Evolution Petroleum Corporation ($EPM)

Thanks for joining us for today's fireside chat with Evolution Petroleum's Chief Executive Officer, Kelly Lloyd, Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Stash and Chief Operating Officer, Mark Bunch. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that our discussion could contain forward-looking statements as of today, June 10, 2026. Disclosures regarding forward-looking statements can be found under the Investor Relations tab of Evolution's Home page. Evolution's asset base includes a diverse mix of producing properties located in multiple regions, including Northeast Louisiana, North Texas, the Mid-Continent, the Permian Basin, Wyoming and in North Dakota. The company's strategy is built on growing its long-lived asset base through producing property acquisitions and low-risk organic investment while maintaining a conservative balance sheet and returning cash to shareholders. For the fiscal third quarter, which ended March 31, Evolution recorded a $3.1 million and average production of approximately 6,700 BOEs per day. Kelly, Brian, Mark. Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you, Jeff.

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. Good to see you.

I'd like to just get started and touch on acquisitions, which, as I mentioned, have played a critical role in building the company's asset base. Evolution closed its first acquisition of mineral and royalty interest in August of 2025 and then added multiple -- added more on multiple deals that have closed since December of 2025. Kelly, we've often talked about the company's strategy of generating cash flow to support the Board's total shareholder return goals. How do royalty assets complement the strategy to diversify the asset base and lower the company's capital intensity?

Sure. Yes. First of all, Jeff, thanks for having us. We always enjoy talking to you and your listeners about the unique and exciting developments that we have going on here at Evolution Petroleum. Now to answer your question, as you know, over the last several years, we've been very intentional about evolving honey answer that, but evolving into a more diversified energy ownership platform. And like our goal has never been growth for growth's sake. It's always been to build a portfolio that can generate durable cash flow across commodity cycles. And also, we want to require less capital to sustain and grow. And so royalty and mineral layers really fit perfectly within that vision. They allow us to participate in some of the best resource plays in North America and reduce our exposure to operating costs, development costs and execution risk. Interestingly, right, pretty soon, you're going to have to start adding the Haynesville and Bossier shale plays into our asset base because we're starting to get a pretty significant foothold there. But like I said, Jeff, we think these assets -- they are highly efficient ownership interest in long-life energy resources, which, as you mentioned, that complement our strategy. We already have a model built around partnering with strong operators. -- and allocating capital where we see attractive risk-adjusted returns and royalties just had really another highly efficient ownership structure that can improve margins, diversify cash flow and reduce our capital intensity of the overall business.

Evolution declared its 51st consecutive quarterly dividend in the amount of $0.12 a share that will be paid to shareholders on June 30 -- to shareholders of record actually on June 15. How should investors think about the dividend support that royalty mineral assets provide given some of the things you talked about, Kelly, with respect to margins and capital requirements?

Yes. So I mean, look, as you alluded to, the dividend is really an important part of Evolution's identity, right? Royalty assets can strengthen the foundation of that model over time. And one of the things that really most attracted us to minerals and royalties is their ability to convert revenue into free cash flow at really exceptionally high rates. That doesn't mean they're risk-free. As you know, they're still exposed to commodity prices, operator activity and natural production declines. But our margin profile on these is very attractive. . As we continue to add these, we're effectively increasing the percentage of our portfolio that generates cash flow without requiring future capital reinvestment and is generally less exposed to inflationary operating costs. That creates a stronger foundation underneath the dividend program.

Do you have any goals in mind with respect to the scale that royalty assets could become in the company's asset base?

So I would put it this way. We're less focused on a specific percentage and really more focused on building the highest quality portfolio we can. Sometimes, our best opportunity is going to be a non-op, sometimes it's going to be in minerals and royalties. And the decision really comes down to return profile, the risk, commodity mix, decline characteristics, all those sort of -- that are important across everything we do. So -- that said, look, we see the royalty ownership becoming an increasingly important component of Evolution's future. We believe that the combination of high-quality working interest and high-margin royalty interest creates a differentiated business model that really can compound value through multiple market environments. As opportunities arise, Jeff, we're going to evaluate both asset classes on the relative merits, but we intend to continue building a portfolio that balances growth, cash generation, risk management and will support long-term shareholder returns.

Evolution has been pretty consistent in the acquisition market in recent years, closing the SCOOP/STACK nonop working interest acquisition at TexMex SCOOP/STACK Minerals and now Louisiana Minerals for a total of about $75 million since February of 2024. Including the recent -- how does the cumulative impact of the latest transactions impact the asset diversity and dividend policy or dividend visibility of the company?

Yes. I think good of you to point that out. I mean we think the cumulative impact is very significant. Look, Evolution today is substantially more diversified than it was just a few years ago. We've got exposure across multiple basins, multiple operators, multiple commodity streams and now multiple ownership structures. That diversification, as you know, is quite important. It reduces our dependence on any single asset, field, operator or really commodity price point, while it also broadens our sources of cash flow. . At the same time, the growing contribution for royalty assets is increasing the durability of our cash flow generation. That puts us in a great spot to continue to execute on our shareholder return strategy and maintain flexibility to pursue future growth opportunities. We think it's terrific.

Evolution to asset base is still dominated by the nonoperating working interest that had been the backbone of the company's portfolio. Mark, can you describe the nature of the conversations that the company has with some of the asset operators just regarding field level production costs and field production levels, especially in light of where we are with today's oil prices?

Yes. Sure thing, Jeff. One of our strengths, we're a pretty active owner with most of our operators because we have a really great technical team. We're really engaged with partners. We spend a lot of time reviewing their production and capital programs, field performance and long-term development plans. And our operating partners, they bring like the hands-on day-to-day field execution, but we're there to like your view, provide capital discipline portfolio perspective, things. And then -- and we look at it from -- obviously, from our standpoint, which is -- and then we'll kind of give them ideas about what they should do. And then that relationship really tends to work really well with the operators that we deal with, and it creates a lot of value for us and for them as well. But the goal is to ensure that we maximize our value across the portfolio while maintaining a long-term perspective on resource development. And we view our operator relationships as partnerships, and those relationships continue to be a competitive advantage for Evolution. And we're always in our conversation with them discussing ways to reduce operating costs or ideas that could improve operations. So it's just one of the things that we have to do on a regular basis.

A couple of years ago, Evolution formed a joint development agreement with [indiscernible] field in New Mexico, which added an element of organic growth potential. And obviously, with the royalty interest and the inventory you've added there. That adds an element of organic growth potential with that bears no capital costs. Mark, [ Ponevco ] merged with some entities of Juniper Capital in the fourth quarter of last year, which gave them a bigger footprint in the Rockies. Has that acquisition affected any of the field operations at Sabre or any of the plans you all might have under the joint development agreement?

Well, at this point, we haven't seen anything change in the field operations. Still, they've done a good job. They're very receptive to our comments and discussions that we have with them. And then it seems to still hold -- Chevre still seems to hold a meaningful place with the DevCo in their long-term development. We've just been discussing getting back out there to drill similar wells. We've come out of the much lower price environment. And we're focused on making the most of that partnership and trying to get as much put in place so that we can move forward with it. And -- but DevCo combined organizational strengths with their team has really been improved when they combined with Juniper. They got some additional people in there to help out. And so I think that's going to be very helpful. The underlying resource still remains attractive, and we're encouraged by the long-term potential of the project.

Mark, can you remind us what kind of oil price environment and maybe cost environment that you and DevCo would like to see to put additional capital to work in that field?

Well, I guess, kind of a funny answer would be as high as possible. But the reality is, I mean, we bought into this deal a long time ago without looking at a specific price. I mean when prices get low, obviously, we find better uses of capital. But generally speaking, we're looking at -- we're spending time figuring out how we can drill the wells cheaper, reduce costs out there, make the decline profiles more consistent. And because at the end of the day, the dollars that we've put into Chaveroo have to compete with this step that's in the rest of the portfolio that we could do. And so you're looking for a return that's compelling on a risk-adjusted basis, not just a project that works at like a single price or something. But as commodity price strengthens, that development economics obviously improve Chaveroo should become an increasingly meaningful contributor to our long-term value creation. Our focus on ensuring this future activity generates compelling returns and aligns with our broader capital allocation priorities. And we originally bought into this whole deal because we wanted to have an organic growth component to our company, and we wouldn't be just wholly owned to -- we have to spend capital on doing acquisitions. And so in certain times, there's going to be there going to be times where I think Chaveroo going to be extremely valuable to us.

The TexMex acquisition closed in April of 2025. Since then, operating costs have been pretty high due to high level of expense workovers. Mark, what's the status of the workover program in those assets and that you and the operator have owned now for just over a year.

Well, when we acquired TexMex, we recognize there's going to be a period of high investment, either CapEx or OpEx to get the field back in shape and we actually modeled that into our acquisition. That was -- and that turned out to really what we felt like was part of the opportunity that we felt like that we could improve the asset over time. Right now, we are still in the midst of finishing up that final workover program. We also have some work we have to do to fix some things that had to do with weather-related damage, but that stuff is kind of almost in place now. And so we're looking forward to kind of returning to a more normal run rate scenario. So over the last year, we've worked closely with the operator to address high priority project statement improved improving our liability, restoring production, reducing downtime and just positioning the asset for a more stable performance because these are mature assets and mature assets have to be taken care of. And -- but we're encouraged by the progress. We're getting really close to finishing really the final big workover program. And so we're looking forward to the fact that the costs are going to more moderate, turn into more normal management of the field. And that's exciting to us because we think it will unlock additional value for the asset and provide for a really long, meaningful life.

Completing that workover program, Mark, and hopefully bringing production up in the field in the second half of 2026, it's probably a much different oil price environment than what you were thinking about at the time of the acquisition. Can you just share with us how that calculus plays into what evolution you use to underwrite the deal?

Well, when we underwrote the deal, we underwrote it based on essentially a strip price at the time. So we really weren't our investment thesis wasn't -- didn't involve having higher prices to make it work. We actually got a great deal at the prices at the time. So obviously, now that prices have really improved a lot it really generates a lot more cash flow. And so as the higher prices, the revenue improves and things get better. Now obviously, costs are probably going to go up. Capital might creep up a little bit. But overall, it's going to look a lot better. So we didn't really buy it looking for a higher price, but hey, that's certainly isn't going to heard anything. It certainly didn't hurt my feelings.

Though I'd say a little bit of luck goes a long way in the oil and gas business.

Yes, I would say it's better to be lucky than good.

As we touched on earlier, as we begin our conversation, we talked about the mineral royalty interest component of the asset base growing over the past year. Ryan, can you talk a little bit about the depth of the market for those types of assets and maybe how that compares to the nonoperated interest that you all have looked at traditionally?

Sure. I'd say the royalty market in general is obviously very active, and there's a lot of buyers in the space. You've got private equity-backed groups, dedicated royalty companies, and consolidators, you have family office money even so public, right? A lot of the publics aren't necessarily competing with the types -- sizes of deals that we're looking at, but there's definitely a lot of competition. And really, even despite all of that, we're still finding a lot of good opportunities where we can use our expertise and knowledge of basins to underwrite deals and use our obviously, industry partnerships to find attractive acquisitions out there. Actually, I think Kelly kind of mentioned this, but in the past couple of weeks, we've actually are in process of closing on call it about $1 million worth of additional minerals and royalties in the Haynesville/Bossier Shales what we feel really attractive rates. And so we're remaining patient and focused and continuing to find opportunities that we think are going to be accretive

One of the things we've talked about in the past, and Kelly touched on it is that diversity in the asset portfolio, owning nonoperated interest is low evolution to manage a diverse asset base with relatively low overhead. This the royalty market or the royalty nature, Ryan, just going to add to what you all can do in the sense of adding cash flow without adding costs?

Fully, I mean, the cash flow margins really would attracted us to the space. You're right. I mean, you're not going to see as much top line sort of growth with the royalty acquisitions and revenue and production that you will in a non-op working interest deal. But they're very, very accretive free cash flow, right, ultimately, dividend and kind of balancing our strategy and our model there. I mean they obviously don't have any CapEx or really traditional lifting cost. From the G&A side, obviously, we're able to leverage our existing team. The royalty assets are generally easier to manage. You're not worrying about on the gym side and OpEx side, as I mentioned, it's really just revenue checks that you're processing. So we think about it and it's important for investors to think about it as this becomes kind of a maybe a more meaningful piece of our business is you may not see the growth and necessarily production that you would and the other assets, but really on the cash flow margin basis, that's where you're going to see the accretion.

Any issue with mailbox money?

No.

Kelly, how do you think about valuations in today's market between the nonoperated working interest and mineral and royalty interests?

Yes. So I mean, again, not to sound redundant, but like we view every acquisition through the lens of long-term value creation and sort of risk-adjusted return. So don't approach it as one asset class being better than the other in all environments. And we always ask, what are we paying? What are the cash flows we're buying and what risks are we taking and how does it improve sort of our portfolio. So sometimes it's going to lead us to work in interest, other times, it will be a royalty. It's not really drive by asset type by returns and strategic fit as much as anything. So as Ryan mentioned, you may see a headline number that sounds a lot higher on a royalty than it would on a working interest, but the margin is so much better. Sometimes that's an even more accretive deal. So you're going to look at it, the top line numbers are going to sound different, but what you got to get down to is the free cash flow.

Just to expand on that a little bit, Kelly. Mark talked about the Chaveroo and Chaveroo competing for capital in the asset base. For the company, does the decision really to transact on an acquisition or development well at Chaveroo. Does it really just depend on the absolute return that you spoke about and the company's ability to enhance the asset portfolio that grow the base of the company, but also to support future dividend payments?

100%. Yes. I mean, like every transaction we do is must help us advance sort of our core mission of growing long-term shareholder value. We want transactions that make evolution stronger. We're not just larger. -- scale can be helpful, but really only if it improves on a per share value. That means we got to generate attractive returns, which improve the portfolio quality, strengthen our free cash flow and support our ability to return capital to shareholders. In our case, that generally means paying dividends. So Yes, absolute return matters. But so does the quality of cash flow, risk profile, funding structure and how it fits. .

Net debt totaled $54 million as of March 31, 2026, and total liquidity was about $10 million. Ryan, how are you thinking about access to capital in the context of evaluating incremental property acquisitions? And then secondly, how does the ATM program, which was renewed in February of this year. factor into the company's acquisition funding decisions.

Yes. So I mean, obviously, we don't really feel capital has been limiting factor in the types of sizes and deals that we've been able to look at and complete. And the ATM program has been really efficient means for us to sort of keep our leverage in check, raise proceeds for very accretive acquisitions, even when looking at our overall cost of capital, which is obviously how we evaluate deals when we see if they're accretive or not. . The other thing to kind of point out here, and it's kind of more recent, one other avenue for us is potentially bringing forward value and selling off some acreage in areas that we don't think may be drilled in the near term. We did that in the SCOOP/STACK minerals here recently, and we'll continue to look at that as we aggregate assets. The royalty space is a great place for that because there are some pieces of acreage that we might get access to or included in the transaction that we think the value is further off of the curve and someone else may disagree, right? And so is able for us to really take that, bring money forward and redeploy it.

How do banks think about the collateral value of royalty mineral assets when they look at your RBL?

They've been very constructive. A lot of the types of assets that we've been buying on the royalty side have been more near term, right? So it's some PDP or wells that are DUCs or actually drilling or permits that we have to drill schedule necessarily for. And so the bank has been very supportive in giving us credit for that. So we definitely felt good about the way that we've worked with them and able to get credit for the transactions that we've done here recently.

There's been a lot of consolidation in the industry in recent years. Has consolidation impacted the slice of the bank market that Evolution participates in?

I think -- yes, I think for the better, really. I mean, as you're continuing to see -- as you mentioned, the consolidation, we're seeing banks even the larger banks, not just the regional become more interested in the space. So they've got a lot of capital that's been returned to them from all these deals, and they're actively looking to deploy it. So I think the bank market, in general, for the Upstream has been as healthy as I've seen in a number of years, and we're not having any issues finding potential capital providers. .

Mark, since you run point on a lot of the discussions with the operators of the company's assets, can you share any color on what CapEx might look like through the end of calendar 2026? And have you seen any -- or have you had any conversations about incremental AFEs as companies look to maybe take advantage of the current high oil price environment with respect to either returning production to returning production to online or drilling new wells, especially in an area like SCOOP/STACK?

Yes. We've noticed that the operators seem to still be pretty disciplined. But we have seen a fair number of AFEs come through to -- in the -- especially in the SCOOP/STACK area. And the industry today is really focused on returns and capital efficiency, value creation much more so than in prior cycles, and that aligns well with kind of how we look at things. And commodity prices as they stabilize and service costs kind of become more manageable, we're seeing operators kind of identify attractive opportunities, invest in projects that can generate really strong economic returns. We had a number of wells in the SCOOP/STACK that we received AFEs on that we actually didn't even have on our books. Based on our discussions in the AFEs we're reviewing, we believe there are several opportunities that you really provide incremental production cash flow through the balance of '26. The important point is capital is being evaluated with the return threshold in mind, which aligns well with Evolution's approach. We don't see a lot of chromystuff coming across that there's like no way we participate in. I'm trying to remember most of the stuff we've evaluated, we've actually really wanted to participate in. So we continue to think that's a good indication of where the market is with the operators. Their cost estimates need to be realistic. We expect return and will compete with other uses of capital. But right now, it's so far that things happen. And while the timing and see if we're encouraged by the quality of the opportunities that we get to see in that comes in across the portfolio. And also too, even we're working on stuff to like advance the ball at Chaveroo if possible with our partner. Those kind of things are all on the available especially as prices stay higher if they stabilize there.

Mark, to follow up on SCOOP/STACK. You -- when Evolution bought that asset, you talked about a number of potential wells that could be drilled on your working interest position there. Are you -- do you think with some of the AFEs you're seeing, as that inventory of future opportunities increased over the last couple of years as the companies have -- as the operators have developed that play? Or is it kind of stay the same with what your expectations were when the acquisition was closed?

Yes, it's probably been pretty close to what we expected when the acquisition closed. I mean in the previous years, it had been really, really high. and we really didn't believe that was a sustainable rate. We do have lots of potential locations out there. And I can't really speak to how the operators view it because -- for the most part, we have very small ownership. So when we get an AFE in hand, that's when we typically work on it. But we've had a pretty steady flow of AFEs. And -- and when you change like when gas prices were higher and now oil prices are just kind of changes in the basin in the SCOOP/STACK were the operators to drill. But I haven't -- I don't think it's particularly that much different. I do know that if you -- if we look at our -- what we bought on, we're actually ahead of the curve like on a production basis than what we originally bought on.

Kelly, to during our discussion today to ahead, can you just share your thoughts on Evolution's positioning in the context of the strategy to generate total shareholder return?

Absolutely. Look, I think right now, Evolution is sort of in one of the most compelling periods in the company's history. I mean we spent years building a business that's designed to perform across commodity cycles. It's built on diversification, disciplined asset allocation and sustainable shareholder returns. Today, right now, as we speak, we have a broader opportunity set than we've ever had before. We've got exposure to high-quality working interest in expanding royalty program. We've got really good relationships with strong operators and a proven acquisition strategy. But look, it pulls out to, we're creating a company that can compound value over time. Our objective is not simply to grow production, as we've talked about. It's -- we're asset size. It's really to build durable energy ownership that consistently generates cash flow supports our shareholder returns and creates long-term value per share. So as we look ahead, we're very excited about the opportunities that laid out in front of us, and we really remain committed to executing that vision for our shareholders.

I think we'll leave our discussion there today and pick it up again in the future on another fireside chat. Kelly, and Mark, Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Yes. Thank you great job. Appreciate it. see you. Bye-bye. .

And for our participants, thank you for joining today's fireside chat with Kelly Lloyd, Ryan Stash and Mark Bunch from Evolution Petroleum. Our research can be accessed from our website, www.watertowerresearch.com. The views expressed in this fireside chat may not necessarily reflect the views of Water Tower Research and are provided for informational purposes only. This fireside chat may not be distributed or reproduced without the written consent of Water Tower Research and should not be considered research nor a recommendation. WT is an investor engagement firm, not a licensed broker-dealer, market maker, investment bank, underwriter or investment adviser. Additional disclaimers can be found at our website, watertowerresearch.com. Once again, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thanks.