclosed, the well was not without its challenges. We suffered from a number of events which were outside of our control, principally poor weather conditions and the cancellation of other operators' subsequent drilling campaigns while also experiencing our own operational challenges during the drilling phase of the well. Combined, these factors led to a meaningful increase in cost versus our previous budget. With just about 2 months of production behind us, we have integrated all available data and currently project that reserves developed by the well are largely in line with the predrill mid-case. And importantly, it will deliver on one of its primary objectives of extending Montara's economic lives by a year or more. With the increased cost, the well is not expected to deliver the robust returns initially forecast, the current modeling suggests it will deliver returns well in excess of our weighted-average cost of capital at current prices. Significant learnings from this well have been captured and will be fully integrated into future drilling campaigns in the area to make sure that we have improved predictability prior to sanctioning future work. I'd like to shift gears now to 2 broader but critically important issues, where I've been spending a fair bit of my time to date. Namely, our refreshed approach to late life asset management and decommissioning planning at Montara and Stag. Turning to Slide 13. On this slide, we're providing an overview of the framework that I have utilized with success in previous assignments and I'm now working closely with the Jadestone team to leverage my 30-plus year within a large E&P to strengthen our approach to delivering operational excellence in late life assets. There's nothing particularly novel about the framework on this page. The key is ensuring we have the right technical competence experience, combined with an unwavering discipline across all of these elements. Discipline that comes from measuring and reporting what's important and ensuring that leadership has appropriate visibility to each measure. Put simply, in the famous words of Lord Kelvin a long time ago "if you can't measure it, you can't improve it". The corollary is also true. If we measure what's important and create appropriate visibility, we will improve it. While all elements of the framework are important, none are more important than HSE and regulatory compliance, which for all practical purposes is the cornerstone to integrity management and ensures our license to operate. Integrity management will continue to be a key focus area for us. The chart in the upper right of this slide shows that we have spent nearly $50 million per year combined on Montara and Stag R&M over the past 3 years, up nearly $10 million per year from the previous 3. We recently received an enforcement notice from the Australia Offshore Regulator in relation to integrity management of Montara. We will, of course, fully comply with the requirements of the general direction, and I take some pride in the fact that we have self-identified many of the same issues during my operational deep dives, and we were already in the process of addressing those at the point of receiving the general direction. However, I take any direct intervention by our regulator seriously. This is a prime example of an unexpected event that we must learn from and integrate into improving our overall approach. Finally, the slide highlights how Jadestone is applying new technology to drive further efficiency and insights into our integrity management program. The use of digital twins in offshore infrastructure has been around for some time. However, their use for FPSOs is relatively new with the first model, as far as I'm aware, delivered in 2020. Over the past year plus, our Australia team has been working with an industry expert to create a digital twin for the Montara venture, with the image on this page showing the screen grab from the software dashboard. The digital twin will allow us to apply state-of-the-art physics-based structural integrity simulation of the entire vessel, providing the assurances we need to keep our employees safe, focus our inspection efforts and, importantly, address the issue that is at the top of the Australian regulators 5 national priorities. Moving on to Slide 14. We have set out our approach to abandonment planning for Montara and Stag. Based on year-end 2024 ERCE reports, the economic [indiscernible] for Montara is not expected to occur until 2030, with Stag much there into the next decade. Of course, these timings can change, but our focus will be on maximizing the economic life of the fields through best-in-class late-life field management and then executing the various abandonment scopes as efficiently as possible. With our latest production outlook, the current combined breakeven operating costs for the Montara and Stag assets sits meaningfully below recent oil prices. And margin expansion, whether through cost control or higher reliability driving increased production or both would naturally move breakeven, even lower. The chart on the lower right-hand side shows an indicative schedule for Australia abandonment spend over the next 10 years. Only Montara activity would commence during this period with Stag's economic limit currently projected in 2035. The nature and timing of any activity and expenditure naturally carries some uncertainty, we feel that expenditures from Montara early next decade are clearly manageable in the context of the projected cash flows from existing assets as well as the growth of the group's business, which we continue to prioritize. As we have highlighted on many occasions and again later in this presentation, the forward NPV10 of our 2P reserves as of year-end 2024 is on the order of $650 million. And this analysis, of course, incorporates the associated abandonment obligations. We're also exploring several potential options to migrate the current estimated cost of decommission. Collaboration amongst operators, particularly on rig and support vessel contracts is commonplace in the industry and is something we are already discussing with nearby operators who have similar abandonment time lines. We've previously talked about the potential of the discovered gas resources in the Montara area, which, if developed, would continue to utilize some of the existing infrastructure, and we're also evaluating options to redeploy the Montara venture for other projects at the end of its useful life in Australia. Equally important, decommissioning activities are expected to grow in many areas over the coming years. Activity drives innovation, and we are living in an age where technology is developing at a significant pace, which may benefit any future decommissioning plans and budgets. I hope our message is clear. We will manage our assets with the highest standards and reduce risk as low as reasonably practical. We will also seek to extend field lives where possible, while acting as a responsible operator in progressing our plans for decommissioning activities, constantly looking for improved efficiencies. Turning to Slide 15. I'll wrap up my comments with a quick recap of our guidance metrics, all of which are reiterated today. The strong production performance in the first half of the year allowed us to raise the lower end of guidance in July, which we are reiterating today. As a result, we expect to deliver record production for a third consecutive year. The operating cost guidance range remains at USD 240 million to USD 280 million after also being reduced in July. As Andrew indicated earlier, we expect a greater weighting of costs in the second half of the year, primarily associated with workover activity at Stag and phasing of R&M work across the portfolio. Capital expenditure guidance is reiterated at $105 million to $115 million. It remains our intention to offset the additional costs encountered on the Skua-11 sidetrack with targeted efficiencies throughout the business as evidenced by the production and reduced operating expense guidance, which we are reiterating today. Finally, our free cash flow guidance over the 2025 through 2027 period remains at $270 million to $360 million based on a $70 to $80 barrel real Brent price from 2025. In summary, we're delivering on or exceeding the comment -- the commitments we made earlier this year, and we will continue to make delivering on our promises, a top priority. I'll now hand back to Adel for some closing comments.

Thank you, Mitch. Moving on to Slide #16, Ezra. This slide highlights [ a strong ] structure and the valuation both on an absolute basis and relative to peers. If you look at the left-hand side of the slide, the chart you see there illustrates our current market capitalization in the context of the end of the year 2024 valuation. This is using 2P reserves on NPV10 basis and also adjusted for the sales of our Thailand assets that we did in April of this year,and end of year '24 net debt. It's important to point out that valuation reflect forecast [indiscernible] cost at the end of '24, including those that Mitch just talked about earlier in the presentation for Stag and Montara with clear illustration of the next decade. While these figures were calculated using high Brent oil price estimates that we are seeing currently, it does not reflect the take into account any Jadestone growth options, including our Vietnam resources, we also think will come to line very soon. Continue to focus our efforts on revising future value, either through cash flow, we can recycle to growth for the benefit of our shareholders or by demonstrating that value can be through portfolio management. Looking at the right-hand side of the slide, you can see that Jadestone sits at a deep discount to it's immediate peer group on a price to total net asset value ratio. This is based on data that was prepared by Stifel. While it continues to be frustrating to us and to you, it does simply, there is a significant upside in the current share price if Jadestone valuation were to normalize towards the sector rate. Finally, let's go to Slide #17. We continue to believe that there is a significant value in our producing asset portfolio, which is not recognized in our share price, let alone our Vietnam gas discoveries and intangible value and platform we built to be the Asia Pacific region [indiscernible] operator. Jadestone's primary focus is converting the value in it's producing assets into cash flow, which we turn will give us the firepower to invest in future growth opportunities and more. However, we continue to decide a disciplined approach to portfolio management, particularly where value can be the crystalized upfront. We demonstrated this earlier this year to the sale of Thailand assets for close to onetime NAV, and if similar opportunities to crystalize value present themselves, while the price of the share is trading at a discount, we will assess those values. On the right hand of the chart, this illustrates, I believe that the successful company requires 2 key ingredients, strong leadership and good assets, which we have both now. The form of the leadership and technical teams can assess both oil and gas, [indiscernible] assets and new developments, [indiscernible] to some of the largest players. With our diversed portfolio here, we believe we are on the right track to create and unlock significant value for our shareholders. With that, I will close this presentation and hand over to Ezra to have the session Q&A opened.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David with Stifel.

I've got a couple of questions, but apologies there are a few parts to them. So the first 1 just about Vietnam, please. Mitch, you said and I appreciate it is difficult to pin down exact timing. But are you able to just clarify the order of news flow that may come from that project? I mean, if I was to say what's the next RNS? I mean, is it finalizing the gas sales first? Or does this all get wrapped up into 1 final approval? So we're almost only waiting for 1 RNS. I'm sorry if I missed it. Are you already talking to potential partners there? Or are we a bit too early for that? And secondly, on Akatara, I mean that's been such a good project what has actually been done to debottleneck the facility? And if nominations remain high, is there scope to do even more than currently planned? And it sounds from your comments earlier I mean, Indonesia and around Akatara is very mich the key focus area for M&A right now.

Yes, there was a lot wrapped up in there, David. On news flow. The way the process works there, the upstream regulator, Petrovietnam has endorsed the FDP. We also have to submit which we've already completed and has been accepted by the local government there, an updated EIA. So that's been submitted and in process. Once the FDP receives approval from the upstream regulator, which it has, and we work through another couple of issues on the gas sales agreement. The next step and the most likely next news flow will be formal approval from the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Vietnam. That would most likely be the next news flow. We won't -- we'll have agreed terms of the GSPA but it will actually be executed post approval by MOIT of the FDP. and of course, as I mentioned in my comments, there's a lot of supportive efforts in the country, including this Decree 100. On the partner front, we're in the final stage of preparing for those engagements and that will sort of be continuing in parallel as we receive the bid back for the FPSO and the EPCI work on the other facility tenders. And so that will be progressing in parallel over 2026. I think that addresses your questions on Vietnam. If I switch to Akatara, there's some really good creative work done by the team there. It's a pretty straightforward turboexpander plant. The team found some ways to increase cooling in the cold box of the plant, which allows us to run the compressor at a bit higher rate, at a higher speed. And in combination with that, they did some detailed engineering studies. I mean all of this costs less than $1 million, far less than $1 million to accelerate part of that debottlenecking that we had envisioned some time ago. The team now, they've done such a good job of accelerating that value. They're now having to relook at other alternatives to make sure that the economics support that. But we've increased production materially. The buyer has increased their nominations, and we continue to see really good uptime from that plan. I think you also asked about our efforts for growth focused on Indonesia. What I would say is Indonesia is just 1 of the areas that we're looking to leverage capabilities and the deep technical expertise that we have in the region. So anywhere we have a core presence existing today, certainly are areas of interest and area where there's activity. And not to forget about within the license in Vietnam, our team based on some reprocessing of seismic data that was done late 2020, early '21, I believe, sees unrisked potential there in excess of 1 Tcf outside of this first development we're going to do. So a lot of opportunity within the existing portfolio as well.

Our next question comes from James with Berenberg.

Just a couple for me. I guess, just firstly on the liftings, obviously, as we saw in the announcement, in the presentation, the timing of liftings can sort of -- it's important for cash flow, we can be material for sort of net debt on any given days with good performance in August versus the balance sheet date. But just wondering if you could give us basically a sense of the lifting schedule for the rest of 2025, I guess, Australia being the focus for that. And then secondly, just on the general direction that you received from the regulator. I think you mentioned that quite a lot of the work that the sort of -- or the actions that they've outlined you've already identified. But maybe wondering if you could just give us a bit more sort of color on what sort of things is that you're looking to improve there?

Yes, the lifting [indiscernible] and we've just now, just recently executed another lifting from both Stag and Montara. Respectively, we see liftings generally for every 2, 3, 4 months between the assets. So it's sort of very much production dependent and also looking at maximizing parcel sizes. So we anticipate whether it's towards the end of the year or certainly a lifting at the end of the year with funds coming in early January. That's probably the next sort of cycle for Stag and Montara. CWLH, clearly, It's roughly, we look at about a listing for each share -- interest share, Stag, 17% every 11 months or so would be roughly where we go for. Next year, we've got a dry dock process. So some of the lifting schedules still being assessed, analyzed and we're waiting for agreements on those.

Yes, James, picking up on your second question on the general direction. I tried to address a bit of this or the majority of this in my prepared remarks. But the ideas or the task that they identified were around ensuring proper inspection protocols, looking at and sort of recertifying some of our defined life repairs that are typically utilized for FPSOs that are on station permanently, we don't dry dock to Montara and that was very similar to the situation for the FPSO that I operated in Norway. So quite familiar with doing in situ inspection and repair work. The thing that they required in the general direction that we wouldn't have necessarily done is to get third-party verification of our integrity management program. And while we wouldn't have necessarily done that, I think it's a good objective and secondary recognition and certification of what we're doing there. So it's a lot of nuts and bolts and placing the right controls. We're also going to supplement doing some internal audits, operational audits, which is a best practice that I've taken from previous assignments. It just allows us to get good cold eyes review that everything we're doing and the promises we're making that we're living up to. So pretty straightforward things, but things that the team is committed to doing. And after all, I mean, our first priority is to protect the people and the assets out there.

Our next question comes from Anish with Hannam.

A couple of questions from me, please. First of all, you gave a great example of what you can do with technology and potentially AI with the Montara digital twin. I was just wondering what other potential is there to improve cost and reliability using more modern-day technology using AI? And I'm also thinking kind of further forward in terms of optimizing decommissioning spend. And the second one, just a couple of updates, please. Do you have anything in terms of unlocking the contingent resources on CWLH. And then for Montara for 2026, what opportunities do you think you will target next year in terms of infill drilling or [ unswept pay ].

Yes. Just taking a few notes there, honest. We might need the limit to 10 questions [indiscernible]. So let me start with -- I think you referenced technology on -- in several aspects of the business. I think some of the most promising things that we're aware of and are currently looking into or around the use of robotics and drones for doing internal tank inspections and cleaning. There have been a few case studies out there. We're in the process of reviewing some of that with industry contacts and colleagues that we've worked with in our former lives and, of course, the vendors. So I think that has certainly some good potential that we're working through. And there will be others. We're -- we have implemented on Stag, a PID control mechanism, which is basically using software and benefits from our variable speed drives on the ESPs to -- from the surface monitor when those pumps might be going into some sort of gas lock status or other and adjust the speed of the controller to get it out of that mode and back into a more efficient producing mode which in turn should help extend the producing life. So those are a few examples of things we've already deployed or are seriously considering deploying. On the decommissioning front, again, I touched on this in my comments. Activity and decommissioning world is expecting to ramp up significantly across many regions, many producing regions. And that activity will generate innovation. Recent examples are things like different cutting technologies that have been developed to take a task that used to be multiple hours with a diver down to 30 minutes or less. Every hour is expensive. And when you're doing that kind of work. And so they'll continue to be innovations like that. What were your other questions? Unlocking contingent resources at CWLH. I think, obviously, we don't operate that asset. We're actively engaged in the technical committee and management committees. We'll continue pursuing that with the operator, but really, it's up for them to speak publicly about anything like that, and we're not going to get out in front of them on that. And then 2026 Montara targets. We're at the early stages of preparing and finalizing our 2026 budget and then refresh look at a 3-year plan. So probably have to back to you on that one. There certainly are other drilling opportunities in the area, and we'll be integrating Skua-11 learnings and findings into that evaluation before finalizing any decisions.

We currently have no further questions. So that concludes the Q&A session. I will now hand back over to Adel for any closing remarks.

Ezra, thank you for that. Thanks for introductions. I'm going to thank everyone for the time today and your continued interest in the Jadestone Energy and in our story, and we look forward to seeing you guys follow us over the next few months as we visit this success story and continue to grow our business in the region. Please stay in touch with us directly for our platform, and we look forward to next session at the beginning of the year.

Thank you.