Whitecap Resources Inc. (WCP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to -- sorry, Whitecap Resources 2022 Budget Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And I would like to turn it over to Whitecap's President and CEO, Mr. Grant Fagerheim. Please go ahead, sir, you may begin.

Thanks, Sylvie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Here with me are 3 members of our senior management team, our Vice President and CFO, Thanh Kang; as well as Darin Dunlop, Senior Vice President, Engineering; and Dave Mombourquette, Senior VP of Business Development. Before we get started today, I would like to remind everyone that all statements made by the company during this call are subject to the same forward-looking disclaimer and advisory that we set forth in our news release issued earlier this morning. The past year has been a transformational year for Whitecap, and we are excited to announce our investment plan for 2022, along with advancing our priority of increasing cash returns to our shareholders. We have significantly improved our long-term sustainability through lowering our capital expenditure breakevens, increasing our capital expenditure efficiencies and significantly improving our balance sheet through our timely strategic acquisitions along with strong operational and financial results. Our accelerated fourth quarter 2021 capital and our 2022 capital plans generated exceptional returns, quick capital payouts and significant free funds flow. The 2022 budget is expected to generate $1.4 billion of funds flow, over $900 million of free funds flow and over $740 million of discretionary free funds from after capital and dividends using $70 WTI oil and $3.75 per GJ gas prices. As announced on October 5, we took a further step to strengthen our balance sheet with the waiver and royalty sale, resulting in year-end 2021 net debt of approximately $1 billion. We believe this level of debt is prudent and as it provides us with $1 billion of unused capacity and a stress tested debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.2x at $45 WTI oil relative to our bank covenant of not greater than 4x. At $70 WTI, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio is 0.3x. With our long-term debt target achieved, we have elected to increase cash returns to shareholders through our base dividend, increasing our monthly dividend by 38% to $0.27 per annum is consistent with our objective of providing shareholders with a sustainable and growing dividend long term. This new dividend level represents only 12% of our 2022 funds flow. And if commodity prices remain strong, we have an opportunity for continuing increases in 2022. Today, we also announced that for the 2022, we plan to allocate half of our forecasted $740 million of discretionary free funds flow after capital and dividend at $0.27 per share back to our shareholders through a combination of incremental dividends and/or share buybacks. We have significant room in our normal course issuer bid, which expires in May of next year, and we will apply for a new normal course issuer bid for the remainder of 2022 to continue with targeted share buybacks. The other half of the discretionary funds flow will be allocated to our balance sheet. The increased dry powder allows us to opportunistically capture accretive tuck-in acquisitions without issuing equity, along with providing capital for potential new energy initiatives that we've been advancing on. As we look over the next 3 years, our base plan would have us generating $2.8 billion of free funds flow at $70 WTI, which is almost $4.40 per share. This is incremental to our $4 per share and dividends we have already paid out since 2013. We will continue to prioritize balance sheet strength, modest growth of between 3% to 5% per year on a per share basis and sustainable and growing return of capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks as we advance forward. I would now like to pass on -- this on to Darin to comment on some of the operational details around our accelerated Q4 program and our 2022 budget. Darin?

Thanks, Grant. We look forward to the execution of the announced capital program over the next 15 months as we continue to be impressed with the improvements, optimizations and efficiencies brought forward and acted upon by our teams. These improvements have been realized on both our legacy and recently acquired assets and the teams continue to advance new ideas and opportunities in our core areas. With respect to the $55 million of capital we accelerated into Q4 2021, the primary drivers behind this movement include: one, level loading our activity to mitigate the service sector constraints from higher industry activity expected in Q1; two, early access to premium equipment, people and materials which provides certainty to our service providers, which in turn results in optimal pricing and performance; three, efficiency gains by designing longer and steadier programs during seasons of optimal efficiency; and four, a more balanced program allows for consistent crews and services, ensuring safe and efficient operations, which is of the utmost importance to us. By accelerating our program, we are now peaking at 10 rigs in Q4 and Q1 as opposed to 16 without the acceleration. We are also able to maintain a more continuous year-round drilling program, which will promote additional cost optimization. Although we expect our program optimization to outweigh inflationary pressures, we have conservatively assumed an average 5% price increase for services and materials for our 2022 program. This acceleration adds 39, 34.7 net wells and $11 million of infrastructure and preparation to our 2021 Q4 program. As for our 2022 capital program, in Northern Alberta and BC, 60% of our program will be focused on our unconventional Montney assets in Kakwa and Karr. We will have one rig dedicated for most of the year, drilling and completing wells from 4 separate multi-well pads in an assembly line fashion. We are now forecasting a 5% to 10% reduction to drill complete equipment tie-in costs from our original expectation of $10.7 million per well. Part of this anticipated reduction is due to the reduction in water handling costs from the construction of frac water source pits, a water disposal line and a water disposal well. In addition to the well cost reduction previously mentioned, we expect this facility investment of $15 million to $20 million to also reduce our operating cost in the area by $3 per BOE and remove approximately 50 trucks a day from the road system. In Central Alberta, we plan to continue with the exceptionally successful redevelopment of our West Pembina Cardium resource with the drilling of 6, 5.5 net wells, 5 of these wells will be production wells. This was made possible by the strategic drilling and conversion of injection wells in past years. In addition, we are continuing with the extension and development of our Cardium oil asset by drilling 2 wells in Kaybob, the asset acquired from TORC and 5 and 4 wells in Garrington and [indiscernible] on lands acquired from NAL. In Western Saskatchewan, we are continuing to reap the benefits of our industry-leading Viking results by drilling 35, 32.1 net horizontal Viking wells, of which 2 will be injection wells in Kerrobert to continue to build out on our waterflood success in that pool. In our Eastern Saskatchewan business unit, we plan to spend $135 million to $140 million in 2022, which includes the drilling of 15, 9.8 wells in Weyburn. This includes 7 injection wells, which are part of the expansion of the CO2 EOR flood into a new area of the unit. This expansion will provide incremental CO2 storage capacity in addition to the targeted incremental oil reserves. The remaining 47, 41.8 net wells in Eastern Saskatchewan will be focused on the highly economic Frobisher conventional oil play, which will make up 80% of our activity. At $70 oil, these wells, on average, are expected to pay out in less than 6 months. The incredibly rapid and efficient integration of the acquired assets by our teams, new and old, has allowed us to make significant improvements to our capital efficiencies, which is reflected in our 2022 budget. I will now pass it on to Thanh to comment on our financial outlook.

Thanks, Darin. Balance sheet strength has been the #1 priority at Whitecap, and this has enabled us to transact on several targeted acquisitions over the past year. With our long-term debt target of $1 billion being reached by year-end, we can now accelerate cash returns to shareholders while maintaining significant financial flexibility with year-end 2021 debt-to-EBITDA at 0.9x and 2022 debt-to-EBITDA at 0.3x. As Grant mentioned, our debt target was designed around maintaining a strong balance sheet and financial flexibility down to $45 WTI. The 2002 program and the increased dividend can be fully funded down to $40 WTI. And we'll continue to use our hedging program to ensure our base 3-year plan is fully funded, both capital and dividends, down $45 per barrel WTI. From a guidance perspective, at the midpoint, we added $55 million to our Q4 capital program, and we'll now spend $430 million in 2021. With the continued outperformance of our base program along with some new production adds, that will come on late in the fourth quarter, we are increasing our full year production guidance to 111,000 to 112,000 BOEs per day. We're now expecting Q4 production to average approximately 118,000 BOEs per day. For 2022, at the midpoint, we plan to spend $480 million to generate average production of 122,000 BOEs per day. Capital spending of $480 million is $90 million lower than our preliminary plan, with $55 million being accelerated into the fourth quarter and $35 million being attributed to efficiency gains. At $70 WTI and $3.75 per GJ AECO, we forecast funds flow of approximately $1.4 billion based on a funds flow netback of $31.20 per BOE, resulting in $740 million of discretionary funds flow after capital spending of $480 million and our dividend payments of $171 million. Although we are 73% weighted towards liquids, we do have meaningful exposure to natural gas prices. For every $1 increase in WTI, the cash flow impact is $25 million and with every $0.50 increase in AECO prices, our cash flow increases by $28 million. I'll now pass it on to Grant for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Thanh. I want to reiterate our focus on our priorities of balance sheet strength and returns to shareholders. Our ability to acquire and strengthen our sustainability and profitability during last year's price collapse was made possible through balance sheet management and disciplined capital decision-making, with these efforts being rewarded with today's base dividend increase and further shareholder returns anticipated over the course of 2022. We will continue to make prudent and disciplined capital allocation decisions as we balance improving long-term profitability with increasing returns along the way. We are excited to execute on the capital allocation plans presented to today as a result of our team's continuous efforts, and we look forward to continue to advance our business over the coming months to come. On behalf of our management team and our Board of Directors, we want to thank each of our shareholders for your interest and support of Whitecap. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for any questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question will be from Aaron Bilkoski at TD Securities.

This is Keegan Stoyles calling in for Aaron. Just a few questions for me. First, you've outlined a strategy to return discretionary cash flow in 2022. How should investors be thinking about the strategy for 2023 and beyond?

So just on -- thanks very much for your question. Just on '23, first of all, '22, we've laid out. In 2023, this is going to be depend upon we want to set a base level of dividend for -- on a go-forward basis, as Thanh has referenced the $45 WTI price, and we'll continue to look at what our maintenance capital is, our dividend requirements and how much we can return back to shareholders, dependent upon the commodity price environment at the time. So in 2023, right now, when we see oil trading about $68 in '23, gas prices in '23 about $3.30, you would think we would walk ourselves up slowly into 2023, again, on our base dividend. And what I can say is that we'll always want to remain under 25% of our annual cash flow in the form of dividends. So what we look at is -- and we're far under that in 2022 at this time at $70 oil, where actually our return to shareholders is actually at 12%. So there's some key what we'll call guardrails that we'll use on a go-forward basis, but return on capital back to our shareholders is a key component of our business going forward. Hopefully, that helps.

Yes. And I think our priorities really remain the same, [ Keith ], whether we're looking at '22 or '23 and beyond here, which is -- #1 is our balance sheet, making sure that we have the capacity to continue to execute on our strategic initiatives. And then our primary focus after that is return of capital to our shareholders, either in the form of dividends or share buyback.

Okay. Great. Just staying on the dividend topic. We've seen special dividends or variable dividends increasingly adopted, especially for some of your peers in the U.S. How do you see those fitting into Whitecap's return of capital strategy?

Yes. I think that's a good question. I mean it's something that we've discussed internally here in terms of the variable or special dividend. Our view is we're more impactful and our priority is the base level of dividends. So our ability to sustainably increase that on a long-term basis would be our focus. And then the second level after that, I would say, is share buybacks. When you look at Whitecap today trading at in that 3x cash flow, that is a good use of capital from our perspective. So special dividends and variable dividends potentially could come into play, but I would put that behind our base level of dividends and share buybacks at this time.

Okay. Great. And then just finally, on the A&D side, are there any specific areas in the portfolio you're looking to augment? And then what are you seeing in terms of the bid-ask spreads on any A&D transactions given the recent run in commodities?

Yes. Just our objective here is to stay in and around the existing assets we have. So if we could get to 100% on all the lands that we have in the areas that we play, that would be our first option. But we're continuing to build out from our existing lands and infrastructure. So whether it's tuck-in acquisitions, we've done whether that's working interest uptakes or assets in and around our existing infrastructure, those are the key areas that we'll continue to focus on. We think those drive the greatest efficiencies for us on a go-forward basis. We've had remarkable success. And when we acquire assets and handing it over to our technical teams and operating teams to go in and drive the efficiencies as best they possibly can and have done a marvelous job. So that will be our -- continue to be our objective going forward. As far as the bid-ask spread, the -- you have to be making bids in order to see what the bid-ask spread is. I think that, obviously, the expectation would be increased for entities that are looking to sell assets or their companies. But we have to look at the long term, what do we believe the long-term pricing mechanics are for Canadian energy at this particular time. So if it fits within our portfolio, and we see the long-term whether oil is trading today at just shy of $81, we wouldn't be looking at assets at those particular levels. We'll look at it what the long-term pricing is going to be over a 3- to 5-year period of time on any asset acquisitions.

Next question will be from [ Ariam Zintrak at Pipeline Online ].

[ Zintrak ] calling. I've noticed that Darin referenced a 5% increase possibly for cost for your vendor suppliers. One of the things that's happened in the last 7 years and especially the last year is how the people who work for you are -- have taken a real hit on rates, not just from you, but from everyone. And it's been a lot more than 5%. And now I'm already hearing from pretty much everyone I talked to that there's an impending labor shortage. So I anticipate a substantial increase in pay just to get people to show up. So can you speak to that? Is 5% going to be enough? Or are you going to have to go further than that?

Yes, sure. I'll just tell you how we think about that. I mean you're right on labor costs, we think they should go up and will go up. We also think that there is steel costs that are coming in higher. But inflationary costs are between -- we think, between 4% to 7%. But when we look at the overall offset to our capital efficiencies, that's where we talk about this up to a 5% increase in the overall cost structure going forward. So that's the way -- when we talk about -- we don't lay out exactly each one of our specific areas, whether it's on labor or materials, they all have varying components of inflation. But what we look at is what can we offset here with our internal operations. And overall, I think our team have done a very good job on minimizing the impacts of higher costs going forward.

Did you have any further questions, sir?

Yes. I guess in regard to the amount of drilling you're doing in the labor unit, you've got 15 wells, and that's pretty much what you've been doing in recent years. Are you expecting a substantial uptick to that at some point? And any movement on the federal government's regards to an input carbon tax credit?

Yes, it's Darin here. I'll address your question on the development, and then I'll pass it on to Grant to talk about the federal government on the carbon tax. Yes. No, we -- this is -- one of the things that we're outlined is this is 15 wells in 2022, but Weyburn is also part of our acceleration. So where there's another 5 wells for a total of 20 being done in the program, which is an increase from previous years. One of the things that we do look at is as we get results on drilling within and expanding the flood, we learn all the time. So it is prudent to take a little bit more of a measured approach on development and learn from our results and optimize our program. So yes, in the future, you will see some bigger programs, but they won't be exorbitantly bigger. And I'll pass it on to Grant here on the CO2 comment.

Okay. And just with your comments on the carbon tax. So part of the -- what we're looking for from the federal government is a -- with the investment tax credit is going to look like, we hope that they'll come out before the end of the year under the clean fuel standard as to how they're positioning for Canadian energy. And what we should be expecting, I mean, if we're a reasonable people here, I think what we should be expecting from our federal government is that they take into account the energy crunch that we're going into at this particular time and take a little bit more responsibility on this underinvestment that we've had in energy worldwide as well as in Canada and not be so demonizing to Canadian energy. So we'll see, ultimately, if they get the message strong enough because a lot of people are going to what we call consumers, are going to feel the crunch on this both on whether through supply chain and food cost or transportation mobility. So what we're thinking is that the federal government may do a relook as to and accelerate what they're going to be doing with the investment tax credit to partially or totally offset the carbon tax that they've set in place. We'll have to wait and see what type of ruling they come up with, hopefully, before the end of 2021.

Next question will be from Travis Wood at National Bank Financial.

Yes. I think my questions were answered, so maybe I'll just look for some confirmation. Thanh, I think you mentioned, think of measuring at the low end or kind of the stress test on the dividend side to be 25% of cash flow, that's kind of your the top end of the comfort zone as we think about different cycles of the commodity. Is that fair?

Yes. I would say the #1 objective when we think about the dividend and its sustainability, Travis, is to make sure that it is fully funded. So both capital and dividends down to $45 WTI. And obviously, it's lower in 2021 here with the hedge positions that we have in. But on a go-forward basis, $45 is what we send ties it down to. I think a secondary consideration for us is the basic payout ratio, which is the percentage of cash flow that we're paying out in the form of the dividend. And I would say that would be somewhere in that 25% to 30%, but that would be more secondary. Because the first -- the key for us is that it's actually fully funded, that's the primary consideration.

Okay. No, that makes sense. And then just some clarity, Grant, on the tax incentives or maybe rather how this could impact Whitecap. You've earmarked $28 million for CO2 purchases. So could we see that potentially be offset to 0? Or should we think about the tax incentives, whatever that looks like being more of an OpEx item?

Yes. We capitalized our CO2 cost. But what we would be looking at 2 components is we'll continue to -- because we're under contract to pay for the CO2 at this particular time until 2024. But beyond that, what that looks like as far as some initiatives we're working on as to different emitters that we're talking to, the 2 components are, should we be paying for CO2 into the future? And then what -- the second component is where there's a even greater upside is what does it -- the investment tax credit market look like? So there's 2 components that can be quite substantial. And if you think about this, when we're sequestering 2 million tons a year at this particular time, going into 2022 at $50 a ton, it's $100 million of incremental value that could be established. I'm not saying that we're there yet. But if you do get full credit -- offset credits to the carbon tax at the $50 a ton or 2 million tons a year is very substantial -- can be very substantial for us on a go-forward basis. So those are the things that we're anxiously waiting to have discussions on once we get the ruling from the federal government on clean fuel standards. Hopefully, they make the right decisions here or we start moving capital south of the border.

Yes. And maybe just one last one on that. Could -- if the federal government fumbles on this, is there anything provincially really in Saskatchewan that you could lean on?

Yes. I mean who's been most progressive here. I mean Alberta has done a good job. Saskatchewan, I have to give big kudos to because they're really ahead of this and they will be -- they're waiting anxiously as well on what will happen at the federal level on the tax credit side. But I believe that they're looking to develop their own tax credit system as well. And we've got conversations with them on that. So -- but they are waiting for what could be done at the federal level firstly before they input what their tax credit system will look like within the province.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question will be from Patrick O'Rourke at ATB Capital.

Just wondering, I know you've spent a lot of time on capital allocation priorities. But as we think about 2022, 2023 and beyond, I think you talked -- you're pointing to 0.3x debt to cash flow if you were to apply all that discretionary cash flow to the balance sheet. The cost of debt is pretty advantageous here. I'm just wondering, is there a target nominal debt or ratio level? And then how does this -- how should we sort of think of the complexity of in -- if you have similar sort of financials in 2023, if you get to a net cash position and how you allocate discretionary cash flow with having that 25% sort of cap on the dividend as a percentage of that?

I'll take a first shot at it. I know that Thanh would be happy with no debt. Not -- anyway, Thanh, do you want to go ahead and we'll just talk about our targets. Do you want to...

Yes. Look, I think, Patrick, for 2022 here, if we're allocating half of it towards our balance sheet and the other half being returned back to shareholders, our net debt will be about $600 million, so debt to EBITDA at 0.5x. And to your point, I think that's a very low level of leverage for our company, especially considering the current positive pricing environment here. But I think as we think about the initiatives in front of us, whether that's through acquisitions like we've talked about or the new energy initiatives, that level of capacity and low level of debt really allows us to capture opportunities without having to issue equity and can be very accretive to our shareholders here. As I mentioned, looking forward to 2023, we do think that we'll continue to prioritize our balance sheet, with the view that we can deploy it more effectively and look for accretive transactions for the benefit of shareholders here. And the second priority, again, is to return as much capital back to our shareholders through a long-term sustainable dividend. And I think that's where -- when we think about special dividends or variable dividends, that's where we can talk about that a little bit more as we advance our business into 2023 here.

Okay. Great. And then just wondering if you can maybe walk us through cash taxability going forward, horizons and potentially strategies on that front?

Yes. So right now, we've got over $5 billion of tax pools. So depending on the commodity deck that we're using here, our taxability is over the next 3- to 5-year period of time here. In terms of tax strategies, I mean, I think it's a good strategy to be taxable, quite frankly. I mean that means we're generating a lot of cash flow and our capital efficiencies are very strong here. So I think that we'll look at the pricing environment here over the next period of time here. But our 5-year model, we've looked at it and modeling a little bit of tax over the next 3 years and as that continues to grow here. The ability for us to reduce taxes is pretty limited, to be quite honest. I mean, there's some transactions that we can look at. But I think at this particular time, we're happy to be paying taxes. But we'll be paying taxes over the next 2 to 5 years.

Yes. These are all pretty high-class problems to have. So thank you very much.

Thanks, Patrick.

And at this time, gentlemen, we have no further questions. Please proceed.

Well, thanks very much, everyone. And as we conclude this call, I must admit that I'm both excited and optimistic about the outlook for Canadian energy and specifically Whitecap as we move forward. I think it's a hard time to shine for Canadian energy and I think it's hard time to shine for Whitecap Resources. I would like to thank you for your continued interest in Whitecap, and wish you and your families all the best. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Mr. Fagerheim. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. And at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.