Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to begin by welcoming you to Vermilion's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. We will complete the formal part of this meeting first, and afterwards, Dion Hatcher, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company, will provide you an overview of the business and the strategy moving forward. So ladies and gentlemen, the meeting will now come to order. My name is Robert Michaleski, and as Chair of the Board of Directors of Vermilion Energy, it is my responsibility and privilege to chair this Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders of Vermilion. Jamie Gagner of Lawson Lundell LLP will act as secretary of the meeting, and Nazim Nathoo of Odyssey Trust Company will act as scrutineer. In addition to the registered shareholders, I would like to welcome to the meeting all others present here today. At this point, I would like to introduce the other independent directors of Vermilion who are present at the meeting today. James Kleckner, Jr.; Carin Knickel; Stephen Larke; Timothy Marchant; Manjit Sharma; Myron Stadnyk and Judy Steele. William Roby is on the Board, but he is traveling to another meeting today, so unable to be here for this meeting. I would also like to introduce the pencil members of our Executive Committee here today, Dion Hatcher, President and Chief Executive Officer; Lars Glemser, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Randy McQuaig, Vice President, North America; and Darcy Kerwin, Vice President, International, Health and Safety and Environment. The notice calling this Annual Meeting of Shareholders, along with the information circular and form of proxy were mailed on March 28, 2024, to all shareholders as of the record date for this meeting, being the close of business on March 13, 2024. As part of an ongoing stewardship of the environment, as…

My name is Yvonne Jeffery, and I'm a representative of Vermilion and a shareholder. I move that the number of directors of Vermilion Energy Inc. to be elected be fixed at 10.

Thanks, Yvonne. May I have the motion seconded?

My name is Terry Hergott. I'm a representative of Vermilion and a shareholder. And I second the motion.

Thanks, Terry. Is there any discussion? Voting on the election of directors will be conducted by way of ballot. The blue ballot is to be used for this matter of business. If you have not yet received one, please raise your hand. If you have already completed but not -- if you have not already completed your ballot and deposited it with a scrutineer, please complete the ballot now and sign your name clearly at the bottom of the ballot. Please raise your hand if you have a ballot to be collected, and the scrutineer will collect the ballots. Thank you. Based on preliminary voting results for this matter, it is expected that this resolution will be carried. We will continue with the remainder of this meeting's business while the scrutineer tabulates the results of the ballot voting and advises us as to the final results prior to the termination of this meeting. The next item of business is the election of the directors of Vermilion for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. As we have done in previous years, we will be nominating and approving individual directors and not a slate of directors. The Board of Directors has adopted a policy stipulating that if a director nominee receives a greater number of votes withheld from the election of that director than votes for the election, the nominee will offer to resign. The Governance and Human Resources Committee will then review the matter and recommend to the Board whether to accept the resignation and, the Board's decision to accept or reject the resignation will be publicly announced within 90 days of the meeting. It is expected that the resignations will be accepted except in situations where exceptional circumstances would warrant that the applicable director continue to serve as a Board member. The Board of Directors has also adopted Bylaw #2, providing for advanced notice of director nominations. I have been advised that no director nominations were received by the company, and accordingly, the nominees for election as a director are the nominees set forth in the information circular for this meeting. The number of directors to be elected at the meeting has been fixed at 10. Information with respect to each of the nominees was set forth in the information circular for this meeting. May I have a motion to nominate each of the nominees as a director of Vermilion Energy Inc.?

My name is Averyl Schraven, and I'm a representative of Vermilion and a shareholder. I nominate each of the following to act as a director for the ensuing year: Dion Hatcher; Robert Michaleski; James Kleckner, Jr.; Carin Knickel; Steve Larke; Timothy Marchant; William Roby; Manjit Sharma; Myron Stadnyk; and Judy Steele.

Thanks, Averyl. I will now ask to move the resolution electing those individuals nominated as directors of Vermilion Energy to serve as directors until the close of the next Annual Meeting of the Shareholders or until their successors are duly appointed.

My name is Geoff MacDonald, and I'm a representative of Vermilion and a shareholder. I move that each of the 10 persons nominated be elected as a director of Vermilion Energy Inc. to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until a successor is duly elected or appointed.

Thanks, Geoff. May I have the motion seconded?

My name is Kyle Preston, and I'm a representative of Vermilion and a shareholder. And I second the motion.

Thanks, Kyle. As previously stated, the directors will be elected individually and not as a slate. For a nominee to be elected as a director of Vermilion Energy Inc., the votes cast in favor of the election of the director nominee should represent no less than a majority of the votes cast by shareholders represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. Is there any discussion? Voting on the election of directors will be conducted by way of ballot. The white ballot is to be used for this matter of business. If you have not yet received one, please raise your hand. If you have not already completed your ballot and deposited it with the scrutineer, please complete the ballot now and sign your name clearly at the bottom of the ballot. Please raise your hand if you have a ballot to be collected, and the scrutineer will collect the ballots. Based on preliminary voting results for this matter, it is expected that this resolution will be carried. We will continue with the remainder of the meeting's business while the scrutineer tabulates and provides the results of the ballots prior to the termination of the meeting. The next item of business is the appointment of the auditors of Vermilion. Deloitte LLP are Vermilion's current auditors and have agreed to act upon -- act as auditors of Vermilion if appointed. May I have a motion for the appointment of auditors?

I move that Deloitte LLP be appointed as the auditors of Vermilion to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

Thanks, Kyle. May I have the motion -- second the motion?

I second the motion.

Thanks, Averyl. Is there any discussion? Voting on the election of the directors will be conducted by way of ballot. The pink ballot will be used for this matter of business. If you have not yet received one, please raise your hand. If you have not already completed your ballot and deposited it with the scrutineer, please complete your ballot now and sign your name clearly at the bottom of the ballot. Please raise your hand if you have a ballot to be collected, and the scrutineer will collect the ballots. Based on preliminary voting results for this matter, it is expected that this resolution will be carried. We will continue with the remainder of this meeting's business while the scrutineer tabulates and provides the results of the ballot voting prior to the termination of the meeting. The next item of business is the confirmation approval of Bylaw #2, which, as previously mentioned, requires advance notice of director nominations. Bylaw #2 was adopted as part of Vermilion's commitment to facilitating an orderly and efficient process for shareholders' meetings as shareholders receive adequate notice and sufficient information regarding director nominees and allowing shareholders to register an informed vote. Further information with respect to Bylaw #2 is set forth in the information circular for this meeting. May I have a motion for the confirmation and approval of Bylaw #2?

I move that the ordinary resolution to confirm and approve Bylaw #2 as a bylaw of the company, the full text of which is set out on Page 22 of the information circular accompanying the notice of this meeting, be approved.

Thanks, Geoff. May I have the motion seconded?

I second the motion.

Thanks, Averyl. Is there any discussion? Voting on confirmation and approval of Bylaw #2 will be conducted by way of ballot. The green ballot is to be used for this matter of business. If you have not received -- yet received one, please raise your hand. If you have not already completed your ballot and deposited it with the scrutineer, please complete the ballot now and sign your name clearly at the bottom of the ballot. Please raise your hand if you have a ballot to be collected. Based on preliminary voting results for this matter, it is expected that this resolution will be carried. We will continue with the remainder of this meeting's business while the scrutineer tabulates and provides the results of the ballot voting prior to termination of the meeting. The next item of business is the advisory vote on executive compensation. As part of Vermilion's ongoing commitment to strong corporate governance practices, we continue to hold a nonbinding advisory vote on the approach to executive compensation, commonly referred to as say-on-pay. In 2023, 93.25% of shareholders supported our say-on-pay vote. In respect to this meeting, 2 leading independent third-party proxy advisory firms, ISS and Glass Lewis, have both recommended that shareholders vote for the approval of the proposed say-on-pay vote at this meeting. May I have a motion for the say-on-pay advisory vote?

I move that on an advisory basis and not to diminish the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Directors that the shareholders accept Vermilion's approach to executive compensation disclosed in the information circular accompanying the notice of this meeting.

May I have the motion seconded?

I second the motion.

Thanks, Yvonne. Is there any discussion? Voting on the say-on-pay advisory vote will be conducted by way of ballot. The yellow ballot is to be used for this matter of business. If you have not yet received them, please raise your hand. If you have not already completed your ballot and deposited it with the scrutineer, please complete the ballot now and sign your name clearly at the bottom of the ballot. Please raise your hand if you have a ballot to be collected, and the scrutineer will collect the ballots. Based on preliminary voting results for this matter, it is expected that this resolution will be carried. We will continue with the remainder of the meeting's business while the scrutineer tabulates and provides the results of the ballot voting prior to the termination of the meeting. The next item of business is to table the consolidated audited financial statements of Vermilion for the year ended December 31, 2023, and the report of the auditors thereon. These financial statements were included in Vermilion's annual report, which is mailed to those shareholders who requested the financial statements, along with the Notice of Meeting and the information circular. For your ease of reference, links to Vermilion's annual report, which includes the financial statements, are available on our website under the heading Invest With Us, subheadings Reports & Filings. Are there any questions regarding the financial statements? I have the results of the voting on the ballot. On the matter of fixing the number of directors of Vermilion Energy at 10, I'm advised by the scrutineer that greater than a majority of the votes cast have been voted in favor of this resolution. Therefore, I declare that this motion is carried. On the matter of electing directors of Vermilion Energy Inc., I am…

Thanks, Bob. Good afternoon, everyone, on this snowy, feels like winter day. We'll start with the informal part of the presentation, and we'll just take a few minutes to talk about our Q1 results and the outlook for '24 and beyond. Before we do that, just to remind you, we will be referencing a presentation that can be found on our website under Invest With Us and Events & Presentations as well. The disclaimer, the advisory information on forward-looking statements is at the end of the presentation, describes the forward-looking information, non-GAAP measures and oil and gas terms used today, and it outlines the risk factors and assumptions relevant to this discussion. So 2024 is actually a key milestone year for the company. It was in 1994 that we were a small junior oil and gas company. Through the vision of our founders, Lorenzo, Claudio and [ Jeff ] that we started this company, they had a differentiated strategy to be an E&P company, one that grew globally through a series of acquisitions. Those acquisitions started in '97 with France. That was our first international acquisition. After that, we followed up with other acquisitions in Europe, in France as well as -- which was key in '97, but then in Australia as well as the U.S. This global diversification has several strategic advantages. It provides Vermilion with exposure to premium-priced global products, which helps to provide that outsized netback. It provides us opportunity for capital-efficient, often underexploited conventional assets. And it provides access to high-return international acquisition opportunities. Vermilion is unique in this strategy. Because of this advantaged business model, we've been able to return a significant portion of our capital to the investors over the years, over $40 a share in dividends. Past 4 years have been some of…

Question in the back? Yes, I think just over here, sir, if you wouldn't mind.

My name is [ Steve ]. I'm a shareholder with Vermilion. I've been for quite a long time. Just a general question as you see things going forward. The political environment can be a little tricky in Europe. What are your thoughts on that? Especially in Germany at this point, it's not predictable really for anything at all at the moment. So I'd appreciate some feedback on that. Also what do you think is going to be the catalyst to improve sentiment for Vermilion? Because I get out there right now, it's not good at all actually. There's a tremendous amount of sentiment that's in the way of -- actually the facts would say that it should be a much better-performing company. It's not at this point. So those are the 2 things I'd like some comments on.

Sure, yes. Well, thank you for the questions. Let's start with the first question about Europe, and I think we would -- we've been in Europe for most of our 30 years in business, and so it's an area that we know quite well. We continue to execute programs there in all the jurisdictions. And Germany is a really interesting one. I mean Germany was the epicenter of the crisis when 40% of the European gas was shut off. So what we've seen, and I think you're seeing this with our capital execution, is Germany has been open to working with us to, within the regulatory framework, help us to accelerate permits and get these wells drilled. And so we're quite excited with having this first well drilled. These are more material targets. We'll move to the second well, and we've got some runway here for multiple years for that. So interesting enough, I think Germany is quite pragmatic around their energy sources. 30% of their energy still is coal and lignite, by the way, and they're choosing not to continue to invest in nuclear and shut down the last of that nuclear plant. So that's an economy that for quite a while has been used to consuming gas and, I think, a little pragmatic around the need for gas. So we're quite excited with the outlook in Germany. On the second question around stock performance, and I think you acknowledged in a slide earlier that showed, let's call it, the fundamentals of the business, how we've been able to reduce debt by $1.2 billion over the last 3 years, and we've been able to high-grade our asset base and increase our fund flows and our free cash flow accordingly. So we're quite excited about that. I mean the business…

[Audio Gap] [indiscernible]

Yes. I think you're talking about the reserves. Yes, yes, I can kick that off, and there's more detail Lars can comment. But just quickly there is with the asset high grade that we've talked about, we're now allocating more capital to the Montney asset. And we're quite excited, as we talk today, is how strong those wells are of the 16-28 pad. Like these wells come on at [ 600 to 800 ] barrels of oil. As we got the permits and the clarity on infrastructure, it's really last year, we can get more certainty on the capital allocation to that asset. The good news then is -- or bad news, I guess, depending on from a reserve point of view is there's other parts of our business that won't attract capital and that those particular units were in Alberta and Saskatchewan. So as we chose to invest more in the Mica, more in Germany as well, we'll be investing less in Saskatchewan in particular. We still own those lands. We still have those drilling prospects on our lands, but they get recognized separately. And then as a result of how that gets recognized, there's an impact on the business. So that's the backstory. You probably know that, but for sure, we're focused on investing in the Montney as well as Germany where those 2 assets are very much underbooked and given the early days. Thank you. Any other questions?

Yes, we do have a few questions on the webcast here. First one on the windfall tax. Just wondering -- a little bit more color on that and how we can be certain that this windfall tax doesn't return at some point in the future.

Yes. The history of the windfall tax, and it's, I think, helpful to think about why the windfall tax existed at the time. Prices in Europe, the gas prices went exponential. And in Canada, we're used to paying $2 to $3 an Mcf for our energy costs. As a result of the tragic events in Ukraine and the restriction of gas, that market -- the gas price literally went exponential. And so gas went all the way to CAD 100. So when you think about that, like 50x higher than what we've ever seen in North America. Governments had to respond to that, and their response was tax. As you follow through, of course, again, the sad events in Ukraine are still ongoing, but I think the market there has normalized. The gas prices in Europe today are $12 to $13, are forecast to be around $14 next year, still a very robust 6 to 7x higher than what we see in Canada. And so that's an attractive place for us to deploy capital. The European Union came out late last year, and they did their follow-up analysis to respond to these extraordinary measures that were used to implement this type of retroactive tax. And the outcome of that study was the same: they do not see the need for this policy go forward. And so it has since expired. It's worth noting that France actually did not implement it in '23 even though they had the option to. So at this point, the windfall tax from the European Union is behind us. What would bring it back would be the next question. Now I think it would be exponential prices, right? And we view that as a right-way risk. We do not want to see any tragic events anywhere in the world, but if prices were to go super high, that would be the risk and where that would be introduced to our business. To remind investors, it was basically 30% of the gas was the incremental tax. And so we still were able to produce that gas and sell that gas. We're in around $20-plus, which, again, you compare that back to Canada where it's $2 to $3. So it's done, and what would bring it back is extraordinary pricing, which we don't see.

Okay. The next question we have relates to our Germany business unit. A number of years ago, we signed a farm-in agreement with Exxon. Do we still own that land? Or have we relinquished it?

No, we still own that land. Yes, yes. And as noted, we've got 700,000 net acres of land in Germany, a lot seismic over that and existing infrastructure in place. So we're quite excited about the potential development in the Germany unit.

Okay. And the next question, I'll lump these together. We've got a few of these around the dividend. Do we expect to increase the dividend this year? And why don't we pay a higher dividend as opposed to buying back shares?

Lars, do you want to take this one? Or do you want me to -- you can have an opportunity here.

Yes. Thanks for the question over the webcast there. So as a reminder, we did increase the dividend by 20% for 2024 over the 2023 level. And kind of our view is we want to maintain resilient financial flexibility within the system. And so our approach is going to be to limit that fixed dividend, ensure that it is sustainable and continually test it against a mid-price deck, which would be $60 oil, $2.50 North American gas and then $10 -- $12.50 European gas. And so we want to make sure that that fixed dividend is sustainable under that price environment. What we are committed to is targeting the 50% return of excess free cash flow to shareholders here in 2024. I think that shareholders within this industry have gotten a lot more comfortable with the variable mechanisms in terms of returning capital. And our preference in terms of how to do that is through the share buybacks. We do still think that there is room for increases in the dividend as we go forward. So what we would like to pair is ratable increases to the base dividend that are sustainable in a price environment much lower than we are at today and then couple that with that variable return of capital to top up to that target of 50%. So that's the approach that we're taking. We think it's a nice mix of providing a 3% yield today, reducing the share count by a pretty significant amount and being able to target that 10% of the market cap in terms of what we're returning.

All right. We have one last question here related to our Canadian operations. Can you explain why the Canadian production was down quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year?

Yes, that's just timing of capital. We've talked about the Montney in particular, which is the bulk of the capital that we're investing in Canada. As noted, the battery itself will be coming on late Q2. And so there's a period here where we're drilling wells, spending quite a bit of capital, but we'll see the benefits of that production in the second half of this year. So timing of capital, and then you've got your natural declines that are kicking in while we're waiting to bring those new wells on, which will be very soon.

All right. We did have one more question come through. And again, related to the dividend, would we consider a special dividend to top up the base dividend?

The answer is yes. But I mean we -- at this point, when you think about capital allocation as a management team, that's what we're paid to do and keep everyone safe as we run our operations. And so when we look at the valuation of the business today, and we talked about how debt is lower and cash flows are higher and the running room we have with these key growth projects, we're quite excited with the outlook. We compare that with the valuation of the company in the marketplace. And so we think it's a great allocation of capital to reduce those shares. And so that right now is the clear priority. If we found ourselves in a period of time down the road where the price of the stock was more aligned with what we see the intrinsic value of the company, well, then I think that would, as other management teams have done, provide the option to look at other means of capital return. At this point, we don't see that as an option on the table. But in the future, it would be a good problem to have.

Okay. Thanks, Dion. That's all the questions we have from the webcast. So I'll open it back up to the audience if there's any more questions.

I have one [Audio Gap] the tax, we talked about as one-off [Audio Gap] [indiscernible] there's nothing else that was going on then other than the tax that's driven those kinds [Audio Gap]

Yes. Maybe, Lars, you can come up, and I can kick it off here. And so just quickly on the windfall tax, the total expenditure of the windfall tax over 2 years was $300 million. Referenced earlier, our cash flow generation in those years, $1.6 billion and $1.2 billion, and that was after the tax. So those years were very, very, I guess, strong record years, frankly, for cash flow generation and free cash flow generation for the company. I think your question then is how -- relating those cash flows to earnings, just to clarify. So maybe I'll pass it to Lars.

Yes. Just to summarize sort of the 2-year period that you're referencing, sir, so 2022 FFO was kind of in that $1.6 billion range. As prices tempered in 2023, we're at the $1.1 billion level. I think what you're referencing to is we did have some noncash impairment charges go through the income statement in 2023. That did push us into a net loss position for the year. Dion touched on it earlier, but what we did in 2023 is we acknowledged the fact that now that we have sort of a runway on the BC side of our Montney asset, we acknowledged within our reserve bookings, but that is where a large amount of our capital is going to go over the next 5 years. The way our reserve book works is you really have to have line of sight to capital in the next 5 years to be able to book reserves. And so what we did is we wanted to acknowledge kind of our per annum spend level here of, call it, $600 million to $700 million. And so we derecognized reserves primarily in the U.S. business unit and the Saskatchewan cash-generating unit. And so what that resulted in is less reserves, less book value from a reserve perspective and triggered the write-downs. The other thing to keep in mind is a good chunk of those reserves and those 2 cash-generating units, they were put on in 2018, bit of a different backdrop than what we have here today. And so a good chunk of those assets were recognized when we issued equity to do the Spartan acquisition with shares kind of in that $43 range. So kind of what you had there was a recognition of capital for a number of years coming off the books kind of all within that single year of 2023. So that was the primary driver of being in a loss position.

[Audio Gap] know how you would handle that [Audio Gap]

I appreciate the comments, the feedback. And I think that's something that we'll take away just to make sure that we're providing the appropriate level of transparency in terms of the drivers. So I do appreciate that. We will take that away. Thank you.

Thanks, Lars. Just to check, I guess, Kyle, one, here, gentleman.

Yes [indiscernible] [Audio Gap]

Yes. Thank you. So you're right. The Corrib unit, which we did that acquisition just a little while ago, a very attractive acquisition in excess of 40% to increase our exposure to that asset which we've operated since late 2015 -- sorry, 2018. So it is a declining asset, declines 12% to 14% per year, generates a lot of free cash flow for us. Without getting too technical, we do look at ways to reduce the pressure in which that reservoir produces. And so we've just finished a project in which we implemented a refrig plant, which helps to reduce pressure, and then we've got some other additional compression projects, which helps to reduce the pressure. We see the ability of that reservoir to produce out to mid-2030s, and we'll continue to look for ways to extend that. There are options to drill in that reservoir, but it is an offshore asset. So the cost to drill those wells are expensive. So we do contrast that. And that's the strength of Vermilion. We have these different business units to say, are we better to drill another well in Corrib or drill an onshore well in Germany that we believe is quite attractive? We do have opportunities. At this point, we're focusing on our onshore operations to drill in Germany and Netherlands that we think are more attractive. So that's our focus there. And as that free cash flow comes out of that Irish unit, again, we'll look to redeploy a portion of that to our business to be able to grow our free cash flow for years to come. It might not be Corrib, but the business we're in as a management team is to redeploy, and then the other 50% of excess gets returned to our investors. So does that help address the question? Yes. Great. Thank you. Other questions? Okay. Well, I think the refreshments are open in the back, so I encourage you to have a refreshment. And I just again want to thank everyone for attending. We do appreciate your support and confidence in the management team, and we'll continue to work very hard to better position the business and look forward to updating you again next year. So again, thank you.