00:00I want to start with the share price here because GeoPark shares are lower. They fell as much as 4.2 percent on news that you will suspend your dividend.
00:08Make the case for why this should not be seen as a negative. Well first of all thanks for having me. It's great to be here as we host our investor day at the New York Stock Exchange.
00:20And I'd say that GeoPark has a twofold strategy basically taking care of protecting what we have current operations and then going back to growth this path of growth.
00:28And that's where Vaca Muerta brings a lot of opportunity and optionality. For most people Vaca Muerta the area in Argentina the province is producing more than 560,000 barrels of oil a day from fracking.
00:43So we see that as a great opportunity for GeoPark and for its shareholders.
00:48But you have an environment right now where the world seems to be awash in oil. There's plenty of supply and that's keeping oil prices under some pressure.
00:56How do you see that shaking out over the medium term?
00:58So yeah there's a lot of people that say that prices may go down. The one thing I would say and especially as we approach it in GeoPark is very disciplined in terms of allocating our capital.
01:10Being very disciplined with how we manage our balance sheet and where we kept our keep our leverage.
01:14And the other thing for example 2025 90 percent of our barrels have been hedged. For 2026 already 63 percent of our expected production has been hedged with a ceiling of 65 dollars per barrel.
01:28So we have some visibility in terms of the next 12 to 15 months which is great and can help us deploy the capital that we need to ensure that we can start growing back again.
01:39Gotcha. Gotcha. And of course the oil prices are so low that the U.S. looks to buy a million barrels for its strategic petroleum reserve.
01:46I want to get to this idea of this new Vaca Huerta investment in Argentina. I'm wondering whether there's any kind of spillover from the state of the country's finances.
01:56The peso is at a record low even as the U.S. has signed this economic stabilization agreement with the Central Bank of Argentina.
02:02Do you worry about that? So I think the first thing is that energy has been strategic for Argentina for decades.
02:09You know not for this government but for many many governments in the past and currently.
02:14Then I think the backing from the U.S. over the last few weeks has been very important.
02:18Lastly there's good access to capital locally in Argentina. That's where we want to fund some of the money that we will need for these capital investments.
02:27And the other thing is the provinces in Argentina are somehow autonomous in terms of how they manage their resources.
02:34And Neuquen where they're investing north of $10 billion in oil and gas has proven to be very, very resilient over the last decade or so.
02:43Okay. You have a lot of cash generating operations in Colombia.
02:46So I'm curious about the possibilities of Colombia opening up to fracking.
02:50I imagine that you have positioned GeoPark to be ready for that if and when that happens.
02:55Well I've been a proponent of fracking in Colombia.
02:59I've had some experience with the Permian particularly with very, very good results of operations that have been very profitable and generated lots of value.
03:08Most of the candidates right now we have elections next year are talking about the opportunity of fracking and going back to ensuring that we don't have a deficit mainly around gas.
03:18But also that we have sufficient oil for our refineries.
03:23And then the other thing I would say is that popular support in the latest polls for doing fracking in Colombia has actually increased.
03:31So we'll see what happens.
03:33We still have some months.
03:34But at the end of the day we want to ensure that Colombia does not lose its energy sovereignty overall.
03:39Okay. Very quickly I'm just curious where the status stands with your competitor Pampa taking a large stake in the company as part of a hostile takeover.
03:48I know you adopted a shareholder rice plan to push back against that.
03:53What's the latest?
03:54So we actually instituted the poison pill.
03:57It was the second day in office for me.
03:59And since then we've had very constructive conversations with Pampa not only in terms of them being an important shareholder.
04:06They've downloaded some of their equity but also in terms of doing potentially doing things together jointly, you know, developments and stuff.
04:13So we'll continue to work on a very constructive relationship with Pampa.
04:17So we'll continue to work on a very constructive relationship with Pampa.
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