Freehold Royalties Ltd. (FRU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the fourth quarter results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. David Spyker. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call from Freehold are Rob King, our COO; Dave Hendry, our CFO; and Todd McBride, our Manager of IR. First off, I would like to acknowledge David Hendry's retirement that was announced yesterday. I want to say I'm very grateful to David for his strong leadership and partnership over the last 6 years and thank him for his significant contribution to our success. This will not be the last conference call you get with David. He will be continuing in his role until later this year as we identify and transition to his successor. So before jumping into the results, I want to highlight that 2024 was another big step forward for Freehold. We strengthened our portfolio through our focus on liquids-weighted plays in both Canada and the U.S., including building an exceptional position in core inventory-rich lands in the Permian light oil basin. Through this work, we've had a strong production growth in heavy oil, both Clearwater and Mannville Stack, with 15% year-over-year gains. We positioned 45% of our production into tariff-free U.S. light oil basins. And as we go into 2025, we have an estimated 66% oil and NGL weighting, up from 64% in 2024, which then drives nearly a 20% increase to revenue per BOE. Just to put this into perspective, 100 barrels a day of oil in our portfolio will generate $3.4 million a year in revenue. 100 BOE a day of gas will generate $50,000. So these numbers are based on 2024 pricing, but you can see how impactful moving to liquids weighting can be. So in 2024, our acquisitions were concentrated in the Midland Basin of the Permian. There's a lot of reasons why we love the Midland Basin. It produces over 2.5 million barrels a day of light oil. It's captured 20% of the U.S. Lower 48 drilling in 2024 and has been the target of over $100 billion of M&A activity in recent years. Our acquisitions have expanded our ownership in some of the best reservoirs being developed by some of the best operators in North America. Our exposure in the Midland Basin has increased to the extent that Freehold is now positioned to capture an interest in 1 in every 3 wells drilled in the Midland Basin compared to 1 in every 12 wells the year prior. Our Midland lands are well positioned under major investment-grade operators that have signaled substantial investment in and production growth from their Permian asset base over the next 5 years and beyond. ExxonMobil, for example, is now Freehold's largest payer in the Midland Basin and our second largest payer overall. We are excited about the growth they have discussed, planning to add 1 million barrels a day or 1 million BOE a day in the Permian production by 2030. Today, half of our Midland production is associated with ExxonMobil lands compared to only 20% in 2023. The 2024 acquisitions also balanced our portfolio from a revenue perspective. In 2025, we expect half our revenue to come from our Canadian assets and half from our U.S. assets. So half of our revenue is protected from all the tariff threats and actions that are at the forefront of the news right now. As noted earlier, our deliberate investment in oil-weighted assets will be a difference maker as we think about our cash flows this year. In 2025, our liquids weighting is expected to be 66%. That's a significant move up from 55% 5 years ago when we undertook the initiative to reposition a portion of our portfolio away from working interest assets into a broader North American oil royalty portfolio. Our portfolio today has higher revenue-generating oil barrels in areas that are attracting capital -- in areas that are attracting premium pricing, and that translates to more value for our shareholders. So specific to our Q4 and 2024 results, in Q4, we had $61 million in funds from operations in the quarter. That translates to $0.40 a share and a payout ratio of 66%. Our production was 15,306 BOE a day, which was 65% liquids. For the full year, we had $231 million in funds from operations, which was $1.53 a share and production of just under 15,000 barrels a day at 14,962 BOE per day. On the reserve side, proved developed producing reserves totaled 30 million BOE, and proven plus probable reserves totaled 65 million BOE at year-end, an increase of 5% and 10% per share, respectively, continuing on our multiyear track record of delivering reserves growth on a per share basis. For 2024, we delivered organic reserve replacement of 100% (sic) [ 107% ] on a PDP basis and 109% on a proven plus probable basis. If we include the acquisitions, that's 170% replacement on PDP and 300% replacement on proved plus probable. Drilling activity was up modestly quarter-over-quarter, but up 15% year-over-year, a result of the increased activity and increased scale of our Midland asset base. Our portfolio is very well positioned to participate in the development and revitalization of heavy oil in Alberta and Western Saskatchewan as open-hole, multilateral drilling has been a game changer in these plays. 30% of our wells drilled in Canada in 2024 were heavy oil wells, a sizable increase over the 19% of total we saw in 2023. This 2024 drilling contributed almost 400 barrels a day of new oil production exiting the year. We expect production to continue to grow in the Clearwater and Mannville Stack, where we are seeing excellent drilling results in the West Nipisi, Clearwater, proving up an area where we hold significant undeveloped lands. In the Greater Lloydminster area, production is a result of our active leasing program as well as from new drilling in areas which have been historically developed with vertical wells. We're also excited about the progression of multilat well drilling development into Southeast Saskatchewan as that -- it will drive light oil growth. The royalty incentive programs that were put in place by the Saskatchewan government in April 2024 to encourage open-hole, multilateral development has resulted in operators using this drilling technique to optimize asset development. As a reminder, Freehold has a dominant land position in Southeast Saskatchewan with over 0.5 million acres, including about 300,000 acres of mineral title lands. We are quite excited about this area as operators are just getting started in drilling these light oil targets with multilateral wells. We also hold a large royalty footprint in the Deep Basin and are well positioned to participate in the strengthening of Canadian gas prices. Although not attracting capital at the same pace in recent years, our natural gas asset base will prove valuable as AECO pricing improves. We talked about at the beginning of the call about how the 2024 acquisitions have positively changed our Midland footprint. Our Midland position is now our largest asset with over 20% of our production, more than doubling its 2023 contribution, and we continue to expect low to mid-single-digit growth from our Midland assets. Our Eagle Ford position has seen ConocoPhillips resume drilling post their acquisition of Marathon last year, and we expect the Eagle Ford to continue to contribute steady, high-value oil-weighted production. For 2025, we're expecting production to be in the 15,800 to 17,000 BOE a day range. At the midpoint, this represents a 10% year-over-year production growth. We continue to highlight the high-value liquids shift in our portfolio, with 2025 expected to be weighted 66% to liquids, an increase from the 64% in 2024, which is expected to drive an additional 3% to FFO per share year-over-year. Production guidance is premised on current strip pricing, with liquids driving almost 95% of our revenues in 2025. At Freehold, investors get a multi-decade inventory of drilling locations across our expansive Canadian and U.S. portfolios. They get $1.08 per share in annual dividend paid monthly and which is covered at oil prices into the low 50s and a portfolio that is exposed to premium-priced, tariff-free U.S. light oil production. With that, we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from [ Joseph Kasher ].

Two questions for me. Could you walk us through your assumptions for the guidance of 15,800 to 17,000 and what you're assuming so we can kind of figure out our own approach to our forecast?

Yes. [ Joseph ], it's Rob King here. So maybe I'll kind of talk to the midpoint of our guidance, [ Joseph ], in terms of how we sort of came to that. As you kind of guess, it's a very bottoms-up approach that we take in terms of looking through on a well-by-well basis and what we anticipate activity will be both in Canada and the U.S. But in terms of a top-down approach to explain it to yourself and other stakeholders, it's -- I'll kind of talk in terms of the U.S., and then I'll talk in terms of Canada. So on our U.S. assets, our Midland assets, those are growing in the mid-single-digit rate. And again, that's predominantly oil and liquids. There's probably, by volume, 70% -- 75% of the volumes are oil and NGLs from our Permian assets. And then our Eagle Ford assets, that's one where, like Marathon, Conoco has been so far approaching that as very much as a maintenance-type mode where they're maintaining activity to hold the production steady on our Eagle Ford assets. In Canada, I'd sort of say the overall, from a BOE perspective, is probably flat to modestly up. But the makeup of those barrels are changing. In terms of that -- with the current gas pricing, we are seeing areas like the Deep Basin, like the Cardium, not getting as much capital, and we are sort of seeing some of the BOEs there actually declining kind of year-over-year. I'd say we're offsetting that with growth in places like Mannville heavy, like Clearwater. And as David Spyker mentioned, just in terms of the positive impact that, that has on our cash flow per share, that move from 64% liquids weighting in 2024 to 66% liquids weighting in 2025, that adds over 3% to FFO per share.

Okay. Next one, in terms of going forward, is the goal always to get debt to cash flow below 1x, 0.7, 0.8, and then at that point, you're ready to do further acquisitions? Or is there a number just under 1x? Or what do you look at in terms of where you want the balance sheet to be before you make the next growth phase?

It's Dave Hendry here. It's a little bit of a depends question. I mean it depends on the size of the acquisition and the metrics and cash flows related to the acquisitions. While obviously, our targeted range is leverage of less than 1.5x, our comfort range, obviously, that gives us flexibility is lower to that 1x range. So is that the trigger to do acquisitions? Not necessarily, but I mean, obviously, maybe the scale of the acquisition. So -- and that, again, is more of a longer-term target. So if there's the right acquisition, we are comfortable up to that 1.5x range. But over the long term, we generally will trend downwards towards that 1x or lower, which then gives us the flexibility for acquisitions, but it's not a binary trigger itself. It's just a range that we view ourselves as being a relatively conservative leverage company because we want to deliver dividends back to shareholders rather than pay interest on debt.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further question registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. David Spyker. Please go ahead.

We've got a couple of questions that are just coming in on the text line. So we'll just handle those.

Sure. So the first question is, what is the approximate hurdle rate for new acquisitions at current spot prices?

Yes. It's Rob speaking. So that, we're still targeting -- I think we're always targeting at least sort of mid-teen IRRs for our opportunities on an after-tax basis. I think the other piece is when we're looking at any asset to add to the portfolio is something that it adds value both on a near-term and longer-term basis on an FFO per share perspective as well as on a production and reserves per share and a longer-term basis on a net asset value accretive basis. And I think the other piece is really focused on continuing to grow in our oil and liquids areas.

Thanks. And the next question is about buybacks. Would ever be a better use of capital to buy back stock if prices stay where they are today?

It's Dave Hendry here again. Buybacks are something we do discuss internally. I think right now, paying down debt as we are above 1x is probably our first priority. We do evaluate sort of those metrics when we're looking at acquisitions. Does that mean no ever to buybacks? Absolutely not. It's something that is a consideration, just not realistically something that we're likely to do in the near term. And so if you put in a program right now, then that would effectively be a little bit disingenuous unless you realistically would be utilizing it. And if share prices -- or sorry, if commodity prices go down, which may impact share price, then that obviously affects how much free cash flow you're actually going to have available. Our targeted payout is still 60%. And obviously, buybacks factor into that consideration. It was a little bit elevated last year. Obviously, the acquisitions we've done in the constructive portfolio should see that payout ratio go down. But it's something we'll continue to consider but not likely to implement any time in the near future.

Great. And the next question is, what are some of the trends you're seeing in drilling activity so far this year? And how do you expect it to progress going forward?

Sure. It's -- we're only 2 months into the year. So there are some trends you can sort of point to. When we look in both U.S. and Canada, the drilling activity to date is in line with what our expectations were at the beginning of the year. In Canada, Q1 is one of our most important quarters from a drilling perspective. Almost 1/3 of our historical net activity has been in the first quarter. So we've been encouraged that we've seen as much activity as we have. When you look at the broader trends in Canada from a licensing activity, January, February licensing results are up over 10% relative to this time last year. And a lot of that is in the Mannville heavy oil space where Freehold has had a lot of success. 1/3 of our wells were drilled, targeting heavy oil in 2024. And on the U.S. side, similarly in line with what our expectations are. As Dave Spyker mentioned, Conoco is back drilling on our Eagle Ford land. So we're encouraged by that.

Thanks. There's no more online questions. I'll turn it to Dave to end the call.

Great. Well, thanks, everyone, for participating today. Some good questions. And yes, we're excited about 2025. There will be a lot of continue to evolve our portfolio. We'll continue to have a good balance of revenue across Canada and the U.S., and we continue to build the oil weighting and liquids weighting in our portfolio. So thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your line at this time. Thank you for your participation.