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

Hello. Thank you for joining Saturn Oil's Investor Call for Q2 2024 for our financial and operations results. I'm Kevin Smith, Vice President of Corporate Development; and your moderator for this webcast. We'll start with a presentation from management. And following that, I will address any of your questions or comments. [Operator Instructions] Grant MacKenzie, our Chief Legal Officer, will take the lead today with John Jeffrey, our CEO out of the office; Justin Kaufmann, our Chief Development Officer, has an operational update; and Scott Sanborn, Chief Financial Officer has a report as well. I'll now hand the conference call over to Grant.

Thanks so much, Kevin. As Ken mentioned, my name is Grant MacKenzie. I'm the company's Chief Legal Officer. And unfortunately, as Ken mentioned, John is not available today, he is actually under the weather and not able to speak, he lost his voice, but I hope [indiscernible]. I'll take over from him. So thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our Q2 investor update. As most of you know, in June, we closed an important acquisition in Southern Saskatchewan, which increased our oil production by over 50%, all within our adjacent to existing core areas. The 13,000 barrels acquired is comprised of approximately 96% of high netback oil and liquid production, which increases our already high oil-production rate. The acquisition, as we previously mentioned, is accretive across all of our key share metrics, including our NAV adjusted funds growth, [indiscernible] funds to grow EBITDA. The acquisition added over 950 identified drilling locations which Justin will expand on in a moment, which means we can maintain and enhance these production metrics. It's an attractive portfolio of highly capital efficient development drilling locations. We're also very excited about the low decline rate of the acquired assets, which pro forma reduces our corporate decline of above 18%. That's one of the lowest declines in the Canadian conventional oil space, and we believe it to be a real competitive advantage to us to kind of have to chase production as to stay flat and grow up from this. As with previous acquisitions we've made, we see numerous strategic opportunities or synergistic opportunities to generate cost savings and enhance the already high cash flow market of these assets. And on that note, in our second quarter, we announced for the first time that we had driven down our operating and transportation costs below $20 per BOE for the first time in the last 3 years. Scott will have more details on our record-setting financial results shortly. We are forecasting production of between 38,000 to 40,000 BOE per day for the next 12 months, and we expect to be in the top end of this range in a year's time, representing modest growth target of up to 5% with the reinvestment of approximately 60% of our run rate adjusted funds. The Battrum and Flat Lake acquisition also gave Saturn a unique opportunity to restructure our finance and our debt back, open up access to the deep pools of the U.S. [indiscernible] or U.S. public debt markets allowing the company to close on a $650 million U.S. bond issue with an attractive 9 and 5/8s coupon rate and a 10% annual [indiscernible] future in keeping with our prolonged tradition of our diligent debt repayment strategy. The refinancing enabled us to complete the acquisition and also to repay our previously outstanding senior term loan, which has the effective result of reducing our interest rate by about 40%. We firmly believe that the step Saturn took in the second quarter have laid the foundation versus stable free cash flow building model through Saturn shareholders, allowed us to enhance our low decline production base and reduce our cost of capital. We are now forecasting over $200 million of excess free cash flow over the next 12 months, which we will direct to further debt reduction, strategic tuck-in acquisitions and as we continue to delever and we realize the benefits of recent acquisition, we're analyzing different capital returns strategy to shareholders, including potential dividends and share buybacks. I'd now like to hand over the webcast to Justin Kaufmann for overview of our operations. Justin?

Thank you, Grant. Traditionally, the second quarter is a slow period for Saturn oilfield development due to breakup. However, the new implementation of open-hole multilateral drilling allowed the company to drill through break-up in Southeast Saskatchewan as each well can take up to 40 days to drill. The highlight well of the quarter was the Viewfield 11-21 multilateral. This well set a record for open-hole multilateral length with a 2-mile horizontal lateral, and it recorded the second highest liquid reduction rate of all wells in Saskatchewan for the month of June at 295 barrels per day. An encouraging sign for the Viewfield 11-21 was we saw a reverse decline on it, and it ended the initial 30-day production period with oil rates up to 350 barrels a day. So expected to make that Saskatchewan Top 10 list in July as well. Saturn now has drilled 5 open-hole multilateral wells with terrific overall performance. We expect this drilling technique to be a significant contributor for our Bakken light oil development going forward. Production for the quarter was a record of 30,127 barrels a day and was ahead of expectations due to the strength of the new multilateral wells, the continued outperformance of the Brazeau Cardium wells and the conventional Southeast Saskatchewan wells drilled in Q1. In June, Saturn closed on a strategic acquisition of a private company in Southeast Saskatchewan, which is an excellent fit into our adjacent operations, adding about 260 barrels per day of light oil production. While we like this acquisition so much is we see at least 20 great conventional drilling locations in the Mississippian that offset our [ current unit ]. While these locations have extremely high rates of return on their own, we will see incremental value due to the fact that this production will tie into our offsetting infrastructure. Saturn is now well into its largest drilling program to date for H2 2024 where we have 4 rigs running concurrently. Two rigs are focused in Southeast Saskatchewan for a combination of Bakken, Torquay and conventional horizontal wells. Included in the Southeast capital program will be the multi-zone development of the Torquay and Bakken in the newly acquired Flat Lake assets. Four of these wells are scheduled to be pre pressurized Bakken supported by Torquay injection pressure. The company is extremely excited about their potential and the additional reserves that could come with their success. We expect to drill at least 30 wells in Southeast Saskatchewan in the back half of 2024. The third rig is focused on Western Saskatchewan, where we drilled 1 Viking well in Q2 as a start of an 18 net Viking well program. And then we will move the rig south to develop 4 net lower Shaunavon locations that we recently picked up in the Southern Saskatchewan acquisition. The fourth rig is focused on Alberta, where we are currently drilling the last well on a 4-well pad in the Montney formation around the Kaybob area. We expect to complete the Montney wells in August and have the production online in September. The Alberta rig will then move into the Cardium where it will drill 7 wells for the balance of the year. There will be a lot of drill results to update shareholders in the coming months as we embark on a $180 million capital program for the second half of 2024, a significant acceleration from the $57 million of invested development capital in the first half of 2024. Saturn's production reached approximately 38,300 barrels per day at the end of Q2, bolstered by the closing of the Southern Saskatchewan acquisition. As Grant mentioned, the acquisition production has a very low decline rate. Saturn now has approximately 1/4 of its production under waterflood support, further stabilizing those production levels. Our intentions are to maintain the production levels going forward with a deep inventory of derisked development locations with high rates of return on invested capital. I will now hand it over to Scott for a financial overview of Q2.

Thanks, Justin. It was an extremely active quarter for Saturn. Main achievements include total A&D of $575 million in value, including 2 acquisitions and 1 disposition, a total recapitalization including $650 million or approximately CAD 890 million senior secured note issuance and a previous senior term loan payout of $364 million, also an equity issue of $100 million. Pro forma, the company has a very strong balance sheet with a path towards 1x EBITDA by year-end. Production profile for the company has shifted post acquisition with Q2 exiting just over 38,000 BOE per day and averaging 30,000 BOE per day, up from 26,000 in Q1, primarily due to the 15 days contribution from the South Saskatchewan acquisition, which closed on June 14 and strong Q4 '23 and H1 '24 drilling programs. The company achieved revenue of $208 million to realize $42 million in net income. Total on the A&D front, in order of significance, we closed the South Saskatchewan asset for net proceeds of $535 million, net of interim closing adjustments on June 14. We disposed of our Deer Mountain asset in Northern Alberta for $25.6 million on June 4, and we closed our corporate acquisition of Adonai Resources for $8.3 million on June 6. In the quarter, the company earned record EBITDA of $106 million versus $88 million in Q1, driven primarily from increased benchmark WTI prices in the quarter of $81 per barrel for $77 per barrel in Q1, the tightening of the WTI MSW differential compounded by increased volumes and continuously driving down our operating costs. After interest deduction of $17 million of the company realized adjusted funds flow of $0.52 per share or $89 million, up from $0.46 per share or $68 million in the prior quarter, [ partially ] annualized 15 days, but that yields approximately pro forma 1.4, 1.5x net debt to adjusted cash flow at the end of Q2. Total capital expenditures were $23 million in the quarter with the company drilling 7 gross, 6 net wells, 6 in Southeast Sask and 1 in West Central Saskatchewan to earn free cash flow of $66 million. On the financing side, the company early retired its previous senior term loan with a principal balance outstanding of $364 million. We completed $100 million subscription receipt based bought deal equity financing at a price of $2.35 per share and we issued senior notes for gross proceeds of USD 650 million or CAD 890 million, which closed concurrently with the acquisition on June 14. The notes have an amortization of 10% per year or USD 65 million at 104% paid quarterly and have a 9.625% annual interest payment paid semiannual in arrears. The notes were issued a street yield of approximately 10.3% at par and are now currently yielding 8.7% based on 103% premium at current trading stats just goes to show the premium pricing of our bonds. Minimal covenants on new note indenture, barring a 50% hedging requirement of forecast oil and gas production, which aligns with management's strategy of future protection on our cash flow. After free cash flow and total financing activities in the quarter, the company had cash on hand of approximately $81 million. Looking forward to future liquidity. In conjunction with the transaction, the company entered into a national bank led $150 million syndicated credit facility along with Goldman Sachs and ATB, structure is $50 million operating line at $100 million reserve-based lending facility with semiannual renewals with the first occurrence by Q2 2025. The line was and is fully undrawn and adds ample liquidity for the future requirements of the company. As we look forward to future outlook and direction of capital related to hedging, we took advantage of the strong oil prices at the beginning of the quarter, adding 2.1 million barrels or approximately 5,800 barrels per day for the next 12 months, effectively July 2024 to June '25 with a premium-based color strategy rather than just straight swaps or [indiscernible] colors. Callers were priced at $1.58 or [ 65 by 90 ], which aligns with our U.S.-based revenue stream. As we look forward, the company is aiming to target approximately half of free cash flow towards net debt reduction and approximately half towards improving our production per share. So with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin and Grant and continue on with any questions you may have.

Great. Thanks, Scott. [Operator Instructions] One of the questions coming here, you've seen some solid results from the latest open-hole multilateral Bakken wells? How many more are expected to be drilled this year? And what could the 2025 program looks like? Do you see potential to expand your footprint in this play?

Thanks, Kevin. Great question. The current open multilateral program for this year has been concluded with those 3 wells we drilled this year. But with the success that we've seen so far, moving forward, we're planning to drill about 10 to 12 wells per year. That will take 1 dedicated rig drilling those full time. Another positive note is that we're looking -- we're looking to get additional reserve additions from the success of these wells. We had 17 booked last year, and we are going to look to improve on that based on the success we've seen this year.

Another question here regarding the Q2 report, you delivered substantial operating cost reductions. Do you believe you'll be able to do the same with the new assets? And how much savings could we see emerging over time?

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. It's Grant here. Yes. As you've seen in our core presentation, we've been able to reduce operating and transportation costs by almost 30% since 2021 as we've kind of gotten bigger and grown to scale and realize the operational efficiencies in the field of having contiguous assets and having a consolidated land base. So it's pretty early days on knowing exactly what the acquisition of the Flat Lake and Battrum properties will yield as far as synergies go, but we certainly do expect some operational synergies given there location and the ability to use existing operations, facilities, head office space, field office space, things of that nature. So we're certainly excited about the potential to exploit those synergies and to drive down costs and continue to look forward to do so. So we'll be able to update that in the future. Like I said, a bit early days to fully understand the nature of the cost savings to date just with a few weeks of operations under our belt so far. But in prior acquisitions from the same vendor, we've been able to see some results pretty quickly.

Great question here. With the contracting of 4 rigs, was there difficulty getting equipment? And has there been any sharp increases in day rates?

Thanks, Kevin. There was no difficulty for Saturn this year on getting rigs. When you're talking to the rig companies as long as you're able to prove that you're going to have that continued development throughout the year and you're able to keep that rig busy. They will allocate you a rig accordingly, so we've had -- we've been able to acquire those 4 rigs that we're using this year and no issue. We're looking to increase that for next year without an increased capital program again. And again, because of our level of activity, we don't see an issue. I haven't seen much inflation over the last 12 months when it comes to the drilling side. And we've seen that with our early capital coming in through the wells we drilled in Q1, Q2. So not a lot of cessation on the drill side, and we've been able to access rigs and equipment fairly easily with the size of the company Saturn is now.

Great. Thanks, Justin. I'm going to put these next 2 questions together. I think they're kind of going in the same direction. One is, do you see the discount to WTI expected to decline from where it is now. And what -- with the new West Coast pipeline now in operation, does that support extra or enhanced margins?

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. So we don't use the Trans Mountain pipeline for much of our egress of our product in Alberta. But certainly, we've seen an effect across the board of the benefits of the Alberta getting production to market via that pipeline. So our production has primarily East in the Enbridge Mainline system, but the reduced demand for the use of that pipeline has obviously benefited us. And maybe, Scott, if you could touch on the margin differentials we're seeing the differential margins we're seeing as a result of Trans Mountain, which have come down over the last 6 months to 12 months.

Yes. The differential, like Grant said, most of our differential is based on WTI MSW diff that was slight heavy component here in our batch unit, but most of it is on that light sweet blend. So compared to the first quarter where you're seeing 9, 10, sometimes a month, $11 differential, that's come down [ 12, 345 ]. So that's been a significant increase to our revenue base, and that's where we see prices holding constant. We do hedge a certain portion of our MSW, WTI diff just for further protection on the downside, but we see that in fairly stable levels for the normal course going forward.

There's a question. I know, Scott, you touched on hedging, but there's a question here, again, on that. What is our basic hedging philosophy and what percentages are we targeting going forward of our oil production.

Thanks, Kevin. It's also in line with our indenture and our risk management strategy here at Saturn. So going forward, we look to hedge approximately at a bare minimum, 50% net of royalties of our oil and liquids production. That's about 95% of revenue base. That's where we like to focus our risk mitigation strategy. So with that, we do look to split the differential between MSW and WCS like I explained, but that's our hedging strategy on a per barrel basis. Going forward, we're actually looking to implement a little bit of a wider band, so we're looking at hedge about 85% of strip, what that results in is about a [ 65 590 ] U.S.-based collar. So we would be exposed to those. But with that level, it also increases the upside, which is where we see oil going in the near term.

Okay. There's a question here regarding guidance. It's -- the question itself is when do you expect to release pro forma guidance for the next 12 months, including the acquisition? We did that on the announcement of the acquisition. And is there any more thoughts on guidance going forward, Scott?

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. We are looking at releasing guidance in the upcoming months if events their unfold. Right now, Justin and his team are going over a full development review. And once that's finalized, we probably will be releasing that in the next month.

Okay. But as of now, the current guidance that's in the public domain is what we're following?

That is correct. Barring any significant events, this guidance is as stated.

Going through. So we've addressed all the questions. So thanks, everyone, for joining. I'm going to pass it back to Grant now for a closing message.

Yes. Thanks so much, Kevin. And again, thank you to our team, to Scott, Justin and Kevin, for all the hard work, John, I'm sure would want me to pass on the message that it takes everyone to get these kind of big deals done, and we -- we appreciate the support we've received from the investor community from the bond markets. And certainly, we're looking forward to developing of these assets and really seeing what they can do for us as a company. So we look forward to keeping everyone up to date. Any questions, obviously, feel free to reach out to any member of the Saturn management team in the future, as many of you have done it in the past, and we will endeavor to keep you up to speed and make sure everyone is aware of the great things going on at Saturn Oil and Gas. So thank you, everyone, for your time today. Thank you for participating, and we will look forward to speaking to you next quarter.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody.