Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. We would like to welcome everyone to Canadian Natural's 2025 Budget Conference Call and Webcast. Presentation slides for this conference call are available to view with the webcast and in PDF format at www.cnrl.com. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today, January 9, 2025, at 7:00 a.m. Mountain Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Lance Casson, Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Casson.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you today for joining Canadian Natural's 2025 Budget Conference Call. Slide 2. As the operator mentioned, I will be your host today. Presenting this morning will be Scott Stauth, our President; and Mark Stainthorpe, our Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, in the room with us, we have Robin Zabek, COO of E&P; and Jay Froc, COO of Oil Sounds. First, Scott will provide an overview of Canadian Natural's advantage, including our strategy and the strength of our high-value reserves and balanced asset mix. Scott will also go through details of our 2025 budget and how it drives value growth over the near, mid and long term. Mark will then summarize our financial strength, shareholder returns and significant free cash flow generation before opening up the line for questions. Please note, the presentation on the webcast is user-defined. We will note slide numbers as we go so you can follow along. Slide 3. I'd like to remind you of our forward-looking statements and should be noted that in our reporting disclosures everything is in Canadian dollars, and we report our reserves and production before royalties unless otherwise stated. Additionally, I would suggest to review our comments on non-GAAP disclosures in our financial statements and in the advisory section of today's presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to you, Scott.

Thanks, Lance. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for calling in this morning as we provide our 2025 budget. We'll walk through our corporate overview slides to get started this morning and importantly, to reinforce the robust nature of our diversified assets and the Canadian Natural advantage. Slide 5. Canadian Natural's high-quality diversified portfolio of assets supported by our long life low decline production provides us with significant competitive advantage as our assets provide material free cash flow with strong returns combined with flexible capital allocation, effective and efficient operations, which enables us to maximize shareholder value. Slide 6. We are focused on generating significant and sustainable returns to our shareholders while maintaining a strong balance sheet. We add value through disciplined growth plans and opportunistic acquisitions. We have a diverse, balanced asset base, which is a significant differentiator versus our peers. We have effective and efficient operations across this top-tier asset base. Our cadence of accountability and continuous improvement is core to our culture. Lastly, we have low maintenance capital requirements relative to the size and quality of our asset base, which drives a low corporate breakeven. Slide 7. Canadian Natural has a successful track record of balancing our 4 pillars of capital allocation with a focus on maximizing shareholder value. Our 4 pillars are: balance sheet strength, returns to shareholders, resource value growth and opportunistic acquisitions. Our ability to generate significant and sustainable free cash flow ensures a strong balance sheet and sustainable returns to shareholders. We are prudent and disciplined in our allocation to resource development while maintaining flexibility to adjust when necessary. We have a strong track record of effective and efficient operations and low maintenance capital. Finally, opportunistic acquisitions have always been part of our strategy. However, they must add long-term value. The balancing of these 4 pillars with a focus on value creation maximizes long-term shareholder value. Slide 8. Canadian Natural's reserves can only truly be appreciated when you compare our total proven reserves to our global energy peers with greater than $5 billion BOEs of reserves. Canadian Natural is the only Canadian energy company on this chart, and it clearly shows the magnitude and depth of our reserves. When you layer on the context of reserves to market capitalization on the table to the left, showing that Canadian Natural provides approximately 191 BOEs of total crude reserves for every USD 1,000 of market capitalization. Even on a global level, the value proposition in Canadian Natural is compelling. Slide 9. Our total proved reserves are the largest among Canadian energy peers, showing the strength of our assets with a reserve life index of approximately 33 years or 1.75x longer than the average of our Canadian peers. Approximately 60% of our total proved reserves are high-value SCO, light crude oil and NGLs. The value proposition for Canadian Natural is evident and significant. Slide 10. With over half of our production being long-life, low-decline or 0 decline assets, we have a very low corporate decline rate of approximately 11%, requiring less maintenance capital to maintain production, again, making our free cash flow more predictable and sustainable. Slide 11. We are targeting a balanced and diverse product mix in 2025, with approximately 47% is high-value SCO, light crude oil and NGLs, 26% heavy oil and 27% natural gas, limiting your exposure to any one product. Our total liquids production, approximately 77% is long life, low decline or 0 decline assets. which have low breakeven that delivers significant free cash flow. Slide 12. In terms of marketing, both our natural gas and liquids have a diverse sales strategy. On the natural gas side, 32% is sold to export markets, while 35% is sold at AECO and the balance is indirectly a natural hedge relative to oil sands fuel requirements. On the liquid side, we have SCO, light crude oil and NGL production of approximately 725,000 barrels per day, representing almost 50% of our total corporate production capturing very strong pricing. We have increased our commitment to export volumes to 256,500 barrels per day while targeting to deliver increased netbacks. We are not limited to 1 product or 1 market. I'll now go through the details of our 2025 budget on Slide 14. Our strategy for 2025 is to maintain discipline in our capital investments and we are in an enviable position with low maintenance capital and top-tier high-value opportunities to execute in the near term while setting up for the future. We are focused on returns on capital and executing on projects that drive the highest returns in our portfolio, while maintaining flexibility based on commodity pricing. The 2025 budget also provides for significant free cash flow generation at current strip pricing, resulting in strong returns to shareholders. Slide 15. Our 2025 operating budget of approximately $6 billion targets to deliver value growth and strong returns on capital. We target to invest approximately $3.2 billion on our conventional E&P business, and $2.185 billion are our long-life, low-decline thermal long-life, no decline oil sands mining and upgrading assets. Additionally, we continue targeting investment in carbon capture with capital of approximately $90 million in 2025, primarily related to pathways and associated projects. The 2025 budget ensures we have flexibility to manage the effective capital allocation throughout the year. Slide 16. In 2025, our production guidance range is approximately 1.510 million to 1.555 million BOEs per day with a breakdown of 2.425 to 2.480 Bcf per day of natural gas and total liquids of 1.106 to 1.142 million barrels per day. This represents growth of approximately 170,000 BOEs per day or 12% from the 2024 based on midpoint of guidance. Slide 17. We have an efficient load level drilling program for conventional E&P assets, which is disciplined and focused on capital-efficient and drill-to-fill opportunities. We are targeting to drill 361 net wells across our extensive crude oil and liquid-rich natural gas assets, including 97 net crude oil wells, primarily in the Montney, Dunvegan and Mannville, 82 net liquid-rich gas wells primarily in the Montney and Duvernay and 174 crude oil wells -- heavy crude oil wells, of which 156 are multilateral wells, primarily in the Mannville. Slide 18. In 2025, we are continuing with our highly capital-efficient thermal in situ program, drilling on SAGD pads as well as infill wells. At Kirby, we target to drill 2 SAGD pads in 2025, which are targeted to come on production in Q4 of '25 and Q4 of '26. At Pike, we target to drill 2 SAGD pads in the first half of 2025, which we tied into the existing Jackfish facilities and are targeted to come on production in 2026, keeping the Jackfish plants at full capacity. We target to drill and bring on production of 25 infill wells across our thermal in situ assets which access additional reservoir and bring forward reserves while optimizing our SORs. Slide 19. At our oil sands mining and upgrading assets, we continue to pursue opportunities to debottleneck and increase production, both at Horizon and AOSP. At Horizon, we completed the Reliability Enhancement Project in 2024, which increased the capacity of the 0 decline high-value SCO production over a 2-year time frame by shifting the planned turnarounds to once every 2 years from the previous annual cycle. As a result, 2025 will be the first year without a planned turnaround, resulting in high targeted utilization at Horizon. With additional infrastructure in place following the completion of this project, we plan to perform certain maintenance activities with 0 production impact. Capital savings are targeted to be approximately $75 million in 2025 compared to 2024 as a result of no planned turnarounds impacting products. Also at Horizon, we are also progressing our Naphtha Recovery Project that targets incremental production of approximately 6,300 barrels per day of SCO following mechanical completion in Q3 of 2027. At AOSP, we successfully completed the acquisition of an additional 20% working interest last year bringing our total operatorship to 90%, contributing significant free cash flow generation and long-term shareholder value. Additionally, following the successful debottlenecking project to Scotford Upgrader that was completed in Q4 of 2024. Gross capacity increased by 8,000 barrels per day, 7,200 barrels per day net to Canadian Natural. Slide 20. Canadian Natural clearly leads the industry and oil sands utilization, a significant advantage. This is a key factor for our operations group with safety and reliability at the forefront. Our teams are clearly focused on delivering high utilization through effective and efficient operations. We target to maximize the capacity of all the assets from mine operations through the upgraders. Slide 21. Lastly, before I hand it over to Mark, on Slide 21, we are targeting strong production per share growth of between 12% and 16% in 2025 compared to '24 at a CAGR of approximately 9% since 2021. Again, supporting this, we are targeting production guidance of 1.51 million BOEs, 1.555 million BOEs per day, representing production growth of 12% over 2024 levels. Now over to you, Mark, to highlight our returns to shareholders.

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. I will start on Slide 23. Our financial strategy is consistent and proven, maintain a strong financial position through the cycle to support maximum flexibility. We have world-class assets that drive significant free cash flow generation, which for the 2025 budget allows for significant returns to shareholders through our increasing dividend and our share buyback program, all while the balance sheet remains strong and strengthening further with additional debt reduction. Our strong financial position supports our consistent drive for long-term shareholder value. Now reflecting on 2024 on Slide 24, we delivered significant returns to shareholders through share purchases and 2 dividend increases. With the most recent quarterly dividend increase to $0.5625 per common share announced in October 2024. Canadian Natural has increased its dividend for 25 consecutive years with a compound annual growth rate of 21% over that time frame. In addition, we executed a disciplined capital program, grew production per share by approximately 4.5%, returned significant value to shareholders and maintained a strong balance sheet, giving us the ability to capture highly accretive acquisitions that position us well for further growth and free cash flow generation. Slide 25 shows the history of growth in our returns to shareholders, facilitated by our long life, low decline asset base and effective and efficient operations, which drive consistently strong results. This provides a significant advantage for Canadian Natural and is why this track record has been maintained through all commodity cycles. On Slide 26, when you look at our free cash flow sensitivity from a USWTI of $65 to $85, it climbs rapidly as a result of Canadian Natural having high-quality assets, effective and efficient operations, a top-tier cost structure and continuous improvement culture. This provides significant free cash flow at lower commodity prices while also providing upside in higher price environments. This is driven by our strategic and disciplined capital programs with large diverse opportunities in our portfolio. So in summary, on Slide 27, as we enter 2025, we have a disciplined plan for value growth within our strong and diverse asset base while maintaining flexibility should things change. Our teams will continue to focus on effective and efficient operations and drive continuous improvement in all aspects of our business, supported by their area expertise and optionality in our portfolio. Our unique asset base has low maintenance capital compared to a typical E&P company and facilitates maximizing free cash flow in 2025 and sets Canadian Natural apart from the peer group, driving more long-term value to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First, we will hear from Dennis Fong at CIBC World Markets.

My first one here focuses in on the Pike project. At the 2024 budget, you did highlight, obviously, the drill-to-fill capacity of about 25,000 barrels a day from this asset, but there also is a, I believe, an application that was submitted several years ago for a Pike 2 or a Pike Phase 2 project. Can you talk towards -- obviously, there's a lot of resource in this region. Can you talk towards the, we'll call it potential that you guys have looked at as well as how the scope of the project, Pike and the potential expansions has evolved through time, especially as it relates to capturing value from this asset?

Yes. Good question, Dennis. And so as you recall, we acquired essentially 100% of all the Pike properties a few years back here now. So we're executing on the opportunity first off in the Pike run area. And the intent would be we would develop pads throughout the Pike 1 area. The production would be delivered into the Jackfish facilities. So we'd be maximizing our capital efficiencies, not necessarily constructing new steam plants and so forth. So that's very economic and value-added from that perspective. When you look beyond that, in addition to the existing pad opportunities we have at both Jackfish and both Kirby areas, there is the Pike 2 area that you're mentioning, Dennis, and that would be a future opportunity. Those would also be drill-to-fill pad adds in the Kirby South area. So again, long-term vision plans for development in our thermal assets continuing to maintain strong production volumes for decades to come.

Perfect. No, I appreciate that context. My second question, focuses a little bit more on Wolf Lake Primrose and it's something that you and I have had several discussions on. Can you talk a little bit towards what you see as the potential to do further infill drilling, obviously, potentially more appropriately and more efficiently utilizing steam capacity at those facilities to kind of grow production from that region? And how do you think about balancing that versus, we'll call it, other shorter-term opportunities like drilling multilaterals in the Mannville?

Yes. Well, it probably works down to doing a balanced capital allocation overall, Dennis. I think if you look at the opportunities for infill drills in Primrose, we're executing some of those right now in current 2025 year in Primrose East. And we'll continue to look at those opportunities as they unfold in Primrose North, Primrose East. And so there's also significant pad opportunities in Primrose similar to what you would see on the SAGD operations. There's future decades of pad add opportunities there. So from an overall perspective, our strong thermal properties have significant opportunities, both SAGD and on the cyclic steam area. And in both of those areas, we'll continue to do infill drill, drill programs. We've highlighted in our slides that there are SAGD wells that we're drilling infill as well as there's -- some of those numbers in the 25 that we quoted in the page are part of Primrose East. so we'll continue to do that and make sure we're capturing the reserves.

Next question will be from Manav Gupta at UBS.

Congrats on a very strong volume guidance. I think it's surprise to the upside. My question here is, of the 170 growth midpoint that you are targeting and generally, you tend to beat those expectations, how much is coming still from -- oil from Chevron and the breakup between what's coming from the acquired assets versus what is organic growth for 2025?

Yes. Good question. So you're aware of the acquired volumes that we announced through Chevron. They're in the range of about 120,000 BOE per day. And you could say the balance is mainly attributed to additional acquisition that we're working on here in Q1, and that basically sums up to 150,000 barrels a day.

Next question will be from Menno Hulshof at TD Securities.

I'll start with a question on year-over-year production growth, just looking at the guide, 12% in absolute terms, but only 12% to 16% on a per share basis, where the bottom end of the range seems to imply no share count reduction. And so I'm guessing I'm looking -- overlooking something simple here, maybe it's related to the timing of the Chevron acquisition or something along those lines. But can you tie it together for us in the context of your return of free cash flow commitment of 60%?

Yes. Yes, Menno, what you're missing is the per share range relates to the range of the guidance number. And of course, we're targeting in the midpoint of that range from a budget perspective. So you have the guidance range. So that's what the per share numbers are doing. So you have a strong buyback program happening through the whole guidance range. It just depends how your math is working. So you have the bottom end of the guidance is what's driving the per share 12%. And on an absolute basis, it's at the midpoint. So you have a strong buyback program going on in all of those scenarios.

Okay. I'll work through that math. And then the second question is on the -- sorry, the $90 million CCS budget. The question here is, if we assume that no pathways deal gets done at the federal level, Given Trudeau's resignation and the liberals is looking for a new leader, what happens to the CCS spending and the overall CCS development plan going forward?

I think the way we look at it is we're looking at the project to have the ability to move forward here. We continue to focus on the fiscal side of things in terms of all the parties coming together on this. So I think we're a little bit more positive than you're suggesting. And we will continue to work down that path. The money that we have allocated in this is primarily from an engineering perspective, and it's related to, yes, the pathways trunk portions also related to engineering work at Horizon and Scotford and in the thermal properties as well. So we're progressing these carbon capture projects on from an engineering perspective for 2025.

Next question will be from Neil Mehta at Goldman Sachs.

Yes. I appreciate the color here. Just a couple of questions on WCS differentials and the currency, the CAD both have kind of moved in your direction as we start off the year with WCS inside of the $14 that you even highlight here and the currency moving in your direction, too. Can you just talk about how you're thinking about those as potential tailwinds through the year? And is there risk that WCS starts to widen out as a number of these Canadian producers are talking about increasing production here?