With cash flow from production assets supporting our exploration and development activity, our self-funding business model enables us to deliver our strategic objectives.
We also work closely with our joint venture (JV) partners to allocate capital efficiently.
Our positive contribution
We aim to make a positive contribution by delivering tangible benefits to our stakeholders. These include:
- the governments of the countries we operate in;
- the communities that give us our social licence to operate; and
- the employees, contractors and suppliers, whose expertise we rely on to perform our activities and create value.
We distribute value through:
- salaries and other benefits to employees;
- fees to contractors and suppliers;
- taxes, duties and other payments to governments; and
- by promoting social and community development in our host countries.
During 2021, we invested more than US$700,000 in social projects in the countries where we operate.
Increasing standards and expectations
Investors, businesses and society are increasingly acting to limit temperature rise, and governments are furthering their commitments in line with the pledges of COP26.
However, it is clear that the continued use of hydrocarbon fuels will be required for decades to come, albeit with technologies and mechanisms for reducing the emissions associated with their use.
To balance the needs of COP26 with our commercial activities, providers of capital want to ensure we meet the highest sustainability standards across our operations. Maintaining our ‘licence to operate’ therefore means we must track and apply best practices, which directly influence our Corporate Responsibility Management System (CRMS).
Our CRMS is updated annually and prescribes our requirements for working responsibly, enabling us to apply those processes and procedures throughout the organisation. It also helps us identify, evaluate and address potential societal risks, benefits and impacts.
We often seek to engage in new investment opportunities and locations, as an operator or JV partner.
Our CRMS requires us to understand the sustainability risks and determine whether we accept them with appropriate mitigation, or reject them. This assures our Board and management that we can apply our standards, while demonstrating the importance of our position to potential partners and investors.
We use a phased Project Delivery Process to understand and assess the risks associated with each new venture opportunity. Although some opportunities may be financially attractive, they may represent an unacceptable risk due to associated ethical, safety or environmental concerns. Where we identify an opportunity and agree to pursue it, we continue to deepen our understanding of the risks and mitigation requirements. These include new country entry and operations, as defined in our Operating Standards.