Meren Energy plc (MER.TO) Head of Investor Relations and Communications Shahin Amini caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss the company’s Q3 2025 performance, shareholder returns, balance sheet strategy, and upcoming growth catalysts.
Q1: Last week, Meren Energy announced third quarter 2025 results. Can you just take us through the highlights?
A1: Operationally, there were no big surprises. It’s fair to say that for the period it was business as usual, so steady as she goes. I suppose what I should highlight is a point on our shareholder capital returns programme and our balance sheet management.
On the first point, we announced with our results the fourth quarterly dividend for the year, and that was for $25 million. So, in effect, we have honoured our promises to our shareholders as we closed the Prime deal, and we implemented an enhanced dividend policy. We have honoured that promise. We have delivered $100 million in base dividend distribution so I’m very proud of that.
On the balance sheet point, we’ve also used available cash and cash flow from operations to significantly reduce our leverage. So, we do have a reserve-based lending facility, and we have reduced the outstanding balance under that. If you look at our net debt to EBITDA at the end of September 2025, we are at 0.4 times, which is significantly below our target of one times. I think with the global market uncertainty, oil price uncertainty for the next year or so, I think it’s important to be prudent and focus on the balance sheet strength and that’s exactly what we do.
Q2: Now, considering the cash return to shareholders through your base dividend policy and the deleveraging, is there a concern that you can be growth-constrained? Can you sustain the business?
A2: The heart of our business is our producing assets offshore Nigeria. As a reminder, these are the Agbami Field operated by Chevron, Akpo and Egina operated by TotalEnergies. They are the engine of our business; they give us the cash flow that really underpins everything that we do.
We do have a very opportunity-rich portfolio in the sense that other than the production assets in Nigeria, we also have development and exploration opportunities in our Nigerian portfolio. Given our robust cash flow from operations, even in very extreme, stressed oil price scenarios, we expect that Nigerian business to be self-sustaining, self-supporting. We do have a number of interesting catalysts next year in Nigeria in terms of both infill drilling and exploration drilling.
We also have our assets in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia, and I just want to remind those listening to this that we did a deal for the Venus project, which we have an effective interest through our major shareholding, Impact Oil and Gas. We did do a deal with TotalEnergies, whereby that project is also fully funded to first commercial production.
What we’ve really been good at is doing the right deals at the right time so that we capture and hold onto the opportunities without the upfront cost and without stretching our balance sheet. Therefore, we have the scope, the optionality, and the ability to deliver on our shareholder capital return promises and the core of that is our base dividend policy, which already this year has distributed $100 million to our shareholders.
So, I believe we have the right balance between returning capital and maintaining the growth opportunities without stretching the balance sheet.
Q3: Now a couple of weeks ago you announced that your shares had started trading on the US OTCQX. What was the reason behind this move?
A3: That’s actually OTCQX Best Market in the US. We are always looking at improving our engagement, increasing our engagement with equity capital markets, and submitting the application and getting our shares quoted and traded on OTCQX Best Market is a very effective way of accessing US investors, which is a very important pool of capital, internationally, globally. That is for us a focus area. Through this approach, we get the access without the cost and the regulatory burden that you would get with a full listing.
It is an impactful and efficient way of engaging with US investors and we rely on our existing regulatory disclosures in the Canadian market to satisfy our requirements on OTCQX.
So, as I said, a low-cost and impactful way of engaging with US investors.
Q4: Finally, what can shareholders look forward to from Meren Energy in terms of catalysts or news flow over the next 12 months?
A4: Let’s start off with our assets in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia. People who have been following our story know that the Venus field, which is a world-class light oil and associated gas discovery, is fully appraised. Looking forward to 2026, the operator TotalEnergies has guided to a potential final investment decision during 2026. We’re very excited about it. It’s a project that will support our long-term production base.
Ahead of that, as we get closer to final investment decision, it is possible that there will be more technical information for markets to digest and help investors and analysts to assess and value the opportunity in Venus.
In Nigeria, there’s going to be ongoing infill drilling next year. We’ve paused that infill drilling programme in order to give us time to look at the 4D seismic that was required. We expect the commencement of that programme next year as well, to support production on our three producing assets.
Also, we have one potentially high-impact exploration opportunity, which is a near-field prospect opportunity called Akpo Far East and it’s targeting more than 140 million barrels of oil equivalent in terms of gross field recoverable volumes, which net to us, could be somewhere between 15 to 20 million barrels of oil equivalent, if there is an exploration success and a discovery. When you consider our current reserve base of 100 million barrels of oil equivalent, you can see how material that could be, and that is one catalyst that investors could look for and potentially can be drilled next year.
We are also active in Equatorial Guinea. We operate two exploration blocks, one of the exploration blocks also has a gas discovery called Gardenia, so it’s not just exploration, there’s also appraisal opportunities. We did run an active data room process, and we are in discussions with interested parties. What we’re trying to achieve there is to bring in partners to share the risk and opportunities on those two blocks. If we are successful, then obviously that would set us for the next phase of activities offshore Equatorial Guinea, and hopefully we can update our shareholders and interested investors with our progress offshore Equatorial Guinea in due course.
