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Good morning, and welcome to the Serinus Energy plc Q3 2022 Financial Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll.
I'd now like to hand you over to Jeffrey Auld, CEO. Good morning, sir.
Good morning. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us for the financial results for the period ended 30 of September 2022. I'm joined here by Andrew Fairclough, our CFO; Stuart Morrison, our COO; and Calvin Brackman, our Vice President of External Relations & Strategy. As usual, I'll give a couple of brief comments on the quarter. I'll let Andrew run through the financials, and then we'll close off and take questions. So in the quarter, we had a very strong financial quarter. Production is stable. We -- the period is 938 barrels a day, 421 barrels a day from Romania, 517 barrels a day from Tunisia. Operationally, we drilled 2 wells in the period. Disappointingly, both wells found gas in all the targets we had targeted. But unfortunately, that gas was not of sufficient quantities to bear the cost of completion and the time lines back to Moftinu. Both wells were drilled within budget and without incidents.
And a little bit of a silver lining, the Canar-1 well, we've converted to a water disposal well. We currently spend about $70,000 a month disposing water that's produced with the gas in Moftinu. Canar-1, once it's on full injection, will be able to lower that cost of about $5,000 a month. So a very significant cost savings. I know that's a slim silver lining to 2 very disappointing wells. But nonetheless, we've managed to turn that into a little bit of a silver line.
Prior to drilling the Canar-1 and the Moftinu Nord-1 well, we had announced that we were initiating a block-wide review of the concession. That is well advanced. We're starting to get results from that. And that is designed to help us high rank and hopefully expand the 181 million barrels of prospects that we see on the block. So the block remains considerably prospective. There's lots of opportunities for us. We had selected the 2 closest proximal prospects to the Moftinu gas plant hoping to get gas into the plant. However, there are sizable prospects elsewhere on the block, and that's what we'll be pursuing going into 2023. So that's a little bit of an overview on Romania.
In Tunisia, production remains stable. Our pump program in the southern block, where we're 100% equity operator, has demonstrated that we can increase the production significantly. And we can recall that we've doubled the production in Tunisia since 2017. And unfortunately, very frustratingly, a pandemic came along and slowed our ability to get pumps global supply chains exacerbated that. And then we had a rig company, the monopoly, government-owned rig company in Tunisia, defaulted on the rig contract and was unable to deliver the rig that they had contracted to us. We believe that is close to resolution. We understand that the rig is being demobilized from the operator that it was working with the company that it was working with.
The accommodation unit is set up in our field. So we are preparing and beginning the mobilization. However, you can understand that given the company defaults on a rig contract, we've been very careful to announce when that mobilization has begun. We will, of course, announce as soon as that rig is in field and our operations begin. We have been waiting for those operations to begin since the first half.
And we're very eager to get going. I think everyone knows, these are very high-return pumps if they work, and the production effect will be significant. So we're waiting on that. Again, to remind everyone, that's a 90-day program for 2 wells. So we'll start off with the W-1 well, and then we'll move to the N-2 well. So we've got 90 days in the schedule for that. So really hoping that, that will kick off soon. There's not much we can do with the government-owned monopoly rig company. It is a very, very disappointing behavior. But nonetheless, we're dealing with it.
We did a lifting in the period. We lifted 50,344 barrels and got a price just under $100 a barrel at $99.51. We have had issues that have expanded from what's going on in Ukraine. It's very, very difficult to get trucks in Romania. NATO seems to be using most of the trucks. So moving things around. We've had to be more nimble with our logistics. But nonetheless, the big issue is the energy security issue. I think, Calvin, you might want to comment on some of the energy security talks you had in Romania this week -- or sorry, last week. Increasingly, Romania is looking at gas as being a solution to energy security, domestic gas. And obviously, we all know that the windfall tax that we suffer is one of the impediments for us investing more in Romania.
So Cal, do you want to very briefly talk about your meetings?
Yes. Yes. It was -- I met with various ministries of Romania last week and held discussions, focusing on the energy security issue and their current dependency on imported gas, mostly from Russia, and how that's really going to be unsustainable going forward for them. So they seem a lot more open than in the past, in terms of looking at what solutions they have going forward and really how to encourage investment in the onshore gas resources that they have, and there's still substantial gas resources remaining on-shore in Romania.
Good. So yes, we're progressing with meetings. We're starting to see that shift. It's always hard to get governments to move away from tax revenue, the short-term revenue from the taxes and the longer-term growth from the onshore gas assets, but we think we're having some progress there. We certainly haven't modeled an end to the windfall tax, but we're starting to be more hopeful on that. So that's some more recent developments.
And that, I think we can hand over to Andrew to run through the financial statements.
Yes, thanks. As we can see that something that another very strong set of results for us, for the 9 months to the end of September, generated revenue of $41.8 million. It's worth noting in the gas plant since first gas in 2019 has produced revenues in excess of $87 million, so that's been a very successful investment for us in a material contributor to the business. Gross profit in the period was $11.8 million. And again, we've developed another -- delivered another quarter of positive net income, which is at $3.4 million. For us, cash flow is a very key focus for us. EBITDA for the period was $11.4 million, which again, another strong period of cash generation for us. Underpinning this, of course, net realized price generated was $162.18 per BOE, realized oil price $101, which is pretty consistent with the first half, and we had a continued strengthening in the gas price through the last quarter, which was just under $37 per Mcf for the 9-month period. As a result, our operating netback remains very strong for the period, just over $120 per BOE. That was in Romania, the operating netback, very strong, $195.73 per BOE for the period; and Tunisia, again, another strong delivery, just over $59 per BOE.
The outset of this is, of course, the strong cash generation allows us to continue to invest in the business. CapEx for the period was $8.6 million. The bulk of that was in Romania, just under $7 million as a result of the compression programs we put in place, the 2D seismic and the drilling of Canar-1 and Moftinu Nord-1. And in Tunisia, we spent $1.7 million in the 9-month period. That was on workover in Chouech and then also sort of advanced expenditure in anticipation of the artificial lift program at CS-9. Working capital surplus, again, we maintained a surplus, which increased slightly to $0.8 million and cash at the end of September was $8.8 million.
The slide shows again, as we like to try and remind everyone, the business has gone through a material transformation. We're continuing to deliver strong results. You can see that through in the revenue. And actually, from our perspective, very importantly and very pleasingly continued net income, positive net income that our corporate structure allows us to deliver these days. It's very much focused on cost and cash generation and the clean balance sheet we have that supports our future investment in this business.
Looking at revenue, again, you can see against the comparative period, the strength of revenue, $41.8 million for the year and that strength is to be shown both in Tunisia and Romania. Cost of sales, you can see the very material impact of the windfall tax against comparative period cost of sales just over $21 million, a very significant proportion of that, $14 million as a result of windfall tax, which is directly linked to the Romanian gas price. Nevertheless, very strong delivery of gross profit of $11.8 million. And as I mentioned earlier, we are generating net income of $3.4 million in the period.
Production. Production was just under 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Romania, we continued to see these natural declines, which the climb rate pleasing is slowed because of the impact of compression program, and Tunisia remains stable in advance of the artificial lift program. And again, you can see here the comparative for delivery of realized pricing through the 9 months year-to-date with $162 per BOE as our group-wide realized price.
Production expense. Production expense of $8.2 million in the period. Tunisia is $3.7 million, very much in line with the first half. And Romania, as Jeff mentioned, we had expended $4.5 million, that's partially a result of the water disposal costs, as Jeff mentioned, but also a continuing impact of trade bulk inflation. And we highlighted this at the half year, we're seeing price in propane, pricings increased nearly 70%, electricity pricing is over 65% increases, fuel itself as well, 40% increases. So there's no significant inflation pressure that we're seeing in Romania at this point in time continuing.
Operating netback, again, we've talked about that. But again, we've seen the strength of pricing and focus on costs, delivering very strong operating netbacks, both in Tunisia and Romania, which is consistent throughout this year. It's important, again, I think from our perspective, our expenditure on CapEx, $8.6 million, is very much a result of continuing strength in cash flows, our focus on cost controls and our ability to ensure that the business does deliver the required cash flow to be able to continue to invest.
And we see ourselves positioning ourselves to invest in this business. We are looking to grow the business. As Jeff said, we're very disappointed by the outturn of Canar-1 and Moftinu Nord-1. But nevertheless, we have our plans, we will be continuing to invest and looking for future growth in the business. And as you can see, EBITDA, as mentioned earlier, nearly $11.5 million. So it's another very strong set of results for us. We've got a good strong financial position. We have the ability to do that and we will continue to invest kind of looking for future growth.
Now I'll move on to Jeff.
Good. Thanks, Andrew. Just to finish up before we go to questions. We're disappointed with the 2 wells. I think everyone is disappointed with Canar-1 and Moftinu Nord. They were very good prospects. It's disappointing to say that the gas was there where we thought it was and just not enough. You really can't get too much closer in these things. But this is a very, very large block. And I think the focus for us is to throw the net wider.
We've been focused on Moftinu on the cash flow because it's a piece of capital that we've invested in. I think you've seen $87 million has come out of Moftinu in terms of revenue. These are fantastic numbers. And I think looking farther and wider on the block will allow us to find -- we've always had an objective to have multiple gas plants in this area. The block can support it. It's a very, very hydrocarbon-rich block, and we just need to find the ones that trap. Unfortunately, investing in oil and gas doesn't mean we always hit every single well. And so what we do is we look for the best prospects, a very, very large block.
So the plans going forward on the block. We're going to complete our block-wide study, and we're going to get back on it. That study is very, very important to us. It allows our technical teams to look in great detail at the existing data that's on the block. And remember, this block has a lot of existing 2D seismic that we have reprocessed. It's got a lot of wells that have been drilled on it and going through each of those and tying those to prospects and identifying where our best prospects are. That's the near-term work. And that near-term work leads to the growth that we get out of this block.
Equally, frustrating has been a rig company that defaults on a contract. If this was not a monopoly, if this was not a government-owned rig company, I mean everyone can be assured that we would be pursuing our commercial rights that we would normally do. However, it's very difficult to do that when it's a monopoly and the government-owned monopoly. We need that company to get rigs. We are pressuring the government to get additional rigs into the country. I mean it's telling that there's 1,000 rigs in Libya. I don't know how many they are in Algeria, but there's a lot of rigs. And I think there's 6 rigs in Tunisia.
So this is, again, an example of a government holding that monopoly rig company close to themselves, hoping for short-term gains when in reality, just getting rigs into the country that you can drill and grow the business is probably the better strategy. And like Calvin's work in Romania, we're working in Tunisia to get the government to look at having more rigs in the country. So we will try to resolve that. We will get moving as quickly as we can. But it has been frustrating.
So we will move on. There's plenty of growth in Tunisia. Let's remember, third-party estimates of the Sabria field have at 440 million barrels in place, of which 1% has been recovered. It's a conventional oil field. It's not terribly complicated. And you should have recovery rates of a field of this age and this size in the mid-teens, we have a 1% recovery rate. We don't have to move up to 15% recovery. But if we go to 2%, that's a material increase for the business. 2% of $440 million is a big number. So there's plenty of growth in Tunisia, plenty of growth in Romania, and we will press on for that growth. Environmental, health and safety. We continue to operate with no lost time incidents.
We've had -- last year, we exceeded 1 million manhours in Romania. We keep a very close watch on the health and safety. We talked about the Canar-1 water injection well. It is likely we will power that water injection well with solar panels. Thus, we will reduce our operating cost from the medium voltage line in Romania. We will run that pump on solar power. So we'll have a reduction from 70,000 barrels -- $70,000 a month in water injection to about $5,000 and we will power it with solar panels.
So we are working towards our environmental and safety targets. And we're happy to see that we are able to start powering things with solar power as the costs are getting to a point where it's not excessive. Payback on a solar power plant on its own is about 16 years, but the cost payback of a pump for water injection is much, much lower.
So we're moving ahead on that. In summary, strong period, not just commodity prices. We have to remember that the windfall tax really insulates the netbacks that we get in Romania. So the price can double and it's not like we get the cash flow and the revenue of a doubling price. A lot of the positive results are a tight management of costs, especially in a high inflationary world and managing our timing, managing our buying of long lead items. So we'll continue to focus on that.
With that, I would conclude and we'd be happy to turn it over to questions.
[Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you that recording of the presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. We did receive a number of pre-submitted questions from investors. And perhaps, if I could just start off with these.
I think you have covered parts of the first 3 that we've got here, but I'll read them out anyway. The first reads, the company previously stated that over the next 5 years, the company plans to build another 4 to 5 gas plants in Romania and significantly increased production in Tunisia through pump installation. Since almost half of that time is now lapsed, how advanced is the company delivering on these promises?
Yes. Those targets remain. I mean I think in Romania, very, very disappointing exploration wells, where we had anticipated those wells would contribute to production, and they didn't. So we're going to have to drill additional exploration wells. And that's a feature of exploration. Unfortunately, if every well hit, everyone would be doing this. I think we're pretty good at the exploration. We've found the gas. Now we better find gas in sufficient quantities, which the quantity in the reservoirs that we identify, it's very hard to identify a kilometer down off of seismic. So it remains an exploration risk. And unfortunately, those wells did not provide some of the increased production that we had hoped for. I think we also have to remember these production numbers, Moftinu did exactly what the reserve reports said it would do. It's sort of -- shallow gas fields are a bit like opening a bottle of coke. You get an initial burst of gas. And then the gas bubbles away for you after that burst has diminished. These are the kind of profiles we will be looking for in Romania.
So we can spike up to these numbers, which we wholly anticipate we're able to do. To keep those production levels out there, you obviously have to phase the timing of these -- putting these projects on stream. And unfortunately, the pandemic very much affected the timing of putting the next Moftinu on stream. You'll remember that we had a 3D seismic program that was planned for Berveni that was wholly canceled because of the pandemic. We could not put large seismic crews in the field for almost 2 years.
So that is a piece of our development work where we -- the sort of the flashlight to see where we're going next, that was -- we were unable to conduct.
In Tunisia, in pursuit of those production targets, I'll remind shareholders, the Board of this company approved the artificial lift program in November of 2020. Our partner did not give us approval to proceed, partly because of the pandemic, partly because our partner until May of 2021, and then we were in the midst of trying to get pumps. And this was a worldwide problem. The problem was so bad that we were airfreighting pieces of pumps to try to get it into the country faster, only to find out that a rig contractor defaults on a contract.
These have been very, very difficult and Tunisia-specific problems. But clearly, we have ambitions to grow the productions along the lines of what we had originally said. The resource and the asset base can do this. It's a matter of getting down to do it. So very, very disappointing for everyone that we haven't been able to move as fast as we can. But we continue to believe that those kind of numbers are available out of the assets we have. So there's plenty of growth. It's just a matter of getting to it.
Next question, you did touch on here. Will the company perform a 3D seismic acquisition program for the Berveni area and a 2D seismic acquisition program for the Sancrai area in Romania?
I think part of the block-wide review is to determine whether those areas are the best places for us to allocate our capital. Firstly, I can address Sancrai. The answer is no. Sancrai was a good prospect, but it's -- we cannot flow the gas. We are not going to spend more shareholders' money on a problem that is very, very complicated when the block is littered with prospects that don't have that complexity.
On Berveni, the Berveni 3D seismic was a commitment to NAMR. So as part of the license commitment, we have that commitment. That was a long-existing commitment. The pandemic came along, we were unable to do it. And I think what we will do now, and we satisfy the commitment by drilling other wells. So Sancrai satisfied the commitment, where Berveni had been a commitment to the government. I think what we'll do now is determine whether that is the best place for the seismic now that we are not committed to doing seismic there. We have a little bit of an open reign. We can look anywhere now. So will we do more seismic on the block? Absolutely. Will we do it in Berveni? Not sure. Will we do it over Sancrai? No.
Next question we've got here. When does the company plan to launch the first ESP pump for the artificial lift program in Sabria field? And when will the last ESP pump be installed in the field? Again, something you did touch on in the presentation.
Yes. I mean we're rigging up a rig right now. The rig is rigging down from the company that was previously utilizing it. And it's imminent that it gets to our field that we start. So we'll be kicking off that program imminently. The last pump -- well, we have a plan to put a pump in W-1. We have a plan for the recompletion in N-2. We have not gone to our partner for approval on Win-12, which is the next well we'd like to put a pump in, simply because our partner has said that they will not approve another pump until they see the performance of the previous pumps. So we'll have to get the pumps in and get some performance numbers to the partner, and then we will go to them to approve it.
After that, we have a number of other wells in Sabria that we'd like to put pumps in, but we have not put those to our partners. So I think we can just focus on the 2 wells that we're doing right now. Ideally, we would do this as quickly as possible. I think some of the impediments that have made this so slow in Tunisia have been resolved.
So we're starting to get back to a world where supply chains are working, where fabricators of pumps aren't taking abnormally long periods of time, and we're also getting to a period where we've got our partner who is a little bit more inclined to do work and to allocate their capital. Remember, they pay for 55% of the work that we do in Sabria, and so we have to have them on board. So I think some of the things that have kept Tunisia slow have resolved themselves. But it's still, it's a place where -- it's a difficult place to do business, and we must focus all our attention on making sure things go as smoothly as we can possibly make it.
And again, one that we have touched on, and the question here is what are the company's investment plans for 2023?
Yes. We are right in the middle of a budget cycle right now. So we do our budgets right at the end of November. And so we'll announce where we're at with capital plans. But I think everyone knows. We're pursuing these pump installations in Sabria and further exploration in Romania. In broad terms, we try to match our investment programs to our free cash flow. So we do not anticipate -- unless something dramatically changes, never say never. But we plan to finance our business from the internally generated cash and not go dilute shareholders further by further fundraising to pursue these opportunities. But of course, if bigger opportunities come up or something springs up, we will finance them accordingly. But our budget plans are to run the business within the constraints of our operating cash flow.
Next question we've got here as part of the presentation for Shares Magazine in December 2020. As said that within the next 18 months, production will increase by 5,600 barrels of oil a day from 2,500. Some 24 months later, production is not only -- it didn't increase but dropped quite significantly and business prospects are rather dim. Is there anything the Board wants to pass to investors?
Well, I think we've answered the timing on the targets. Those targets remain. Timing has been difficult. Business prospects remain dim; no, I'm sorry. I would look around and tell you that we have a 3,000 square kilometer block, which has got production on it and 181 million barrels of exploration potential. And we've got a 440 million barrel in-place oilfield with 1% recovery.
I mean those are fantastic assets for any company. There is lots of work to do on those. So there's the obvious constraint of we work within our operating cash flow. If we had $100 million, you'd be doing a whole bunch more activity, but we work within our operating cash flow, that's a time constraint. And then we've had the frustrations of things moving slowly in Tunisia. So no, I think the idea that prospects look dim is fundamentally wrong. I would measure these assets against anyone's assets and say, these are excellent prospect assets.
Next question, I think we've covered off actually talking about when would you review the strategy, which we mentioned earlier on and also what's next for Romania. Question here, we've got on dividend. I know you stance on the dividend and I generally agree with it. However, given the subpar valuation and relatively strong cash generation, should the Board of Directors reconsider paying out at least some dividend in order to shrink the gap between XLE and Serinus performance as well as reward for existing patient shareholders?
Yes. Look, we've been clear. The business has -- business is set up to pay dividends. We're a Jersey company, so we don't have withholding tax out of Jersey. The business has always been set up for shareholder returns. However, with all the growth that I hope I've continued to talk about, we believe that the best allocation of our capital is into the growth of the business. And so we do not look at dividends right now. However, with some of the successes that we had hoped we would have and we look forward to the future to having, the company is positioned to be able to pay dividends, but we haven't looked at it now. We're a growth company, and the assets are so strong that we will apply capital to growing those assets. If we didn't have the asset base we have, if we didn't have opportunities, there were very, very high return opportunities, then yes, we'd look at dividends.
But returning capital to shareholders when we have the high-return projects we do, is not how you grow a company. Look at Moftinu, I mean $87 million of revenue in 3 years. Those are the kind of returns that we're pursuing. And those are factual returns. There's no dream here. It's just -- there's no making up numbers. It just is the returns we have. So yes, we'd like to pursue those because we think those returns are so much better for shareholders.
Next question we've got here is there anything you do differently if you had a chance to start calendar year '22 over again, any lessons learned and any ideas on improvement?
Yes. Look, the year has been a good year for us. It's been disappointing to have 2 wells not come in. There is no further technical work we could have done. There's no further seismic we could have done. We were left with the residual risks of exploration. Would we have changed those prospects? No, I don't think so.
Those prospects were chosen because they were very, very good prospects in a close proximity to an existing gas plant. That's the fastest way to revenue, and that's the fastest way to cash flow. So we wouldn't have changed those. Would we have changed -- I mean, we had -- at the start of the year, we had a rig contract that we believed in. We don't usually see rig companies default on contracts. Would we have done anything differently?
Well, I mean, in the best of all possible worlds, we would have had a different rig company that didn't default on the contract. But there's very little we could have done about that. And so I think operationally, the team is working well. Financially, we're keeping control of costs in a high inflationary environment. We're working on our good relationships with our host governments. I think in general, it's been a good year with exploration disappointment. And I'm afraid there's not much we can do about exploration disappointment, it happens. You don't get to find a Moftinu on the first chance every time.
A question here, we've got -- if recessionary fees dominate the market in the oil price plummets, can you lower the overall production cost to 2020 levels in order to stay highly profitable even with lower prices?
Well, we can lower the costs. But we're pretty -- I think on the cost side, the production cost side, we're as efficient as we can get. We're always looking for more efficiencies. The effect we're seeing in the increased production expense is largely inflation that we don't control. So if oil prices were to plunge sharply, inflation -- it would take time for the inflationary effects to flow through.
So 2020 levels, remember, you didn't have the inflationary pressures that we have right now. So we can certainly keep ourselves lean and efficient. We will certainly be able to make -- we make money. I think it's about $25 a barrel cash return. So we can make returns. But where the prices to fall and inflation not fall as quickly, then that's the big issue. Your production prices -- your production costs tend to stay -- the cure for inflation in oilfield services is low oil prices, but it takes time to run through.
That concludes the pre-submitted questions. If I may just ask you just a click on the Q&A tab and if there are any further questions that we haven't already covered. If you could just read them out, please and give you a response that'd be fantastic.
Sure. First one. What is the plan, if any, for the buyback shares currently held in treasury?
We hold those shares in treasury because the currency that we bought at a cheap price. It's an asset we buy at a cheap price. So we can use that currency or we can cancel them. We don't currently have any plans. We discussed -- we do discuss it at the Board meetings periodically. Right now, the feeling is that's an asset that we bought at a low price and we'll hold it on the balance sheet. But no immediate plans.
Does the windfall tax relate only to Romania? If so, is the rate 85%?
No. The windfall tax relates only to Romania. We only have Romania windfall tax. Cal, do you want to talk about the windfall tax?
Yes. As you're assuming $16 million of revenue in Romania was actually $27 million. So it comes in at about 51% of our Romania revenue for the first 9 months. The tax is, of course, quite burdensome to the producers in Romania, and it really cycles the investment in increasing the production in the country. The production in Romania has declined onshore for the past 5 years since this tax has been in place, and it's something that really needs to be dealt with by the government in order to start to look at the energy security for the country in providing energy.
Good. Thanks, Cal. Next question, why drill in Romania if Tunisia has better prospects without -- a successful drilling with the field being without any complications?
Well, firstly, the 2 very, very different assets. Tunisia, I wouldn't say it has better prospects, it's an identified oil field. So what we're doing in Tunisia is developing an identified oilfield and finding ways to extract more of the resource that's in place. So clearly, it's without that exploration risk.
Why drill in Romania? I think Moftinu is why you drill in Romania. Again, I go back to -- we just passed $87 million of revenue out of Moftinu. That gas plant costs $7.8 million. The explosive returns you can get out of Romania, they're short-life fields. They're 5- or 6-year fields, but they really do come along with a boom and they provide you a lot of cash return.
So the investment returns in Romania are explosive, but they bear exploration risk. The returns in Tunisia are very, very solid returns, increasing product -- doubling production is what we've done since 2017, double it again, right? It's a very, very nice business model, and we'll pursue both.
Given the political risks in both countries, given the oil nature of Tunisia, and the gas nature of Romania, they actually balance themselves in terms of commodity. We can allocate capital to one where the other is -- where we don't have a prospect to invest in the other. And we also have a timing effect.
What's ready to drill in Romania and might not be ready to drill in Tunisia. So we can balance our operations so that we can pursue the most attractive investments in both countries. It's very much a portfolio effect with a very, very different profile of portfolio investments.
Next one, how is the CS-9 well performing after the workover figures. There are no figures in the results RNS?
Well, we don't typically announce results independent for each independent well in our RNSes. We do a workover. The workover comes on as anticipated, and we report on a field basis. So we very rarely report on CS-9 or on individual wells. However, CS-9, Stuart, do you want to talk about CS-9?
Yes, sure. CS-9, one of the wells that we've been working on this year along with CS-3, I'd say, overall, that has been a successful pump change out campaign. So we get some over, some under, but -- imbalance, it's been a good gambling.
Yes. The results are -- we have doubled the production in Tunisia that -- largely the doubling of production since 2017 has not come from Sabria, it's come from this pump program in Chouech. And Stuart's right, you put a pump in, some do better than others, some do worse than others.
Sometimes the pump goes in and it doesn't do as well as the old pump. Sometimes the pump comes in and it does better, right? But we look at it on an aggregate profile and since 2017, we've effectively doubled the production. So the program continues to be a good program.
You keep mentioning $87 million in revenue, not cash, revenue from Romania. However, what is the net cash to Serinus it seems that the tax regime in Romania results in a much lower net cash position. Therefore, Romania is not as lucrative as you make it out to be?
Well, we don't make it out to be anything. We put in our results presentations and in our corporate presentations the after-tax netbacks we get from both areas. So Romania is very attractive. The price for gas is much higher than the price for oil right now.
You saw that on our netbacks. Quarterly financial statements that show what's coming out of each Romania and Tunisia show that this is a very, very good -- a good return. Yes, as Calvin and I have both talked about, the windfall tax is a tough tax. And remember, yes, it's a frustrating tax. It came in 3 months before we put Moftinu on production. So we weren't happy about that.
But nonetheless, if you look at the financial statements, you can see that Romania continues to be a strong revenue generator. And we talk about revenue because people sometimes miss the scale of Moftinu, right?
You're almost $90 million of revenue out of a $7.8 million gas plant. Now I agree, that's revenue. But if you look at the after-tax cash flow and the netbacks that we have both in this financial presentation, and we quarterly put the netbacks into our corporate presentations, you will see that this is a very, very attractive investment.
Will you continue with share buybacks given the very low share price? We have authorization to buy back up to 10% of our shares. We have -- in that shareholder authorization, we are able to buy back shares at 105% of the 5-day mid-market price. So there are constraints on the price we can buy shares. Sometimes the company is unable to buy shares. And certainly, when we have gone into the market to try to buy shares, we've found that we can't buy shares at these prices.
The bulk of our shareholders do not believe this price is reflective. So we have a small volume of shares that have moved the price to where it is. When we do try to buy, we are unable to get the volumes that we would like. So it's a very difficult -- very, very difficult equity to buy in the size.
But in simple answer to your question, when we see our cash flow trading at half -- our equity trades at half of our funds from operation, we think we're buying our cash flow at half price. And yes, we will continue to buy. We're not -- we buy cheap assets for our shareholders. And when our shares are trading like this, we believe they're a cheap asset.
Indeed you've covered off every question that we've had through from investor. Of course, if there are any further questions, the company will be able to review those and will publish responses where appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform.
Jeffrey, just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, what is just particularly important to you and the team, if I may just ask just for a few closing comments, please.
Well, firstly, thank you for all that listened. I hope we've answered all your questions. We do see a lot of opportunities in the asset base. The asset base has not been diminished by drilling 2 unsuccessful exploration wells. If anything, we've taken that learning, and we're accelerating the asset base.
Tunisia. We are not a patient company. We're pushing as fast as we can, and we think those results will be very meaningful for the business. So we're optimistic. We've got good, strong financial results. We do not have to go out and tap shareholders for further money to run our business or to invest. And so we want these investments to come in, and we want to demonstrate that there's more investments in our portfolio that can return to the same level that the existing investments have. So thank you for listening.
Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session. You'd be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a moment to complete, and I know is greatly valued by the company.
On behalf of the management team of Serinus Energy plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session. Thank you, and good morning to you all.