Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd. (TVE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome, everyone to the Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd. webcast on July 29, discussing the Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd. Q2 2022 results. I'd like to introduce today's speakers. Mr. Brian Schmidt, President and CEO; and Mr. Steve Buytels, Vice President, Finance and CFO. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Schmidt, you may begin your conference.

Good morning. I'm joined here today with Steve Buytels, VP Finance and CFO. We're pleased to announce our second quarter financial results. Q2 was a record for the company from both the funds flow generation standpoint as well as production. We successfully closed the Rolling Hills acquisition during the quarter and continued to expand our Clearwater footprint through the addition of acreage in the Peavine and Seal area. We remain focused on delivering our return of capital commitment with an increase to our base dividend during the quarter and along with the initiation of our enhanced return through our NCIB purchases. I'll pass it over to Steve for a run-through of our financial operating highlights.

Thanks, Brian. Despite the production challenges that were outlined due to third-party unplanned downtime during the quarter, Tamarack delivered record adjusted funds flow of $203.6 million and free funds flow of $94.1 million in Q2. We exited with $470.6 million of net debt, inclusive of the assets held for sale with respect to our Saskatchewan Viking non-core disposition. We invested $80.3 million in E&D expenditures during the quarter and $29 million on strategic land sales in the Clearwater and Charlie Lake, further enhancing our position in 2 of the most economic oil plays in North America. This land investment was partially funded through the disposition of GORR on certain properties for approximately $15 million. I'll pass it over to Brian for an operations rundown.

As Steve highlighted, we were able to achieve record production levels of 43,777 BOE per day during the quarter despite significant unplanned third-party downtime in the Charlie Lake area. Production continues to be restored through July in the play and its averaged approximately 13,500 BOE per day this month to date. We are advancing plans to construct a new owned and operated gas plant in the region with engineering and design currently underway. Phase 1 will add approximately 15 million to 20 million standard cubic feet of processing capacity and is forecasted to be on stream the first half of 2023. We'll look for creative solutions to financing and yet control this key piece of infrastructure. Well results continue to meet or exceed our budgeted-type curves with our recently 216 well achieving IP30 rate of 1,685 BOEs per day. The Clearwater results continue to speak for themselves with the company advancing and stepping out of regions, both in the South Clearwater and West Marten Hills. At Nipisi, our focus has shifted to waterflood development and our injection pilot is exceeding expectations with the great production response. As such, I'll be directing some of the Viking disposition proceeds toward additional Nipisi waterflood development. Finally, we continue to add to our core land position in the Peavine/Seal region during the quarter through crown land sales and a strategic farm-in. We now have amassed a total of 77.5 sections in the area with our Seal acreage perspective over 3 separate Clearwater sands. I've expanded our appraisal program in the area with plans to drill 4 to 5 wells in the fourth quarter this year. I'll pass it back to Steve to run through our second half guidance and our update to return on capital framework.

Thanks. To reflect the disposition of the non-core Viking assets as well as inflationary pressures we are seeing and forecasting for the second half of the year, we have updated our guidance with capital expenditures expected to be in the range of $160 million to $170 million and production to average 44,500 to 46,500 BOE a day. Company continues to execute on its strategy of repositioning and growing its footprint in the Clearwater and Charlie Lake, while maintaining our balance sheet strength. The Viking asset and royalty dispositions were clear examples of how we look to rationalize the portfolio to manage our debt levels while continuing to enhance long-term free funds flow generation and return on capital to shareholders. Inflationary pressures continue to persist and management team strives to drive further efficiencies to offset as much of the cost as we can. With respect to our return of capital framework, the company remains committed to balancing long-term free funds flow growth, debt repayment and returning capital to our shareholders. We were proud to announce a 20% increase to our base dividend in the second quarter, along with initiating our enhanced return through our NCIB purchases. We have updated our enhanced return to provide incremental return to shareholders as debt levels reach certain levels. We will continue to target 50% of free funds flow from the prior quarter to return to shareholders when debt levels are below $400 million. And as we reach a debt floor of $200 million, we will accelerate returns to target 75% of free cash flow to be directed from the prior quarter through either buybacks and/or enhanced dividends. We look forward to continuing to deliver on enhanced returns through 2022. I'll pass it back to Brian here for some final comments.

Before I close, we've had a change in our executives at the company. Martin Malek, VP Engineering, has resigned. On behalf of the Board, management and staff, I'd like to thank him for his time helping shape Tamarack what it is today. As a result of the change, I'm pleased to announce the promotion of Mr. Ben Stoodley as VP Engineering. Ben was formerly Director of our Clearwater Development Group and brings more than 17 years of experience. We're excited to have Ben join the executive team. In closing, I'd like to thank our board, staff and shareholders and stakeholders for your ongoing support. Tamarack's never been in better shape and the outlook for the industry remains robust. We look forward to delivering on sustainable free cash flow growth and enhancing return to shareholders. I'll pass it over to the moderator for questions.

Our first question is for Brian Schmidt. Brian, can you walk us through some of the things Tamarack is doing to offset inflation?

Yes. So it's very important to -- in times of inflation and service cost increase -- to try and reduce the amount of work in the field and try and simplify your operations. So I'll just give you a few examples of that. In the Clearwater, increasing the well count per pad so you can get savings from eliminating some mobilization costs and infrastructure costs spread over more wells. So we're going 6 to 8 wells on our infill areas. The other thing I would say is that we're increasing the lateral length on a per leg basis. We're going to 1.5 to 2 miles per leg and that, again, reduces the surface requirements and infrastructure costs. On the waterflood, we're going to test another concept, a 3-step waterflood layout and reduce the amount of injectors that it takes to support production. So look for some exciting opportunities there. In the Charlie Lake, we're going to go straight to pump jack and live with a flatter production profile at the start and get away from ESP pumps. We're putting in ESP pumps and then a couple of years later, we're changing over to rod pump. So we'll go -- we'll save about $200,000 there. And I think lastly, when you put in your own gas plant, we'll be drilling wells on multi-well pads and not just kind of drill to fill on smaller processing space we have. We'll save about $400,000 on every well with that kind of opportunity.

Our next question is for Steve Buytels. What is the current debt with the Viking sales?

So as I just highlighted there in the press release, the way we look at the net debt is we included the assets held for sale over the quarter, which was $470.6 million of net debt. So we do get a lot of questions of you guys say you're going to trigger the enhanced return when the net debt is $400 million, why are you buying back stock when it's not $400 million yet? So I think it is worth taking a little bit of time here to walk everybody through how we look at that. When we look at M&A and land sales and so forth, one of the things you can't do is control the timing of it, but we wanted to honor the timing of when we would have triggered that enhanced return should we have not done any of that M&A or strategic land purchases. So what we do is we look to smooth that through the year and we adjust that out. So if you take that $470 million and you take out the cash outlay for the Rolling Hills acquisition and the strategic land sales, along with smoothing of the cash taxes for the year, that's how we look at that. And then those will get adjusted back through the back half. But on a net basis, that enhanced return should get you to the same number that you would have been forecasting on a yearly basis. We just try to bring that and smooth that to honor the timing. So again, that's important to us to deliver on that. And we continue to manage it. And you'll see through Q3 and Q4 here, some pretty aggressive debt paydown as we look forward to just execute on our capital program for the second half.

Our next question is for Brian Schmidt. What is the expected capital cost of the Charlie Lake gas processing infrastructure?

Yes. So we'd be looking at probably somewhere around $20 million. And I would say that number has potential to come down. And one of the things that we're concerned about is late delivery and supply chain issues with building gas plants and large equipment. And we've been able to -- we're going to take a look at an existing plant we have in our inventory right now. And that will significantly cut the cost, but it will also more importantly, make sure that we end up on our delivery and our online time with much more certainty.

Our next question is for Steve Buytels. With the undeveloped land acquisitions year-to-date, what do you think the inventory growth has been as a result of these purchases?

Yes, you bet. It's still early on a bunch of it. Obviously, it's undeveloped land, but if you look at the acreage, specifically in Peavine and Seal that we have amassed over the first half of the year, it's all offsetting some pretty significant competitor activity. When you look at the Peavine Metis deals that we've been able to carry out, you have both Baytex and a private producer drilling up and around our lands and getting pretty significant results. Baytex' results obviously speak for themselves, everybody's seen those. The private producer's seen some interesting results too, 150 to upward to 400 barrels a day. So we're excited to look at that. And I think the potential there on that acreage for us could be upwards of 100 to 200 locations. At Seal, it's interesting, and Brian can go into some more detail on this, but we actually -- despite the land print only being 30, 35 sections up there, you have 3 separate zones. So maybe I'll pass it to Brian to talk about what that development could look like in the Clearwater at Seal?

Yes. So at Seal, Baytex has an offsetting well that performed quite well. And what we probably be end up doing there is going in and testing the 3 layers as soon as possible so we get appropriate development plan. And we may actually do that off the same pad. But I think that where that's really going to help the company is it really cuts down your infrastructure costs, road costs, building pads because now you can put many more wells on the same pad targeting 3 separate zones. So that certainly, I think I'm very excited about that acreage and it's a very good acreage if all 3 of those zones work out.

Our next question is for Steve Buytels. Can you talk about what potential alternatives might look like for creative financing of the Charlie Lake facility?

You bet. So there's 2 avenues we can go down there. The key for us, as Brian mentioned, is to operate that and have ownership in that plant to manage our growth profile of those volumes moving forward. I think the 2 avenues really would be -- one of them, we can look to some of the midstreamers there and partner with them. There are companies around that that do the sale-leaseback type arrangements as well to manage with their cost of capital being at an advantage relative to a producer. Those look pretty good, especially when you have the type of upside we do in our inventory, so we can direct our proceeds -- or our capital to drilling wells and returning capital versus tying it up on the bigger infrastructure projects. So again, we'll look to refine that as we get closer to kicking off the actual construction phase of the plant, but rest assured, there will be a way to manage our capital outlay to balance returns moving forward.

Our next question is for Brian Schmidt. Can you give us a sense of what the waterflood could be in the Clearwater?

Yes. So the reason everyone is so excited about waterflood in the Clearwater is you can take your recoveries much higher. And in our corporate package, you'll see an example there where we're taking recoveries from 5% on primary up to 12%. And I think one of the things I'd point out about the waterflood is lots of times, waterfloods suffer from -- it takes a long time to repressure and bring production up. And so you see some fairly long payouts. We're seeing a very quick response on this. Sometimes -- and we've been injecting water. So I'm not too worried about early breakthrough at this point. But we're seeing production wells start on the 300 barrel a day range, drop down to around 250, 200. And then right now, we're back up on that -- on the waterflood well up to 350 barrels a day and still increasing. So we're very excited about the response that we see there. And that is going to add a lot of reserves and a lot of NAV to the company and make your company long-term sustainable cutting down declines in the area. So -- we're very excited about what we see there, and we will be expanding operations here into the first quarter.

Thank you very much. There are no more questions.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.