Advantage Energy Ltd. (AAV) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Advantage Energy Limited Year-end 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Friday, March 6, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Bagnell, Vice President. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joanna, and welcome, everybody, to our conference call to discuss Advantage's year-end 2025 results. Before we get started, I'd like to refer you to the advisories on forward-looking statements contained in the news release as well as advisories contained in Advantage's MD&A and annual information form, both of which are available on SEDAR and on our website. I'll also note that we posted an updated corporate presentation to our website. I'm here with Mike Belenkie, President and CEO of Advantage; Craig Blackwood, our CFO; as well as other members of our executive team, and we'll start by speaking to some of our financial and operating highlights. Once Mike is finished, we'll pass it back to the operator for questions. And as usual, we'd ask that if you have any detailed modeling questions that you follow up with us individually after the call. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mike. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Brian, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. 2025 was defined by record operational performance, strong capital efficiencies and meaningful progress towards our long-term strategic objectives. Even during this volatile commodity environment, our business delivered exceptional results, demonstrating the strength of our asset base and the resilience of our operating model. Average production -- sorry, annual production averaged 78,267 BOEs per day, the highest in our 25-year history, supported by strong well performance across all of our assets. Liquids production grew 28% year-over-year. Liquids revenue represented 48% of total revenue despite representing just 16% of our production, reinforcing the high average quality of our liquids products, and the value of our liquids diversification. Advantage generated $382 million in adjusted funds flow or $2.29 per share, with $76 million applied to debt reduction and $287.7 million applied to development capital. These results reflect our continued focus on capital efficiency, cost control and maximizing cash flow per share. As we look back over the last year, there have been a few key themes. The first theme is that we delivered the strongest operational outcomes we've had in our 25-year history. Our Montney drilling program delivered the top 9 Alberta Montney gas wells of 2025, including what we believe to be the most productive well ever drilled in the Alberta Montney with an IP30 of 4,567 BOEs per day. Every gas well we drilled was in the top 25 list. To be clear, headline rates are great, but it's the corporate average that pays the bills. These uniformly strong outcomes, combined with our low-cost structure, generated a 2.1x recycle ratio on proved reserves despite a very weak commodity price environment. And when we say very weak, this was worse than a bottom decile price environment in 2025. We're very proud of our team for delivering these incredible results. The second theme for the year is that despite one of the worst periods of AECO prices in history, we still generated significant free cash flow, thanks in part to our strong hedging program and diversification into both downstream gas markets and high-value liquids. Free cash flow was also supported by our price-sensitive production management. At times of extremely low gas prices, we curtailed up to 300 million cubic feet per day gas, averaging 2,600 BOEs per day of dry gas on an annualized basis shut-in. These curtailments reduced our declines, reduced depletion and positively impacted adjusted funds flow by avoiding operating costs and deferring production until prices were stronger. This is consistent with our philosophy. If it won't increase our cash flow, we won't produce it. Third theme of the year is that marketing strategy really matters. We further diversified away from AECO by adding nearly 60 million cubic feet per day of long-term physical transportation service to downstream markets, including Ventura and Dawn. And we've hedged a meaningful portion of our production out through 2028 to reduce cash flow volatility. Looking ahead, 2026 will be a pivotal year. Our new 75 million cubic feet per day progress gas plant is on track for commissioning in Q2. And once progress and the Glacier turnaround are complete, we expect to enter a period of highly efficient capital spending and accelerating free cash flow. Beginning in the third quarter of this year, production is expected to average 90,000 BOEs per day through to the end of 2027. That's 6 quarters at about that level. Since there is no additional infrastructure spending required at this level, this program will be unusually efficient with operating costs trending lower as more and more volumes will be flowing through our owned infrastructure. Disciplined capital allocation is one of our key guiding principles. Beyond 2027, we have a wealth of options for efficient future growth that mirror the efficiencies of our last 5 years. The 75 million a day Progress gas plant is modular and can be expanded with a large lumps of capital. Meanwhile, we own the currently idle Caribou gas plant, which has a capacity of 100 million cubic feet per day right next to our development-ready Conroy assets in Northeast BC. Both processing options, that's Caribou and Progress expansions are unusually efficient. And pending some stability in commodity prices, we will announce what our 2028 to 2030 development plans look like. However, and I want to make this very clear, we are not interested in growing for the sake of growth. Any future growth investment will be fully funded by cash flow and justified by full cycle returns with a supportive commodity price outlook in mind. During times of volatility, we -- as we are experiencing right now with geopolitical events and with local supply-demand imbalances, the right strategy is to focus on making a short cycle time investments and scrutinizing every penny. As an example, we recently reduced our 2026 capital budget by $20 million. Thanks to our continued strong well performance, our production guidance remains unchanged. Debt reduction remains a top priority. We will continue allocating substantially all free cash flow to debt reduction until we reach our debt target range of $400 million to $500 million. We expect that to happen in the second half year of 2026. So we're very close already. Thereafter, we will balance further debt reduction with opportunistic share buybacks. This will be consistent with our long-standing capital allocation framework. Finally, I want to highlight some progress at Entropy. Construction of the Glacier Phase 2 CCS project is expected to be completed within months here around mid-2026. This project will be -- will substantially decarbonize the Glacier facility and is fully funded entirely by Brookfield and the Canada Growth Fund. It represents a major milestone for Entropy and a meaningful step forward for commercial CCS globally. Although Advantage is not contributing any capital to the project, our working interest is now just under 50%, and we will benefit as partial owners from all EBITDA that's delivered by that project. So with that, I'd like to thank our employees, our Board and our shareholders for their continued support, and I'll pass it back to Brian for questions.

Thanks, Mike. Joanna, we'll go to the phone line to see if there are any questions, and then we'll check with you. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] There appear to be no questions. I will turn the call back over to Brian Bagnell.

Great. Thank you, everybody, for joining the call today. And if you have any follow-up questions, please reach out following the call. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.