Civitas Resources, Inc. (CIVI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. My name is Julianne, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Civitas Resources Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce Mr. John Wren. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our third quarter conference call. Today, I'm joined by our CEO, Chris Doyle; our CFO, Marianella Foschi; our COO, Matt Owens; and Brian Cain, our Chief Sustainability Officer. By now, I hope you've had a chance to review our earnings release, our 10-Q and our investor slide deck, all of which are available on our website. On today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from projections. Please read our full disclosures regarding forward-looking statements in our 10-K and other SEC filings. We may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial metrics. Reconciliations to certain non-GAAP metrics can be found in our earnings release and our SEC filings as well. After our brief prepared remarks, Chris and other members of the leadership team will be happy to take your specific questions. Please limit your time to one question and one follow-up today. This will allow us to address more of your questions. I'll now turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We have a lot of good news to share with you today and look forward to taking your questions shortly. Our team here at Civitas has done a fantastic job of delivering on our promises while navigating a pretty challenging macro environment this year and positioning us for success in 2023. But before highlighting our third quarter results, I want to reiterate the key strategic pillars of our business model which shape capital allocation and are designed to generate free cash flow and deliver strong returns. These pillars are fundamental to creating long-term value for investors. The first pillar is to generate free cash flow. We've firmly manage our assets to maximize free cash and it starts with asset quality and scale, which optimize our cost structure and position us to be a low-cost operator. We're blessed in the DJ to have both, high-quality rock and scale, thanks to active consolidation over the past 18-plus months. Our reinvestment ratio today is among the lowest in the industry. In fact, we expect that this year's capital investments will be less than 40% of our unhedged EBITDA, and we've generated nearly $1 billion in free cash flow through the end of the third quarter. That's approximately 17% of our market cap during that 9-month period. Third quarter free cash flow alone was about $350 million. In short, we're living well within our means and generating significant cash, which we can, in turn, give back to our shareholders. We view this as a sustainable model. The second pillar is ensuring we maintain a premier balance sheet. Obviously, with $400 million of total debt outstanding against nearly $700 million of cash, Civitas has one of the strongest balance sheets in our space today. It's important to be a through cycle company, and for us, that means a long-term net leverage target of under 0.5 turn. The third pillar is committing to return cash to shareholders. Earlier this year, we published a dividend framework to do exactly that. This quarter, following another period of strong performance and execution, the Board elected to increase our fixed dividend by 8% to $0.50 per share and pay a variable dividend of $1.45 per share. The total $1.95 per share represents a 10% increase over last quarter's dividend. By year-end, we'll have returned more than $530 million to investors through base and variable dividends, including about $165 million to be paid in December. We have one of the industry's highest payout ratios and the stock offers 11% yield at today's price. Our final pillar is ESG leadership. From the boardroom to our headquarters to the field, we believe our approach to ESG is unique and the right thing to do. It guides our business decisions and it's fundamental to our success within the Colorado regulatory environment. We're proud to be Colorado's first carbon neutral E&P company on Scope 1 and Scope 2 basis and committed to attaining our goal of 50% reduction in total Scope 1 emissions by 2027 and reducing methane emissions below the newly implemented IRA tax threshold before 2024. Lastly, we understand the importance of best-in-class corporate governance and are pleased to announce yesterday several shareholder-friendly corporate governance measures, including majority voting for uncontested director elections, shareholder ability to call special meetings, proxy access and shareholder action by written consent. Now let me move on to our strong third quarter results. I directed you to our release for updated 2022 guidance, but let me share a few highlights from the quarter. Total production was more than 176,000 BOE per day. That includes over 78,000 barrels of oil per day, both well ahead of expectations. Our production base has proven to be resilient, thanks to minimal downtime in the field and strong well performance from our recent turning lines. Despite industry-wide inflation, third quarter capital investments came in below expectations at $237 million. That includes $16 million on land and midstream. For the year, we reduced total CapEx guidance to be between $970 million to just over $1 billion. Our team continues to partner with Colorado regulators to ensure that we have ample permits in hand to support our development program. We had 3 OGDPs approved during the quarter, and we had a fourth GDP approved last week. That's a total of 7 this year. We have the box older cap hearing tomorrow, and we just submitted our next cap to Lowry count, which has a nameplate of 174 wells. As we think about next year, over half of our plan is approved as permits or OGDPs another 20% to 30% have been submitted or complete and will be heard in the fourth quarter, and the remainder will be submitted by year-end or early 2023. While we don't plan to issue '23 guidance until early in the year, be assure that this team, this Board and this company will be focused on 4 things: driving strong free cash flow, maintaining our premier balance sheet, returning significant cash to shareholders and leading ESG. It strikes me here on November 1 on the anniversary of our formative transaction, how much this team has accomplished in the past 12 months. From closing accretive transactions and building scale and established us as a low-cost operator to executing on the 2022 program that prioritizes free cash flow, allowing us to protect our premier balance sheet and return significant cash to our shareholders. The first 12 months of the new Civitas have been exceptional, and I look forward to sharing the team's accomplishments in the future. Thank you again for joining us this morning. Operator, we're now ready for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Neil Dingmann from Truist Securities.

Chris, just maybe jump to the first sort of topic of capital allocation. Specifically, could you talk how you all would consider combining potential stock buybacks with the continued obviously, the dividends speak for themselves, and I'm just wondering if your stock continues to trade at what we believe to be one of the cheapest in the group, would you think about combining these?

Sure. I think -- Neil, I'd tell you that we look at it holistically. Everything is on the table, whether that's a buyback, an increase in the fixed dividends we did this quarter, a special dividend. All of those things are under consideration as well as looking for accretive transactions that can extend the duration of our business model. As we've said for the past couple of quarters, and we'll continue to do so, we see a few opportunities that could meet that hurdle to make us interested in chasing them. And if we bring them in, fantastic, if not, we'll consider any combination in all of the above to make sure that we return cash to shareholders.

Great to hear. And then can you just talk I want to make sure you went through kind of past just on the permits you've got like the 174 nameplates. You've got a lot coming up. Just wondering when you or you and Matt look at sounds like what I think third quarter was the first where you've actually had more permits than wells drilled. Can you just talk about where you'll kind of sit at year-end and maybe even sort of mid next year. It seems like you're really starting to get ahead of things there.

Sure, and Good question, Neil. And we've said in the past, it's taken some time with the new regulations for both the COGCC and the industry and ourselves included to get our legs under us, small victory in the third quarter is a significant one, which is really starting to hit that run rate of being able to support a 2- to 4-rig program. We see us doing that again this quarter. the box elder cap, which will be heard this week. The Lowry cap that came in, we said before the end of the year, the team submitted it last week. We are starting to build that momentum. As we look ahead into next year and keep in mind, we're really focused on keeping production broadly flat and we'll be somewhere in that 2 to 4 rig piece. We'll have most of this, either approved or at least submitted before the end of the year. And I think as you get these caps approved, I should be clear that the box older cap gets approved this week, let's say, we still have OGDPs on the back end of this that should be administrative because we've gone through the preliminary siding, but there is still that process on the back end. But we're feeling confident. Certainly, year-over-year, we're probably a quarter ahead of where we were and look to continue to work progressively and actively with the COGCC and underpin a conservative but a strong development plan.

Our next question comes from Tim Rezvan from KeyBanc.

Chris, I was hoping you could walk me through some of the changes in the guidance. Production, you increased a pretty healthy increase. The number of wells you're drilling is down 15% and the number of completions or turn in line, excuse me, is down 5%. So I was hoping if you could kind of frame what that's going to look like this change over the next couple of quarters because your guidance is inferring a tick down in production in the fourth quarter. So how should we think about what those changes meant and what that means for the next few quarters?

Sure. We won't get into specifics for 2023. But as we think about '22 and looking at keeping production broadly flat what we've seen in the second and third quarters as productions actually outpaced our own expectations. Again, this gave us quite a bit of flexibility in the fourth quarter to slow down a bit. We were building up a bit of a DUC backlog. We brought in a third frac crew in the third quarter. We continue to have it active this quarter. You'll see that we pulled down capital guidance in line with that. And look, we're not focused on growing production. We're focused on maximizing free cash. The plan for 2022 has been executed to date extremely well. We'll continue something similar as we head into 2023. Not anything additionally you touch on in terms of guidance.

Tim, the other thing I would say is keep in mind, we're heading into the winter so we have just healthier downtime assumptions in the fourth quarter late fourth quarter, early first quarter than we normally would. So that's a little bit of what you're seeing on the implied guidance from us.

And then on the cost side, another quarter of real strong cost leadership. We did bring GTP up, but that's in relation to a lower oil dip that we continue to see as we get barrels marketed to maximize margins. So another quarter where we got to see a lower differential than we were initially expecting. So like I said, the business model is a pretty simple one, and the team continues to execute it very well.

Okay. I appreciate that color. And I guess one more on the cap. Based on what you learned from the Box elder process, it looks like you're coming to the finish line here. you mentioned you submitted the Lowry cap. Can you give any broad brush expectations on when that could get to the finish line at some point in 2023?

Sure. And I'll kick it off and then pass it over to Brian for some of the detail. And again, I would say we are approaching the finish line with the box elder. We look to get approval this week. We'll follow that up with individual OGDP approvals, which should be administrative. But that's as Colorado's first cap with preliminary siding, this is a process that's taken over 1.5 years. The Lowry cap, which was submitted, we're not pursuing preliminary siding. And so we'll get to see these 2 different processes, parallel cap approvals what that means, what it should mean is sooner, earlier approval on the Lowry cap up front and then a little bit longer on the back end as we pull these OGPs through the system. I would tell you we continue to learn as an industry as a company and COGCC as the regulator. But Brian, what details would you add...

No. Chris, I think you hit on certainly the important part. I think the only thing I would add is that there is some precedent for cap without preliminary siding. And we're very encouraged by Lowry. It's one landowner, there's nothing within in terms of residential business units or rather residential building units within 2,000 feet for that cap. So we think that, that is going to be a pretty smooth process and going off the present that we've seen on a cap without preliminary signing. It should take months rather than years as Box Elder has.

The only other thing, Cain, that I'd add is this is an area that we really, really like. It's an area that's been outperforming expectations. It's led to some of that resilient production in the second and third quarter as well as a stay on plateau longer and Matt and the team have had real success up spacing development there. And so we're excited about adding another project down south.

Our next question comes from Leo Mariani from MKM Partners.

I wanted to follow up a little bit on the permitting side here. Just first off, you may have said the number I may have missed it, but as you look into next year, do you have like a rough kind of percentage of kind of where you are permitted today, kind of 1/3 permitted for next year? Are you roughly 1/2 permitted for next year? And then the box elder cap, assuming that gets approved here, I assume that you guys would get OGDPs for that in 2023. So where would that might put you in terms of where you were permitted for '23. Would that take care of a lot the large part of the 23 program as this gets approved?

Sure. So Leo, right now, currently, we have over half of our 2023 plan permitted either under approved OGDP or approved permit. We have another 20% or 30% of next year's plan that's been submitted. OGDPs are complete and they have hearing scheduled and will be heard before the end of the year. The other 10%, 20% or so will be submitted by the end of the year, maybe early next. The box elder cap, we see wells coming in later next year. It could potentially help us accelerate a bit, but we're not planning on it. And so we're starting to build some cushion. I think I said on an earlier call, we'd like to have that 12, 18 months of permits in hand. The team is starting to build that cushion. And certainly, we feel a lot better today standing here than we did probably a year ago, and that's on the efforts of Brian regulatory team, Matt and the guys getting permits and getting out in front, working collaboratively with the COGCC.

Okay. That's helpful. So it sounds like Box elder would give you a pretty darn good start in 2024 if everything gets approved to?

Absolutely.

I wanted to just follow up a little bit on the M&A piece here. You kind of intimated it at 2 deals that you're still looking at in the basin there. Could you just provide maybe a little bit more color on that front? Anything around rough size in terms of, say, barrels a day or whatever on those deals? And do you have, are you kind of pretty far down the line on negotiations with some of these? Is it just kind of a matter of price? I know the commodities markets have been pretty volatile here if it wasn't late.

Yes, Leo I know we don't give you the map any longer, but the names within the basin are pretty well known. I wouldn't say 2 deals. I'd say there are a handful of deals that are out there that we continue to have dialogue around we have throughout 2022. We have a very good view of what those assets could mean for this company. I would tell you that we're not focused on getting bigger. We would be focused on optimizing capital allocation to the extent that any of these come with good, strong inventory that and an operation that folds into our existing asset base, we're willing to consider. But we're going to be conservative. We are a scaled business. And again, this isn't 18 months ago when you're starting down the path of consolidation, this is one of the larger companies within the basin. I will tell you we'll continue to have those conversations and that dialogue. And if we see an opportunity that makes sense for our shareholders, then we'll lean in. Otherwise, we could be done within in-basin consolidation.

Leo, this is Marianella. If you look at the 2 deals we've done this year, they haven't been big. They haven't been transformative. One was in March, the other one was in July. You can look at those as pretty good case studies of the type of accretion we're looking at, right, in 2022. Both those deals were done primarily PDP, it came from some undeveloped. But if you look at the returns on the PDP alone, we're talking about high double digits, right, and opportunities that come with little to no integration risk. And so just very easy this is a smart perspective. And so for the in-basin deals, we are comfortable with the scale of where we are, right? We don't have to do a transaction. We'll do it where it makes sense and then to both those cases, it was a very easy decision and we might not be we just want transact. It's not something that we have to do. But I'd point you to those 2 deals, given those were an extremely attractive entry point.

That's great additional color. And then are you guys looking at anything out of basin on M&A?

Leo, It's a pretty high hurdle given the asset quality that we have within the DJ. If we were to look at something outside of basin, it would have to compete for capital, I have to underpin really those 4 pillars of being able to generate significant free cash while protecting our balance sheet and enable and accelerate returning cash back to shareholders. So I would tell you that we would consider going into another basin, but it is a pretty high hurdle.

Our next question comes from Nicholas Pope from Seaport Research.

I was hoping you guys could give a little detail on the other income line item and kind of what we should expect going forward from whatever that is, the $12 million, I think, that was kind of shown showed up in the income statement this quarter.

Sure, Nicholas, this is Marianella . I can address that. So the bulk of that was $9.2 million in net proceeds received during the quarter from a litigation from one of our legacy companies have been outstanding it for a long time. It has to do with a refund of that ad valorem taxes. It's been outstanding for a long time, and we finally closed out settled. So that was net proceeds to us. So I wouldn't model an additional $12 million going forward going forward to be pretty minimal. And should it be related to interest income associated with our cash balance.

Got it. And is that related, there's an ad valorem liability that's kind of been building on the balance sheet as well. Is that connected in some way? I was kind of curious why we're kind of seeing that line item increasing?

No. So it's not connected at all. The $9.2 million in net proceeds was from pre-closing claims that we purchased for one of our legacy companies. So would have been completely outside of period. On the ad valorem increase because we pay it in 2 years in arrears, the liability would have been increasing essentially with oil prices, right? So the tax bill, for example, that we will pay in 2023 will be related to 2021 production. And so, for example, the taxable that we just paid in '22 was related to 2020. So obviously, pretty low oil prices. So if you look at oil prices in 2 years in arrears, it should give you a pretty good sense of the movement in that Avalon liability given it's just every April, looking back 2 years.

Got it. I appreciate it. And the other thing, kind of as. As you kind of have progressed with kind of consolidation of these different assets and you look at the midstream business that's kind of still within the Vita and as production has been growing. I'm curious what the thoughts are at this point? How are you thinking about that asset, what you may look at kind of, how are you looking at progressing that asset, if you want to keep it, if you want to expand it, if you're happy with kind of where it is right now on the midstream side.

Sure. So we like owning those midstream assets. They give us a bit of control on our production. They enhance our margins. There is just following on upstream consolidation. You can see a couple of transactions potentially showing or indicating the start of consolidation on the midstream side. I would tell you that we would consider to participating on either side of that, really. And if that allows us to accelerate value of those midstream assets or to look at additional assets to bring in under the Civitas as then, we would consider both. Again, given where we trade and given the strength of our upstream business, it's a pretty high hurdle to compete for capital as we currently execute the business model, but it's something that we would consider.

Our next question comes from Felix Johnston from Capital One.

Again, thanks. Just a question on the inventory snapshot on Slide 4. If I remember correctly, the non-op French Lake locations are not included. So I just wanted to confirm that and also just get a general update on French Lake and whether or not you have any plans for that area in '23?

Sure. We did update this just this quarter as we're starting to see we have the approval of that cap. We're supportive of development there. It's good rock. So we have included those in that skyline. But let me kick it to Matt just as an update on partnering with Oxy and what -- how we see that sort of playing out.

Yes. So like Chris said, they did get their cap approved. You can see it on the skyline chart, the Eastern wells on kind of the western side, if you compare that to our whole left-hand side of the Skyline charter to compare that to previous presentations. But they are working on midstream developments or midstream partnerships out there right now on who's going to build the gathering system out and they're looking at potential spuds as early as the end of next year. So that's why we felt adequate to move that into our skyline chart because we view that as some of the best inventory that we have, even though it's a non-op position currently.

Okay. Great. And roughly how many locations would be included in that French Lake area?

Roughly 100 and are across the whole French Lake cap, our working interest is about mid-30s, 35%, 37%.

Our next question comes from Noel Parks from Tuohy Brothers.

A couple of things. Just wondering sort of a big picture. In the current cycle, maybe if we compare it back to, say, 2014 last oil boom cycle, how do you think the visibility is for product prices, oil, gas, NGLs at this point? I assume seasonal factors are less common than before.

Yes. I would say, first, Noel, that we plan our business on a longer-term view on commodity prices. We are constructive across the board on oil and gas. We see the importance of the commodities to underpinning our economy and global economy. And importantly, we've got an industry that is developing and bringing these important commodities to market in a very responsible way, and we embrace our part in that. As we think about sort of short-term commodity swings. That's the beauty of and the importance of this business model, which is really to protect your balance sheet, leverage where we have it with a very conservative development plan. One aspect of what we're seeing currently as commodity prices actually sort of weakened over the past couple of quarters, you're still seeing some tightness in the service market. And so a bit of a disconnect with service costs from where we were probably, call it, 6 months ago. And we'll see, I've said in the past, service costs are typically sticky on the way up and sticky on the way down. We'll see as activity continues to develop where we end up. But again, our model is not based on calling oil price or gas price where it's headed over the short to medium term. This is a very conservative and sustainable business model based on longer-term views on oil and gas and the importance that they bring to our economy.

Great. And I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts on carbon sequestration efforts in the basin of either things you've noticed or thought of or just what you see happening?

Sure. I'll kick it off and maybe pass it to Brian for additional color. The interesting thing and coming into Civitas, where we've committed to be carbon neutral and scope 1 scope 2 is that we've established the cost of carbon within our business. By doing so, we can now make very clear decisions around accomplishing what we're all focused on, which is reducing our carbon emissions. We're making great progress on that front as we've highlighted in some of the prepared remarks. But there will be a residual carbon footprint. And as we continue to see the markets for offsets and credits develop, would carbon capture and sequestration be something that we would consider in basin or close to our operations, I would say yes. And it's, again, it's that commitment to being carbon neutral that will drive those commercial decisions. And I think it's the right approach. I understand it's a bit different than others. But again, much like how we think about capital allocation, it is an allocation of capital to optimize that equation while maintaining carbon neutrality commitment.

Yes. Chris, I would just add this is Brian. We believe strongly in decarbonizing our industry long term. We think that clearly, oil and natural gas is something that will be needed for decades into the energy transition. There clearly is no transition without fossil fuels. And so we have infrastructure in place for a very reliable system that delivers our energy to us that's necessary for modern life. And so we think that as the transition continues, companies like ours that are looking to significantly reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions associated with the production of our hydrocarbon molecules will be the ones left standing decades for now. So all of these options are on the table for us. carbon sequestration certainly is on the table for us. It is something that we are exploring and we will continue to explore. We're also looking into producing or rather generating our own voluntary carbon offsets, which is something that we believe we have line of sight to as well. So all those options are on the table.

[Operator Instructions] our next question comes from Will Dezellem from Tieton Capital.

A couple of questions from the income statement. The $1.8 million of merger transaction costs, is that for perspective or completed transactions?

That is for completed transactions, Will.

Specifically, the one closed in July?

Correct. And It's still keep in mind, there would still be costs in there related to a smaller extent rents associated with legacy companies that we still have one outstanding some deferral of transition costs where we still have contractors that are helping us still to the state. But those are really small scale. I mean a lot of it, to your point, would have been with the transactions the 2 transactions that we did earlier this year. We're trying to present a clean of a G&A number as possible from that perspective.

Great. That's helpful. And then speaking of G&A, you had the $5.5 million of other nonrecurring G&A expense. What was that?

On the nonrecurring side, we would still have a lot of duplicate software licenses that we were continuing to suspend we still have also a lot of things like contractor costs, professional services. We try to break those out. And if you look at it from a G&A perspective, the trend so far this year has been very positive. So we're currently sitting at about $7 million to $7.5 million of actual cash recurring costs, and that's what's implied in the fourth quarter guidance. If you look at what that was, for example, in the fourth quarter, it was north of 8%. So we've really done a good job as a team and have really prioritized extracting as quickly as possible those excess costs. But where we can, like I said, we break those out because we want to be able to provide transparency on what the run rate G&A cost is.

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Chris Doyle for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you again, everyone, for joining us this morning, and thank you for your continued interest in Civitas. Have a safe day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.