Good morning everyone and welcome to the VAALCO Energy First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today’s event is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference call over to Al Petrie, Investor Relations Coordinator. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to VAALCO Energy’s first quarter 2021 conference call. After I cover the forward-looking statements, George Maxwell, who was named CEO in April, will review key highlights along with operational results. Jason Doornik, our Chief Accounting Officer and Controller, will then provide a more in-depth financial review. George will then return for more closing comments before we take your questions. During our Q&A session, we ask you limit your questions to one and a follow-up. You can always re-enter the queue with additional questions. I’d like to point out that we posted a Q1 2021 supplemental investor deck on our website this morning that has additional financial analysis, comparisons and guidance that should be helpful. With that, let me proceed with our forward-looking statement comments. During the course of this conference call, the company will be making forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and those actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. VAALCO disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These and other risks are described in yesterday’s press release, the presentation posted on our website and in the reports we filed with the SEC, including the Form 10-Q that was filed yesterday. Please note, the conference call is being recorded. And let me turn the call over to George.

Al, thank you very much for the introduction. Good morning, everyone and welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. It's a pleasure for me to speak with you this morning as my first call as the new Chief Executive. Before we discuss our results, I'd like to take a few moments to thank Cary Bounds for his dedication and valued years of executive leadership at VAALCO. He was an integral part of our success and we wish him well in his future endeavors. At this point, let me review number of significant accomplishments he helped VAALCO achieve this past year that have placed us in an enviable position to achieve meaningful and accretive long term growth. In early 2020, on the heels of a highly successful drilling campaign that included three development wells that exceeded expectations on two successful appraisal wellbores, the world economy and the energy industry was severely impacted by COVID-19. We saw oil prices fall sharply due to the global pandemic, as well as supply and demand imbalances. Despite these difficulties, VAALCO continue to generate positive free cash flow throughout 2020, due in large part to our strong production increase. 2020’s production was 40% higher year-over-year, as a result of our drilling campaign’s success. We also had hedges in place through last year that provided us good protection when oil prices fell dramatically. We were able to overcome the challenges in 2020 while maintaining a strong balance sheet and financial flexibility. This gave us the ability to capture to a very accretive acquisition opportunity that arose late in 2020. We closed the acquisition of Sasol 27.8% working interest in Etame in February 2021 utilizing cash on hand. We believe the deal is very accretive to VAALCO as it is improving our margins, significantly increasing our…

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. We reported strong net income of $9.9 million or $0.17 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2021, which included a $7.7 million non-cash bargain purchase gain, which was offset by $6 million loss on derivative instruments. $4.2 million of the loss on derivative instruments was an unrealized loss. As George mentioned, the first quarter reflected significant increase in sales and realized pricing. For comparison purposes, in the fourth quarter of 2020, we reported a net loss of $3.6 million or $0.06 per diluted share, which included the impact of $3.6 million in exploration expense related to the Etame seismic program during the quarter and $2.2 million of expense related to stock based compensation. For the first quarter of 2020, we reported a net loss of $52.8 million or $0.91 per diluted share, which included $30.6 million non-cash impairment charge due to lower crude oil prices, and non-cash deferred income tax charge of $35.6 million. Our adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2021 totaled $8.7 million or $0.15 per diluted share, as compared to an adjusted net loss of $5.6 million or $0.10 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2020. The increase in earnings was mainly due to higher revenues as a result of higher oil prices, higher sales. In the first quarter of 2020, VAALCO reported $6.9 million in adjusted net income or $0.12 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDAX totaled $18 million in the first quarter of 2021, compared with $3.5 million in the prior quarter and $6 million in the same period of 2020. Adjusted EBITDAX for the first quarter of 2021 was higher than both prior periods, primarily due to increased sales volumes and higher realized prices. Production for the first quarter 5,180 net barrels…

Thank you, Jason. Thank you for that. I'll just give some closing comments. As we look at 2021 and beyond, this is a very exciting time for VAALCO. I believe it is the businesses are sustainable in order to provide benefits to all stakeholders with a focus on growth and investor returns. This is one of my guiding principles, I successfully applied in my previous executive roles, and I'm energized to build a successful foundation and lead the existing teams to grow VAALCO to the next level. Our board has empowered the management team to create a working environment that assures our success as a trusted operator, a generous partner to the communities where we operate and a good source to the environment. We are enhancing our presence in the UK and international markets, a move that we believe will support VAALCO’s accretive growth strategy and maximize shareholder returns. We have a strong asset base at Etame that is generating meaningful free cash flow in the current pricing environment, which was evident in our Q1 2021 results. Sustained operational excellence and robust financial performance as Etame serves as a foundation for growing VAALCO through organic drilling and future accretive acquisition opportunities in line with our strategy. As an example of our commitment to sustained operational excellence, we have signed an LOI for a new FSO unit that will reduce our operating costs by 15% to 25% and provide us additional operational flexibility moving forward. In April of this year, we also purchased a hydraulic workover unit that we have used in the past for less than $2 million for total considering. This unit is in Gabon and ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. That will allow us to respond to any world downtime issue quickly, which will save…

Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, we'll begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from John White from ROTH Capital. Please go ahead with your question.

George, let me offer my congratulations on your appointment as CEO of VAALCO.

Thank you, John.

My first question is regarding the switch -- the potential switch from the FPSO to the FSO. You've talked in detail about reduction in operating costs, I believe you've touched on capacity, but could you talk a little bit more about capacity and the ability of the new FSO to handle higher production in future years?

Yes, of course, I can do that. The proposed FSO that we're -- we signed a letter of intent on is a SUEZMAX capacity, which is storage of an excess of 1 million barrels. So, it has the capability for us to discharge larger parcel sizes for crude oil fields, avoid the risk of us ever coming to tank, which is one of the issues that occasionally impacts operations and operators with the smaller storage capabilities such as the current FPSO that we have at the moment. It's also a much younger vessel than the one that's currently in the field by at least 20 years. And we have obviously the benefits and the technology of the younger vessel that come with that. So, when we look at the economics, it clearly is the vast reduction in the lease cost both charter and an end position. That's giving us the initial drive that we announced in the -- RNS a few weeks ago. But there is the added potential there to start looking at the larger cargo side which will give us an efficiency of oil price when we look at the sales values. Hopefully, that's answered your question.

Yes. Thank you for that detail. With production about 70% hedge for most of the year, is there any consideration to start to new drilling program sooner, or do you still need some time to work on the new seismic that was shot latter part of 2020 in early 2020 -- or 2021?

Yes, no, that's a good question. Whenever you're embarking on these types of campaigns, there are three key elements that you have to consider before you make a commitment on timing. The first and most obvious key consideration is financial. So, have you put yourself in a position where you can commit to the campaign without putting the company in any sort of financial stress and we've done that. The second point that you touched on is, are we comfortable with the surface and subsurface location targets for both the step out wells and the appraisals with relation to the processing that's currently underway. And for the timing of the wells, we're very comfortable with that position right now. And the probability of success on these wells will not change in any substantive form based on the reprocessing, when we move the subsurface target by a meter or two, but nothing more than that. But the third and most important thing to consider when you're looking to execute a program such as ours is making sure that you have all the assets in place at the right time. And that -- those assets are available to you and ready and able to execute the program when you're ready to commit to it. And currently, we're looking at assets that fit into that time horizon that we're considering. And it would really be a little bit of a stretch to move that forward. So that's really the pacing item for us with regard to the timing of the program, right now is asset availability.

And when you talk about asset availability, you're talking about drilling rigs that meet your requirements?

Absolutely. Looking at, I mean, of course, globally, there are lots of drilling rigs available, but we tried to optimize our -- both with drilling rig capability and geographical location that can reduce the modern beam cost. So that's really the pacing item for us.

Okay. Thank you for that and I'll pass it along, and I may jump back in the queue.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Stephane Foucaud from Auctus Advisors. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, guys. It's Stephane Foucaud. Thanks for taking my question. Two, the first one is around the FSO LOI. What would you expect to sum-up that LOI in something committed? And why is it just an LOI rather than would you -- would hit the non-binding rather than binding? Is it that you expect something potentially more attractive? And my second question is a quick one around accounting. I was, I think, I read the press release earlier that the -- I think the payment for the -- final payment for the acquisition was $29.6 million. But the account on the cash flow only shows $18 million. So I was wondering whether you could comment on that within the payment coming or whether is just that I misunderstood something? Thank you.

Thank you, Stephane. I'll deal with the first question. And I'll pass the other one to Jason and talk to the accounting on the acquisition. With relation to your first question on the why the LOI, why non-binding and do we expect any changes? Well, when we look -- it's very similar to John's question on drilling rigs. When we look to the opportunity to move from an FPSO to FSO, we did a very detailed scanning of the market to what fits our requirements, where we could see particularly infield enhancements by both in capacity for storage and operational positions and capabilities that a new FSO could provide us. And when we started to narrow down that particular skill set that asset availability, it very quickly came to a position where there weren't many assets available that met this criteria that we were looking for. So the reason we jumped in Non-Binding LOI was initially to secure our position on this asset. There's very little point doing the level of detailed engineering that we have done today and continuing to finalize that contractual position that we can't be sure this is the asset that we'll actually to place in the field. So that was the main driver for the Non-Binding LOI with result -- with regard to the cost structure and we're firming that up right now. But there's nothing that we've seen today that would give us any indication that the indicative cost positions that we've declared are not going to be achieved, and Jason, if you want to step in with the question on the acquisition centre?

Thank you, George and good morning, Stephane. So on the cash flow statement for the Sasol acquisition, I believe you see, there's total cash out the door of roughly 17.9 million. And indeed you're correct, that this year, we paid 29.6 million to Sasol. But as part of the business combinations, definitely also got 11.8 million in restricted cash and so if you take the 29.6 million that we pay Sasol and you subtract from that the 11.8 million of funds that we received in this, you get to the 17.9 million, which is what's included in a cash flow statement.

That's great and very clear. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Bill Dezellem from Tieton Capital. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi. Thank you. That's Tieton Capitol I have a group of questions. And I'd like to start also with the FSO. And very specifically, what is the capacity relative to the current FSO on a daily production basis, as opposed to the total storage basis, which I believe you gave up earlier?

Okay. That's your first question. Processing capacity is completely different from storage capacity, as you've alluded to. Our processing capacity on the current FPSO is circa 25,000 barrels per day of liquids. That processing capacity will not change but the processing been moved to the platform. So we will maintain 25,000 barrels per day of liquids processing capacity within the field.

Okay. Thank you. And…

And when we look at the storage capacity, the storage capacities, I think, have increased by about 400,000 barrels with the FPSO that namely sales.

Great, thank you. Second question is relative to your production guidance. You raise the second half production guidance, as you noted in your opening remarks. What led to that increase?

The main the main cause or the main position behind that increase Bill is moving forward the work over from Q4 into Q3.

Great, thank you. And then, lastly, would you please repeat that of production impact from the drilling program? I think you were mentioning that in your opening remarks. And I just missed it.

Yeah. The impact of the drilling would be between 7,000 and 8,000 barrels per day growth and I think the NRI from VAALCO would be 3,800 to 4,100 barrels per day.

And just for perspective, that's on top of the guidance that you've given for the second half of 7,200 barrels per day to 8,000 barrels per day, literally adding another 4,000 barrels a day on top of that are roughly a 50% increase?

Yes. That would be correct left over to the decline curve point forward from December through to them you have all those four wells on screen.

Great. Thank you for that clarification.

Our next question comes from Kenny Wiland from Wiland Management. Please go ahead with your question.

I chose three different areas. First on the FSO, given the favorable economics that the new storage vessel will have, are there only clauses in the existing contract that we could not terminate sooner to take advantage of the sooner? Is there some termination fee that we'd have to pay if we decided to move quicker?

To answer your question, there would be termination fees within the FPSO, if we look to shut down the contract earlier. However, that's not really even though sometimes a termination fee is an attractive option, given the levels of OpEx that you would expect to see in the same period. However, that's not really available to us. We've got -- when we look at the project timeline with Omni from the point of a contractual commitment, we take this vessel, and she goes into dry dock for a period of months to basically get not just into class, but get class certification for the next five years from on station, which has automatically evolved for a further five years. So we're making sure this vessel is fit for function in on station, in the field from 2022 through to at least 2032. So there's not really a significant opportunity time window to accelerate that refurbishment process in dry dock and get that vessel into field and take advantage of that. That's the first issue. The second issue was also we have some infield modifications to perform on the platforms and the some of the floor lines that will also be done during this time that the episodes in dry dock. So we don't really have from an engineering standpoint, that window you're looking at where we could accelerate by OPEC 7.

Okay. And when this transition occurs, is there a shutdown time that we will have to endure in 2022 to accommodate the new vessel?

Yes. We will -- we’ll have a shutdown period. It may be as long as a week or two. But what we look to do is coordinate that with our annual maintenance program. So we're not looking at an additional shutdown period during winter.

Okay. And George on the drilling program. Obviously, oil prices have been all over the map in the last 12 months. What are the current rig rates, or what kind of daily rig rate would you expect to pay?

Indicatively the rig, I mean, we’re in discussions to sell. So I'm probably not going to mention what rate I would happily pay, that might prejudice to some of the discussions we're having. But what we're seeing indicatively right now it's not out of the market from where the campaign was performed in 2019, 2020.

Okay. Excellent. And lastly, in the commentary, you mentioned that you would have free cash flow this year of $65 million. Yet you also mentioned that the free cash flow over the next 12 months would be sufficient to cover the FSL, the drilling campaign and any future buyback program. I calculate that number to be -- before the -- any buyback program $98 million to $110 million over the next 12 months versus what you were projecting at $65 million free cash flow during 2021. Can you reconcile those differences in numbers?

Yes. I mean, the main the main differences, but we're not get -- recording our free cash flow position for this year on existing production. We're taking the wells that are on-stream right now, in order to get to a position where we're confident that we cover all of our CapEx expenditures. That's a success based scenario, taking wells on-stream next year from the 20 -- the upcoming drilling campaign and an increase in the production. And that's what bounces that particular delta. So if you look at where we are, with a $65 million position right now, and if you roll that forward into the end of -- potentially, the end of the drilling campaign in April 2022, or April-May 2022. You can extrapolate that to a better $85 million position, but that's going to be enhanced by the additional production coming on-stream from these wells.

Excellent. Thanks, George and I wish you continued success. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from John White from ROTH Capital. Please, go ahead with your question.

Yes. I noticed there's not a lifting for the month of April on your website, is that to be posted shortly, or is there a reason for that?

No, there's no reason for that. I mean, the issue -- and all of these things, John, is that whenever we're doing listings, they're a mixture of the listing size and what we're producing. So we have listings ongoing almost every month, but there are periodic times where a parcel size may be requested a size larger than we could accommodate a monthly position. And we obviously look to accommodate the buyers to satisfy that. So that's sometimes gives us positions of not quite in monthly periodization.

Okay. So you'll be posting an April lifting.

We'll be posting a listing in May. That's definite, yes.

Okay. Thank you.

And our next question comes from Charlie Sharp from Canaccord. Please, go ahead with your question.

Thank you very much for taking my question. It's another one about the FSO, if I may. And I just wonder, you've outlined in some detail the advantages in terms of cost savings down the line of using the FSO. Is there some chance that there may be operating costs transferred onto the current producing facilities themselves, once you introduce the FSO, that are currently part of the FPSO. And then secondly, I just wondered, if there are any particular engineering risks, given the diverse configuration of producing assets that you have, including subsea Tieback wells that might cause some concern in the transfer to the FSO?

Thank you, Charlie. And on your first question, no, there is no material transferring of fair production costs. And moving the production on to the existing platform capabilities, what we are doing is obviously, we're enhancing on the CapEx side, the production capability with a couple of additional windows on the rumor platform. But its not significant OpEx position to include in that redirection or processing. And with regard to the cost savings or the engineering Etame field activities. Yes, right now, you're correct that the two subsea wells tied back to the FPSO. We do have a redirection of those wells into the platform. Most of the infrastructure work, as I mentioned, relates to a couple of wind decks on boomer [ph], some floor redirection on existing lines, and a new line moving towards the platform for the subsea line. So there's not -- there's no significant engineering, technology or engineering activities, both, top side or subsea, that is not well within our capabilities or standard. There are, as you asked our potential operation savings from the moving configuration that we're planning for the FSO, which will basically been current mood as a weather wind. And that gives us potential savings on offload position, because we will have the vessel moving with the current, as opposed to having to try and get tankers alongside the existing vessel, which is sometimes against the current. So there’s no major engineering issue and I think there are some environmental options for us that make the operation certainly less risk environment.

That's great. Thank you.

And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll be concluding today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

Yes. I'd like to as my first call as Chief Executive. I'd like to thank everyone for the questions. I think we are as a company very excited by the opportunities we have in front of us. And we have an excellent producing asset. And we have some key upside assets, in EG that has development potential. And I think given the turbulence that we saw in 2020, the 2021 and beyond into 2022 look an exciting growth period for VAALCO certainly.

Ladies and gentlemen, with that will conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for attending you. You may now disconnect your lines.