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

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Saturn's Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the meeting over to Ms. Cindy Gray, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Cindy.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us to hear management's remarks about our Q2 2026 results, along with commentary on our increased 2026 guidance. Please note that our Q2 financial statements, MD&A and press release are all filed on SEDAR+ and available on our website. Some of the statements on today's call may contain forward-looking information, references to non-IFRS and other financial measures, and as such, listeners are encouraged to review the disclaimers outlined in our most recent MD&A. Listeners are also cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements since a number of factors could cause the actual future results to differ materially from the targets and expectations expressed. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless expressly required by applicable securities law. For further information on our risk factors, please view the company's AIF filed on SEDAR+ and on our website. And I would also note, all amounts discussed today are Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. On today's call, we'll hear from John Jeffrey, Saturn's CEO; Justin Kaufmann, our Chief Development Officer; and Scott Sanborn, our CFO, followed by Q&A. I'll now hand the call over to John.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Q2 was a standout period that truly showcased Saturn's abilities. With production of over 41,000 BOE a day, we again exceeded guidance and market expectations for the eighth consecutive quarter. Saturn generated cash flow of over $123 million with more than $82 million of free funds flow. We achieved this while accelerating capital, making accretive acquisitions, repaying debt and returning capital to shareholders despite spring breakup conditions and weather-related downtime in June. One of Saturn's greatest competitive advantages is the flexibility of our asset base and the agility of our capital development program. With oil prices strengthening throughout the second quarter, we elected to accelerate capital from the second half of 2026 into Q2. And thanks to the strength of our development team, we were able to mobilize rigs about 5 weeks earlier than originally planned. This brought forward activity into a stronger oil price environment to further optimize our economics. In addition to our development drilling program in Q2, we pursued value creation through opportunities through tuck-in acquisitions. This continued into July with the acquisitions of Burgess Creek and Triland Energy. Both acquisitions are highly complementary to our existing Southeast Saskatchewan operations. They add material drilling inventory, increased infrastructure utilization and further strengthen Saturn's scale in one of our highest return areas. The transactions were completed at less than 2x cash flow and sub-PDP, exactly in line with our acquisition strategy and highlighting the value we can create through disciplined consolidation. This exemplifies our blueprint strategy, acquiring assets that are contiguous to our existing operations with opportunities to optimize production, improve efficiencies, reduce operating costs and deepen our long-term development inventory. Saturn plans to build on this success, and we'll continue pursuing opportunities to further consolidate in all of our core areas. Also in July, Saturn priced a new dual tranche U.S. Canadian dollar-denominated senior unsecured note as well, and announced the planned redemption of our senior secured notes. This transaction represents an important evolution of our capital structure. Not only does this refinancing reduce our effective interest rate by over 200 basis points, it extends our maturity profile by 24 months out to 2031. We have significantly improved our financial flexibility by moving to an unsecured note structure with a more relaxed covenant framework and enhance our control over capital allocation. Rather than a mandatory 10% amortization payment each year, the new notes feature semiannual offer to repurchase at 2.5% of the principal. Concurrent with our Q2 results yesterday, we also issued increased guidance for 2026 and an updated outlook that reflects continued outperformance in the field, recent successful acquisitions and enhanced financial flexibility due to that refinancing. Our updated 2026 guidance reflects meaningfully higher activity levels throughout the balance of this year, resulting in stronger cash flow generation and great organic growth over our original guidance. We anticipate net debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA at year-end 2026 to improve to approximately 1.4x compared to 1.6x under our original guidance. This is even more compelling given that we expect leverage metrics to improve with the expanded capital program, accretive acquisitions and accelerated growth. This outcome highlights both the quality of the assets we've acquired and the strength of our underlying business. Saturn continues to evolve, becoming a larger and more profitable company, poised to create significant long-term value. I want to congratulate our team for their efforts in delivering results for our shareholders and for the team's unwavering commitment to safety. Success is truly realized when all employees get home safely to their families at the end of every day. I'll hand over to Justin to walk through our planned development program that underpins our increased 2026 cash flow and free cash flow profile. Justin?

Thanks, John. And thanks again to everyone for joining us this morning. Operationally, the quality of Saturn's assets and the consistency of our team's execution was clearly on display in Q2. As John mentioned, we exited spring breakup earlier than anticipated to take advantage of strong commodity prices and kicked off drilling in late May. By June, we were able to deploy 5 rigs in Saskatchewan, which resulted in 17 gross wells being drilled and brought on production during the quarter. Although some weather impacts in June created temporary downtime and delayed portions of our capital program, our average Q2 volumes exceeded our guidance and analyst expectations once again, an achievement we are very proud of. Our open hole multilateral drilling program has continued to outperform and remains a focus within our development portfolio. During the quarter, we drilled our first open hole multilateral Torquay well at 7-16, which came in above our 180 barrel a day type curve expectation. We drilled our second Torquay open hole multilateral well at 8-22 in July, which is currently cleaning up and is showing strong initial production signs. Saturn's continued success drilling open hole multilaterals across 4 different formations in Southeast Saskatchewan is improving our capital efficiencies while increasing confidence in both the quality and scalability of our drilling inventory. In this high oil price environment, we see compelling returns across our entire asset portfolio. As such, we have expanded our 2026 capital program to include projects in West Central Saskatchewan and Alberta, and we have built on our existing Southeast Saskatchewan program. Saturn has continued to identify drilling targets where our team could deliver robust returns, improve future resource pools to potentially expand our inventory and optimize infrastructure utilization, all while maintaining capital discipline. As part of the updated guidance, we are increasing Saturn's 2026 development capital program to approximately $365 million at midpoint. This revised budget remains focused on projects with short half cycle paybacks, strong rates of return and high liquids content. Approximately, 85% of our capital budget is directed towards drilling, completion and tie-in activity, which reflects the confidence in the underlying economics of our inventory and abundant infrastructure and takeaway capacity in our core fields. In total this year, we expect to drill 156 gross wells, approximately 100 of which are in Southeast Saskatchewan, 37 in West Central Saskatchewan and 19 in Alberta. We're also excited to continue applying our open hole multilateral expertise to new plays. This includes drilling our first P2 Spearfish sands open hole multilateral well in Southeast Saskatchewan to expand pool boundaries and drilling our first Lower Shaunavon open hole multilateral well. If successful, this Lower Shaunavon test could potentially unlock a significant untapped resource play. As we move through the third and fourth quarters, Saturn's development activity is expected to ramp up significantly. With the combination of organic production growth and recent acquisitions, we anticipate exiting 2026 with production between 48,000 and 50,000 barrels a day, [ bringing ] approximately 84% to higher value oil and liquids. This represents Saturn's strongest organic growth period on a per barrel basis in our history, which we are balancing with a disciplined approach to capital allocation. I will now turn it over to Scott to discuss the Q2 results and our 2026 financial outlook in more detail.

Great. Thanks, Justin. And good morning, everyone. Saturn's Q2 financial results reflect another strong quarter, highlighted by record revenue of approximately $359 million, adjusted funds flow of $123 million, or $0.68 per share and free funds flow, more than $82 million, or $0.46 per share. The combination of continued production outperformance and strong oil prices drove healthy margins, which we achieved while repaying debt, funding the accelerated capital program, completing multiple acquisitions, and continuing to return capital to shareholders through our NCIB or our share buyback program. On July 22nd, Saturn successfully concluded our NCIB, having repurchased over 12 million shares in open market, from August of 2025 to July of this year. Since launching our share buyback program in 2024, we've returned nearly $66 million to shareholders and retired more than 24 million shares at an average price of $2.71, reducing our outstanding share count by roughly 12%. Later in August, we intend to renew the NCIB for another 12 months. While strong quarterly oil prices led to increased revenue and cash flow, we had an offsetting impact showing our realized hedging loss in the period. Our hedge program continues to perform its intended function of protecting downside risk and ensuring Saturn generates stable cash flows amidst the volatility across pricing cycles. We view hedging as insurance. It supports the long-term resilience of our business, ensures we can meet our obligations, and allows management to confidently make capital allocation decisions. As such, we continue to be opportunistic with our hedging program, maintaining downside protection while preserving meaningful exposure to higher oil prices. As John mentioned, we also priced a new issue of senior unsecured notes in July, comprised of a dual tranche issue of USD 575 million at 8.5% and $185 million at 7.5%. There are numerous benefits to refinancing now, both from a financial and strategic perspective. Strategically, the new notes give Saturn much greater flexibility due to the unsecured nature, which is advantageous to the equity holder, relaxed covenants, extended tenure to 2031, and replaces the mandatory annual 10% amortization payment, an approximate 5% premium with an annual 5% offer to purchase, at only a 1% premium. Financially, we benefit from significantly lower blended interest rates, enhanced liquidity, and increased flexibility to continue executing on our blueprint while maintaining our debt reduction commitment. We believe these changes are key to Saturn's ongoing evolution and support the larger scale of business [ we've become ]. Within the quarter, we added to our total liquidity by increasing our borrowing base on our credit facility to $500 million with an election of $200 million, allowing for an expansion, if needed, depending on market conditions. The facility will remain undrawn on the closing of our notes on July 30. Looking ahead, we expect Q3 capital spending to increase between $165 million and $175 million as development activity ramps up across our portfolio, supporting a Q3 production forecast between 42,000 and 43,000 BOE per day. In connection with our revised guidance, on an annualized basis, the company expects to achieve adjusted funds flow between $535 million and $570 million, or between $2.95 and $3.15 per share, driving free cash flow of $150 million or between $150 million and $200 million after expanded capital expenditures between $355 million and $375 million. We remain committed to debt repayment and will make our first semi-annual offer to repurchase at 2.5% of the principal on our new notes at 101 on January 30, 2027. As John indicated, we expect leverage metrics to improve by year-end '26, as we forecast net debt to annualized pro forma adjusted EBITDA between 1.3 and 1.5x, lower than our original guidance of 1.4 to 1.7x. Saturn has entered the second half of the year with a stronger asset base, deeper inventory, enhanced flexibility, and a development program designed to drive organic growth. Combined with improved leverage metrics and continued focus on shareholder returns, we believe the company is exceptionally well-positioned for the future. With that, I'd like to thank everybody for your time this morning, and we'll hand the call back to the operator to begin the Q&A. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Amir Arif with ATB Cormark Capital Markets.

A couple of quick questions, more related to the guidance slide. I know there was no exit production provided previously, but relative to where it would've been versus the 49 midpoint, can you just try to give us a sense of how much of that is acquisitions and how much of that is organic? I know that Burgess Creek was around 2,400. But just curious in terms of the third quarter acquisitions plus the Triland acquisition, if you can just give a rough breakdown of how much of the growth is acquisitions versus organic by year-end?

Amir, I'm going to pass over to Justin Kaufmann to handle.

Roughly about 5,000 of that would be from organic adds, and about 4,000 at year-end from acquisitions.

And I appreciate that color. And then finally...

Sorry. Just to add to that, I believe our -- midpoint of our exit was 38 to 39. It was somewhere in that 38 to 39 range on the prior guidance.

Okay. No, that's helpful. And then just, I know it's a little early to think about '27 guidance, but if you think of the higher production base of 49, and with a little more organic growth, you might have a little higher decline rate, but just curious, how much capital do you think you'll need as you head into '27 to sort of hold that level flat?

At that level, it'd be around 400.

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Gill with Ventum Financial.

Just one question for me. About how much of the capital is going to be spent on the land prior to the acquisitions that you've kind of done over Q2 and Q3, and then how much is going to be spent on the acquired lands?

Adam, it's Justin here again. We'll spend around $15 million on the acquired lands. The rest will be on Saturn legacy assets.

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Payne with National Bank.

I just want to kind of go back to the blueprint strategy where you've been very active on A&D, obviously acquiring a tonne of assets here. But one of the pieces to that blueprint strategy is bringing synergies and efficiencies to the assets. Can you just talk about the magnitude of synergies and efficiencies that you see being relevant to these assets and how that might impact what was already a very low acquired multiple?