PrairieSky Royalty Ltd. ($PSK)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the PrairieSky Royalty Limited First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Andrew Phillips, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, and thank you for dialing into the PSK Q1 2026 Conference Call. On the call from PSK are Pam Kazeil, Dan Bertram, Mike Murphy and myself, Andrew Phillips. Before we begin, there is certain forward-looking information and statements in our commentary today. so I'd ask listeners and investors to review the forward-looking statements qualifier in our press release and MD&A, which can be found on our website. Funds from operations totaled $94.9 million, an 11% increase from Q1 2025, resulting from higher production and stronger bonus consideration. Total production grew 4% from Q1 of 2025 with oil production showing 2% growth year-over-year. Condensate and pentane production reported as part of the NGL stream remains at record highs for PrairieSky at approximately 35% of the NGL stream. Elevated bonus consideration was the result of 48 new leasing arrangements with 37 distinct oil and gas companies. Given the lower rig count year-over-year, we are pleased with the 201 spuds on PrairieSky lands versus the 200 in prior year. With the increased pricing for oil and a continued weak Canadian dollar, we are observing early indications of higher planned activity levels post breakup. Based on strip pricing, we're anticipating a material reduction in debt levels by the end of 2026. A number of our recent leasing arrangements are for exploration rather than pure development, which is a positive trend. Rising capital cycles can help unlock the vast optionality inherent in 18.6 million acre land base. In addition to this, more operators in the Clearwater are exploring for oil up and downhole where they already have an existing producing horizon. We expect this will unlock numerous new developments over the next 10 years. With the current development inventory on land, we can replace the approximate 9.5 million barrels of royalty production on our lands for 61 years. New discoveries have the potential to unlock more inventory. I will now turn the call to Mike to further discuss activity on our lines.

Thanks, Andrew. The first quarter saw a record number of Duvernay wells spud at 26, including 20 in the West Shale Basin. First West Shale completions from this program are currently underway with new wells expected to be on production starting in mid-May and driving light oil growth through the back half of the year. Similar to 2025, we expect the Duvernay to be our fastest-growing play in 2026 based on budgeted activity levels. Multilateral activity continues to grow on PrairieSky lands with 66 spuds in Q1 26 relative to 41 in the first quarter of last year. In the Clearwater, expanding waterflood development continues to promote a highly sustainable production base and positively impacting corporate decline rates. With depth and quality of inventory in the play, we anticipate outsized Clearwater growth to continue for years to come. In the Mannville stack, oil production was estimated at greater than 1,000 barrels a day Q1, given the strong winter drilling activity. Finally, our thermal volumes are positioned for near-term growth with a new 8 well pair pad at Lindbergh currently steaming with oil volumes expected to ramp to a peak rate of approximately 260 barrels a day at PrairieSky. I'll now turn it over to Pam to discuss the financials.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. PrairieSky's first quarter production increased by 4% compared to Q1 2025, reflecting 2% growth in oil royalty volumes and 6% growth in NGL production. Oil growth was led by the Clearwater play where production rose approximately 20% year-over-year and the Duvernay where oil royalty volumes increased by approximately 75% from Q1 2025. NGL growth was driven primarily by activity in the Duvernay and Montney play. Higher production, combined with strong benchmark pricing resulted in royalty revenue of $118.5 million for the quarter. Other revenues totaled $15.3 million, supported by another strong quarter of leasing activity. Lease bonus consideration reached $12.3 million, more than double the level it recorded in Q1 last year, with the majority of activity concentrated in the Duvernay play and the Mannville heavy oil play. We continue to view leasing activity as a leading indicator of future development and anticipate that operators will be active across these plays throughout 2026 and beyond. Funds from operations were $94.9 million or $0.41 per share, representing a strong start to the year. PrairieSky declared dividends of $61.6 million during the quarter, corresponding to a payout ratio of 65%. Excess cash flow was allocated to acquisitions totaling $4.2 million, share repurchases under our NCIB of $8.3 million, which canceled 269,000 shares, a debt reduction of $6 million. We ended the quarter with net debt of $257.7 million. PrairieSky also declared its second quarter dividend of $0.265 per common share for shareholders of record on June 30, 2026. With that, I'll turn it back to the moderator to begin the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jamie Kubik with CIBC.

Just a quick question on oil volumes for the quarter. Obviously, good volumes out of the key plays for PrairieSky. But can you just talk about some of the plays that perhaps didn't perform as well in the quarter that led to the slight volume decline quarter-over-quarter?

Yes. You bet, Jamie. The big one when you look from Q1 of last year to Q1 of this year was the 200-barrel net decline net to us from the Lindbergh thermal project and that's more of a transitory item. So if you added that back, you'd kind of be in line with all of our quarters for the last 16 quarters. And in addition, you had a little slower Q4 just on more conventional assets and saw modest declines there. But we're still expecting the kind of mid-single-digit number on average throughout the year on the oil side.

And then last one for me. Can you just talk a little bit more on the bonus consideration that you saw in the quarter? Is that repeatable? And should we think about activity on that side of things with respect to what was leased.

Yes, the bonus consideration is definitely a bright spot. I don't think there is one larger bonus there with respect to a smaller Duvernay lease just given the pricing that's come up so substantially in that area. We were able to command a higher price for that. But I think overall, the entire portfolio of assets saw pretty strong leasing right from Southeast Saskatchewan where there's really short cycle times and we're expecting a bit of an uptick in activity all the way through to Western Alberta. So it's definitely a positive sign to see more activity from producers and people increasing their inventory there, but to answer your question on the repeatability, probably that would be a higher one. I think that was the highest one we've had in quarters or something like that. So that was great. We're very pleased with that and activity on the leasing side does remain robust, but that was higher than anticipated number for the following quarters for the balance of the year.

[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from Aaron Bilkoski with TD Cowen.

So I have another question about your lease issuance bonuses but more on the structure of them. If I remember, some point in the past, you started offering some flexibility to your counterparties. You offered lower upfront bonuses in exchange for multiyear reoccurring cash payments. I think the idea was to leave more cash with the producers to spend so you could generate royalty revenue from that faster. I guess my question is, are you still using this type of structure on the lease issuance bonuses.

Yes, it's a good question, Aaron. And I think for the right play, like for -- typically for the longer-term leases, we'll enter into agreements like that. We've done that with some of the small-scale SAGD leasing in Saskatchewan, whereby they get up to a 7- to 9-year lease depending on where it is. And they have to have a minimum amount of activity and then pay a recurring bonus after 3 years and then another 3 years. We've also done some agreements like that in the Duvernay. So we are expecting meaningful Duvernay payment in the back half of the year. But again, for most conventional leasing, a lot of the leases that we entered into in the previous quarter were shorter-term leases, people with near-term drilling activity planned and just onetime bonus payments. But the great thing about the very short-term ones is if they don't get to it in the 1-year time, we'll typically be able to re-lease those lands right away to either that operator or a competing operator in the area.

Andrew, on the shorter-term leases, are there capital or activity commitments associated with that? Or you just put a short-term lease on it and if they don't drill, you get it back?

Exactly the latter. And I think there's a bit of a balance, like if you're going to hold our lands for a longer period of time, we'd like to see some activity committed and/or back-end bonus payments if you want to retain the lands. But with these shorter-term leases, it's effectively drilling commitment. If you have a 1-year lease, you've almost by the time you survey the well, get the well license, get it drilled get it on production, you almost need that year just to do that. So typically, we view a 1-year lease and in some areas, a 2-year lease drilling commitment to a certain extent, but we do not ask for drilling commitments on those shorter-term leases.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Andrew Phillips for closing remarks.

Thank you to all our shareholders very much for your support, and I hope everyone has a great rest of your week.

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