Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. (OILSF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Saturn Oil and Gas 2026 Guidance and Budget Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. John Jeffrey, CEO of Saturn. Please go ahead, John.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to hear more about Saturn's disciplined 2026 budget and guidance released yesterday afternoon. In addition, we have posted a guidance presentation on our website that is intended to provide further context around our development program for the coming year. Given the current commodity price environment, Saturn's '26 budget is structured to minimize capital spending and preserve the value of our asset base, so we don't produce excessive reserves into a discounted market. This has resulted in Saturn setting a '26 capital expenditure budget between $180 million and $190 million, with over 80% of that being directed to drilling, completion, equipment tie-in activities with anticipated 105 gross or 78 net wells to be drilled. The budget is also designed to optimize free funds flow generation. With a '26 free funds so yield forecast between 25% and 35%. Consistent with our Blueprint strategy, we intend to direct free funds flow towards ongoing debt repayment with incremental amounts allocated to share buybacks or opportunistic tuck-ins at attractive metrics. $185 million capital program represents a 27% decrease from the updated guidance we issued in September of this year. But because we have consistently beat type curves, our 2026 average production forecast at 40,000 barrels per day at a midpoint is only 5% lower than our average for '25. Given the lower capital spend, plus the impact of spring breakup in Q2 when the ground is too soft to drill, we anticipate exiting '26 in the 38,000 to 39,000 BOE per day range. A significant advantage of Saturn's mid-life cycle asset base is our ability to very quickly scale the capital program up or down in response to commodity price movements. This gives us the flexibility to remain nimble across a variety of price scenarios while supporting our ability to optimize free funds flow generation. For 2026, Justin and his team have prioritized drilling targets that can offer the highest potential returns and quickest payouts at these prices, with nearly 1/3 of our capital being directed towards our open hole multilateral opportunities in Southeast Saskatchewan, which he'll be expanding on in a little bit. Saturn's current hedge book represents a meaningful asset that continues to provide downside protection. We have between 50% and 55% of our proved developed producing production net of royalties hedged out for the next 12 months. Essentially, if oil ever went to 0, our hedge book would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars that would more than cover all of our cash flow obligations for the next 12 months and beyond. This, along with the agile nature of our capital program, gives us comfortable and protection to weather the oil price volatility and maintain a strong position relative to the majority of our peers. Saturn's breakeven at an asset level would be around USD 40 and including the note repayments would be closer to USD 45 per barrel. This further protects the company and positions us favorably to remain resilient. Consistent with our September guidance, we remain on track to exit 2025 with production between 43,000 and 44,000 barrels per day and to generate annual average volumes in '25 between 41,000 and 43,000 a day. Most importantly, our team is unwavering in our commitment to the health, safety and well-being of our workforce and to make sure that everyone gets home safe to their families at the end of each workday. I'll now pass it over to Justin to expand on our '26 capital program and development plans. JK, over to you.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. As John mentioned, the focus of our 2026 program is to target the highest return opportunities and rapid pay while preserving the future value of our reserves and setting Saturn up for long-term sustainable success. The guidance presentation we developed that is posted on our website provides a good overview of the planned development for next year, and I encourage everyone to review it for further context. Geographically speaking, approximately 60% of next year's capital program will be weighted to Southeast Saskatchewan, where we plan on drilling 77 gross or 61 net wells during the year. We have earmarked about 1/3 of our total capital spend to our growing open-hole multilateral program with 32 locations targeted, representing a 60% increase over 2025. With the evolution of this technique, we have also realized a 20% improvement on our drill rig in the Bakken from 2023 to 2025, and we'll continue to apply new learnings to improve efficiency. Saturn is trying to run 4 rigs in Q1 of 2026, 3 of which will be drilling open hole multi-leg wells, 2 in the Bakken and 1 in the Midale on lands we acquired from the Allied acquisition this summer. The fourth rig will be focused on conventional Missisippian and Spearfish wells. Based on our 2026 program, we will be the #1 open hole multi-leg driller in Southeast Saskatchewan next year. And the only company using this technique across 4 different zones, the Bakken, Spearfish, Midale and Torque. Saturn intends to drill our first ever open hole multi-leg Torque well in the second half of 2026 and plan to drill 2 wells into that formation. We're targeting to drill 23 conventional Mississippian Spearfish wells, which feature low drilling costs and high deliverability, leading to some of our highest return and most capital-efficient opportunities in our portfolio. In 2025, 9 of our top 10 most capital-efficient wells that were drilled were conventional, offering short cycle times, robust economics and the ability to leverage our infrastructure network to maintain a competitive advantage. On Slide 7 of the guidance presentation, we focus -- we showcased how 2 Saturn's Frobisher wells, the 16-32 and 3-32 were the company's most capital-efficient wells drilled in 2025, coming in approximately 4x above type curve expectations. Of 27 conventional drills this year, we exceed type curve by more than 50% on average. It is this repeated performance that enabled Saturn to reduce capital by 27% in 2026, while only expecting a 5% decrease in average volumes. Also in Southeast Saskatchewan, we are expanding the Bakken waterflood at Creelman and allocating about 5% of our total 2026 capital to waterflood. This represents a consistent trend of increasing focus on waterflood with approximately $10 million earmarked for waterflood investment in 2026. This is double the $5 million invested in 2025 and up materially from close to 0 in 2024. Saturn has assembled a formal reservoir engineering team in-house who are focused on secondary recovery, and they are getting very excited about the current flood at Creelman, which has the potential for future expansion as shown on Slide 9 of the guidance presentation. Not only does waterflood support production from offset producers, it reduces the number of primary wells we need to drill, protects our inventory by lowering decline rates, which increases sustainability, pushes out liability timing and enhances resilience across commodity price cycles. Bakken wells that couldn't compete for capital previously or have reserve bookings will now become economic due to the precious support provided by water injection. In 2026, we plan to convert another 7 producers to injectors and drill 3 repressurized Bakken wells, representing our first ever repressurized Creelman Bakken drills. At 300 to 400-meter spacing, we have ample room between the injectors to drill infill wells. All of these 2026 waterflood initiatives also support our planned infill drilling in 2027. As we have extended the length of the horizontals that we drilled and completed in the Alberta Cardium, we are realizing compelling economics. This supports Saturn allocating approximately 25% of our 2026 budget to developing at Lochend and West Pembina. Building on the success in this area during late 2024 and 2025, which included drilling both the longest and fastest wells ever in the Cardium, we are planning 2 multi-well pads in 2026, 1 7-well pad and 1 6-well pad, each with extended reach horizontals up to 3 miles. Extending the laterals in the Cardium from the legs to 1 mile provides exponentially better returns. Increasing length to 2 miles has a capital cost impact of only 1.3x relative to 1 milers, yet provides exposure to twice as much reservoir. Extending 3 miles have a capital cost impact of 1.6x relative to 1 miler but exposes 3x the reservoir. This, coupled with Saturn realizing the highest productivity from the well Cardium continues to support allocating capital to our Alberta Cardium development. With that, I'll hand things back to John for closing remarks.

Thanks, Justin. Just before I conclude today's call, I want to directly address the uncertainty being experienced by investors given what's happening in the broader market. While we recognize that commodity price volatility and shifting economic conditions cause concern, I want to reassure all stakeholders that Saturn is very well positioned to navigate these challenges. Our disciplined approach to capital, flexible asset base and robust risk management strategy, i.e., our hedge book provides Saturn significant downside protection. In addition, the company has a total of $250 million available through liquidity through our credit facility and the cash on hand. And really, what I really want to talk to here is one thing that Saturn is doing different than a lot of our peers is we're really working backwards, which is to say we have a targeted free cash flow amount in the mine, and we're backing into capital. So we aren't trying to target a certain production level. We aren't trying to target a certain capital expenditure amount. We are taking what is the most risk-free way we can get to a certain cash flow target and then backing into what can we spend on capital. So a little different than a lot of our peers are doing. However, again, our focus has always been -- we've always been clear on our focus that is stated on paying down debt and generating large amounts of free cash flow. You continue to see that throughout 2025, and you're seeing us again prioritize that in '26. So that's the big takeaway here is that we aren't trying to target production levels. We aren't trying to target CapEx. We are targeting very much so our free cash flow amount. I think you've seen us do that several years in a row. But with that, I will thank everyone for dialing in, and we'll turn it over to the operator to see if there's any questions we can answer at this time. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Adam Gill with Ventum Financial.

Two-part question for me. As production cools off through 2026 and you're working on waterfloods, what kind of improvement do you expect in the decline rate over the year? And then with that, how much capital would be needed in 2027 to main production in and around 38,000, 39,000 BOEs a day?

I'll pass that over to J.K.

To maintain -- I'll start with the second part, to maintain about 39,000 barrels in 2027, we would need close to approximately $225 million to $250 million. Going back to the previous question on declines, our current forecasted base decline rate is 22%. The waterflood injection is just on the initial start-up phase. It does affect approximately a few hundred barrels right now, but with repressurized drilling close to 1,000 barrels. So it will have around 1% in the short term. But as we expand on those activities, we expect a further reduction in that decline moving ahead.

And the next question comes from Parvin Mamedov with Equinox Partners.

I had a quick question about hedging. Could you go over the hedges you have for next year? And what is the expected gain at $60 oil?

Yes, absolutely. I'll pass it over to Scott, who can just comment on what our average hedge price looks like for '26.

Yes. Right now, we're between $60 and $63 for your average breakeven hedge price on our current underlying commodity barrels. Currently, right now, it's just about 52%, John mentioned between 50% and 55%. So that's exactly right for the next 12 months. We do disclose all of our hedges in our financial statements on a quarter-by-quarter basis. So that's accumulation of about 30 to 40 different books, but that's the overall position.

And that's included in your free cash flow guidance?

That's correct, yes. The realized hedging gains or losses included in free cash flow.

And the next question comes from Jamie Somerville with ROTH Capital.

I'm just thinking about your reserves. And I know the last year's reserves report is a bit stale by now, but it did have $250 million to $350 million per year of future development CapEx assumed. And so I'm just wondering -- like I assume the difference to what you're spending in 2025 and 2026 is predominantly deferral of capital. I'm wondering, though, if you think there's any extent to which it's also due to either lower service costs or reengineering of development plans that improves capital efficiencies. And then I'm just going to give you my follow-on questions at the same time. Is there a risk that some of your development plans are now pushed out so far that they fall off the books in terms of reserve bookings? And then secondly, are you sure you're not open to divesting some of the assets that aren't being prioritized in the short term? I think your answer has typically been no or you just aren't getting bids that value the assets appropriately, but interested if there's any change in attitude or what you're seeing in terms of appetite to acquire assets in the market.

Yes. Great questions. I can -- I guess this is the general attitude we have on oil price right now is I'm fairly aligned with consensus, which is to say, I think it's going to be lower for the next 6 to 9 months. between $50 and $60. I think going into the third, maybe fourth quarter of '26 and going into '27, I think we -- again, the analysts seem to think that there's going to be a material appreciation of oil price there. So I would view this as a capital deferral. Again, all the projects that we have booked, these are great projects. They're great wells. We're not concerned about that at all. I think we're just looking to defer them until the back half of '26, likely or going into '27. Again, we look to buy and sell assets whenever the value is right. Again, we sold Swan Hills last year. This year, we've sold a number of smaller pieces as well. But again, it has to be the right price to rush assets to market now when most companies are struggling with cash flow, you're just not going to see the bid. So selling below PDP, especially at the lowest price in 4 years, if prices -- if companies come along and they're willing to pay a meaningful multiple, we'll definitely explore that. But for us, because we have such high free cash flow yield, because we are so well protected, it's not something we are forced to do right now. But we're always opportunistic that should the right sale or should the right purchase come up on either side, that's definitely something we want to explore. So this CapEx program really reflects our ability that we want to stay nimble, that should assets come up that we really like that fit exactly in our wheelhouse that follow that blueprint strategy, we can take advantage of it. And if we're able to sell something that we feel is a good price, then we'll do that from a position of strength, not a position of weakness. So hopefully, that helps, and hopefully, I was able to answer your questions.

It does. Just to maybe confirm though, like you will, in a higher oil price environment, with maybe less debt, you would spend $300 million a year to develop your assets, maybe? Or is it just should go back to oil...

Yes, no, $70 oil, that is absolutely -- if we see $70 oil even the back half of next year, I think you're likely to see us guide up. Going into '27, hopefully, we -- I think we're going to see much higher than $70, in which case, you definitely see us spend in excess of $300 million to catch back up on some of the deferred drilling here now. So no, all these programs are definitely -- and it's not debt related. It's really just the position we're at. I hate the idea of producing some of these great wells and Justin and his team drilling and selling our reserves at $56 oil, every barrel we sell today bothers me a little bit. I know we have great wells, great reserves. I want to see those barrels sold at a much higher price. So debt aside and everything else aside, we are just waiting for a rally in commodity. And that's really what you're going to see us do. If we see a rally here next year, you'll see us increase those numbers. And if we see sustained pricing going into '27, I think it's likely you'll see us spend considerably above $300 million if we can get those -- the economics we're looking for.

And the next question comes from [ Giza Sanchez with Castor Investments. ]

Just a question piggybacking on the waterflood question before. Why only 5% of the CapEx invested in waterflood initiatives is because we are not seeing return on capital or we are not seeing good return on investment? Or is this because drilling is considered to have a better return on investment right now?

Well, I'll pass that over to Justin, but I will say just before he gets into the details of it, in every dollar we send out the door, we always look to maximize the rate of return, be that share buyback, debt repayment, drilling wells, waterflood. There's always a trade-off we look for, and we always look to maximize the highest rate of return. But Justin can speak more to the actual returns out of the waterflood.

Yes. When we go to make our capital budget as far as drilling and waterflood, primary drilling will always have better returns than secondary. It's just the long life cycle of that waterflood, it just takes longer time for those returns to come to fruition. But even at these prices, we're seeing north of 20% returns on our flood, which are fairly compelling. If you look at the guidance waterflood presentation, you'll see that there's an offset producer with 700 injectors beside about 500 producers of ours. So we will be scaling that up. Again, last year -- or sorry, this year, 2025 was the first year converting producers into injectors in the Bakken for us. So we're also looking for some initial pressure results before we continue on with that expansion. But the team is extremely excited. The guidance presentation slide says 40 potential future repressurized locations. That's only for that one specific area where we have the spacing to do so. In our future expansion areas, there's potential of hundreds of locations in there. So the team is really excited about it, and you should see increasing capital towards those activities as we look to improve long-term sustainability for the company.

Again, you have to balance, although the rate of returns on waterflooding is not as high as new drill, obviously, by lowering that decline, that's less money you got to spend in future years to keep that production flat. So there's a lot of ancillary benefits that come with that as well. And again, it's just a timing thing. So we have lands that are really -- that are proven really well and very receptive to waterflood. So you're going to see us increase that over time. Of course, the advantage that we have is we also have so many great wells with such high rate of return as well. So it is a balancing act, but this is the first year that we've had a meaningful amount of money put towards waterflood. You're going to see that grow year-over-year. But again, it's tough when you have new well development that just has such great economics even at these prices.

Understood. It's a matter of cost opportunity. Yes, I was just asking because waterflood has been very successful for the companies. So great to see that part of the CapEx growing and growing year after year.

Since there are no more questions, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.