Baytex Energy - Earnings Call - Q1 2021

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Baytex Energy Corp first quarter 2021 financial and operating results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Ector, Vice President, Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brian Ector (SVP of Capital Markets)

Thank you, Cherise. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2021 financial and operating results. Today, I am joined by Ed LaFehr, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Rod Gray, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Kendall Arthur, Vice President, Heavy Oil, Chad Kalmakoff, our Vice President, Finance, Chad Lundberg, our Vice President, Light Oil, and Scott Lovett, our Vice President, Corporate Development. While listening, please keep in mind that some of our remarks will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. I refer you to the advisories regarding forward-looking statements, oil and gas information, and non-GAAP financial and capital management measures in yesterday's press release. All dollar amounts referenced in our remarks are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise specified. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ed.

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Okay, great. Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome everybody to our first quarter 2021 conference call. Last year, as you know, we took decisive steps to adjust our business in the face of extremely volatile crude oil markets. We moved aggressively to shift our operating and capital activities to maintain financial liquidity, minimize capital outlays, and we emphasized cost reductions across all facets of our business to retain long-term value, and those decisions, while not easy, have served us well, and I am very pleased that yesterday we announced strong first quarter results and a five-year outlook that demonstrates our operational and financial strength and our commitment to generating value for our shareholders. Let's talk first about our Q1 results, and then I'll provide some color on our five-year outlook. During Q1 2021, we executed our plan to maximize free cash flow and to reduce debt.

We delivered adjusted funds flow of CAD 157 million, or CAD 0.28 per basic share. This resulted in free cash flow of CAD 70 million, which, along with the Canadian dollar strengthening relative to the US dollar, contributed to an CAD 89 million reduction in our net debt. We realized an operating netback of CAD 29.80 per BOE, which is almost double the CAD 15.19 per BOE realized in Q4 2020. Production during the first quarter averaged 78,800 BOEs per day, 81% oil and NGLs, and that's up 12% as compared to 70,475 BOEs per day in Q4 of 2020. The increased production largely reflects the resumption of drilling activity in the Viking and Eagle Ford, which began in the fourth quarter. Exploration and development expenditures totaled CAD 84 million and included the drilling of 46.5 net wells with a 100% success rate.

One particular highlight this quarter is our successful exploration well on our Peace River Clearwater play, which sets up follow-up activity later this year, and I'll expand on that in a few minutes. As a result of our operational momentum and the strength in commodity prices, we have announced an increase in both our production and capital spending guidance. This will position our business for continued strong operating performance and free cash flow generation going forward. Our focus on disciplined returns-based capital allocation is enabling us to generate over $250 million of free cash flow this year. We are now forecasting 2021 exploration and development expenditures of $285 million-$315 million, up from $225 million-$275 million, which was set in a $40-$45 pricing environment. The additional activity will largely occur in the fourth quarter and will be allocated across our portfolio.

Our revised production guidance range is 77,000 BOEs-79,000 BOEs per day, up from 73,000 BOEs-77,000 BOEs per day. Approximately 75% of our total capital program will be directed to our light oil assets in Eagle Ford and Viking. In addition, we are very excited to kick off our heavy oil program in July, including follow-up activity on our Northwest Clearwater exploration discovery, and we plan to drill two wells in the Pembina Duvernay as we hold our acreage and advance the play. As some of you may recall, just over one year ago, we executed a strategic agreement with the Peavine Metis Settlement in the Peace River area that covers 60 sections of land directly to the south of our existing Seal main operations. At the time, we identified significant potential for this exploration play targeting the Spirit River Formation, a Clearwater Formation equivalent.

Our initial exploration well was drilled during the first quarter and has shown promising results with a 30-day initial production rate of 175 bbls per day from only two laterals. With this early success, we are planning up to six additional Clearwater multilateral wells for the second half of the year. Across our acreage position, we estimate that over 100 sections of our lands are prospective for Clearwater development. And with over a decade of experience in heavy oil exploration and multilateral development, this play aligns very strongly with our core competencies, so I will now turn the call over to Rod to discuss our balance sheet and risk management.

Rod Gray (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. As Ed mentioned, we made great strides during the first quarter to enhance our liquidity as we reduced our net debt by CAD 89 million. As of March 31st, 2021, we had CAD 401 million of undrawn capacity on our credit facilities, resulting in liquidity, net of working capital of CAD 381 million. These facilities are not borrowing-based facilities and do not require annual or semiannual reviews. At current commodity prices, we expect to increase our financial liquidity to over CAD 550 million in 2021. Our long-term notes, which total $900 million, comprised of two outstanding issues: one, a $400 million tranche due 2024, and a second $500 million tranche due 2027. With our continued focus on deleveraging, we expect our liquidity and leverage ratios to improve over time.

Now, turning to risk management, we maintain a consistent approach to risk management and marketing, utilizing various financial derivative contracts and crude by rail to reduce the volatility in our adjusted funds flow. For the remainder of 2021, we have entered hedges on approximately 47% of our net crude oil exposure, largely utilizing a three-way option structure that provides WTI price protection at $45 per barrel with upside participation to $50 per barrel. We have also WTI to MSW differential hedges on approximately 50% of our expected 2021 Canadian light oil production at $5 per barrel and a WCS differential hedge on approximately 55% of our expected 2021 heavy oil production at a WTI to WCS differential of approximately $13 per barrel.

For 2022, we have entered into hedges on approximately 33% of our net crude oil exposure, utilizing a combination of swaptions at $53.50 per barrel and a three-way option structure that provides price protection at $50-$55 per barrel with upside participation to approximately $65 per barrel. We also have WCS differential hedges on approximately 35% of our expected 2022 heavy oil production at a WTI to WCS differential of approximately $12.50 per barrel. Full details of our hedge program can be found in our Q1 financial statements and are available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call back to Ed to discuss our five-year outlook.

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Thanks, Rod. Along with our Q1 results yesterday, we also announced a five-year outlook which demonstrates our operational and financial strength in a $55 WTI pricing environment. This plan all starts with our disciplined and returns-based capital allocation philosophy and has been constructed to maximize our free cash flow, improve our leverage ratios, and enhance returns to shareholders. Assuming a constant $55 per barrel WTI price, we will target capital expenditures at less than 70% of our adjusted funds flow while optimizing our production in the 80,000 BOE-85,000 BOE per day range. We project annual capital spending of approximately $400 million from 2022-2025 and expect to generate over $1 billion of cumulative free cash flow over the five-year period. Our leverage ratios are expected to improve materially as we target a net debt to EBITDA ratio of under 1.5x.

And throughout the planned period, we will continue to monitor our leverage position and assess market conditions to determine the best methods or combination thereof to enhance shareholder returns. These could include share buybacks, a dividend, or reinvestment for organic growth. For additional details, I would refer you to our updated investor relations presentation available on our website. The key message that I would like to leave you with is that our business is strong and we have a robust plan in place to deliver meaningful free cash flow and enhance shareholder returns during the planned period. We are off to a great start in 2021, and we look forward to continuing to communicate with you as we execute on our plans for value creation. And with that, I will ask the operator to please open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Patrick O'Rourke with ATB Capital. Please go ahead.

Patrick O'Rourke (Equity Research Analyst)

Oh, hey, guys. Good morning. I'm just curious in terms of the Clearwater equivalent or Spirit River, I think, as you're calling it here, well that you drilled. I know in the new slide deck you have a presentation that shows kind of the production profile over the five-year plan. And I'm just kind of curious in terms of, and I appreciate that it's early and you've only got the one well, but just kind of what scale and scope you're thinking about for that particular asset and what percentage of heavy oil in there it will make up at the end of the five years.

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Yeah. Well, it's early on the Clearwater discovery that we've announced, but we did show 175 bbls per day on two legs. So we're going to immediately offset that and expand the activity this year to drill up to six additional wells, which is part of the reason for our capital raise and our production raise. Having said that, a number of those are appraisal wells further to the north. Three or four are in the Peavine area specifically, and we'll start to boost production. So what we've said about the scope and scale of this resource is that it's approximately 100 sections of prospective area for us, we believe right now, but it's early in terms of our mapping and understanding. So if half of that works at 50 sections and you've got four to six wells a section, but it's early on what that will look like.

It's hundreds of wells. Having said all of that, there's no Clearwater development explicitly in our five-year plan. What we've done is we've said that there's some heavy oil growth in there for sure. It's 70% Eagle Ford and Viking light oil, but 25%-30% in heavy oil. But that's our traditional known bankable heavy oil asset set in Lloyd and Peace River proper that we can go ahead and develop now, knowing what we know now. So if Clearwater works and works as well as we think it could, it would do one of two things. It would substitute existing activity and make our returns look much, much higher and better because of the high rates of return and very fast paybacks on that play. Or it would be we could offer supplemental growth and free cash flow without spending any more capital.

So I think I'll just leave you with that right now. It's early, though, Patrick, on Clearwater and what it all means. But it's very exciting that we and other operators see potential to the northwest. It's not just going to be a Marten Hills-Nipisi development. It's coming to the northwest, and we're very excited about it.

Patrick O'Rourke (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. And I agree. The Marten Hills-Nipisi analog is very exciting. Just maybe in another way, in terms of infrastructure capacity there, anything that you would have to do if it is going to become meaningful?

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

That's our base of operations, and it's where the company was founded in Peace River, really, when you look at the history of the company. So we have a lot of infrastructure. Our operations base is there, both at Harmon Valley and the base that we run with our main battery at Seal. So we have a lot of infrastructure, both human and infrastructure in place. We will truck the oil. We're very good at gas conservation up in that area as well, as we've demonstrated that up in the main part of our field. So we don't have any infrastructure constraints or egress constraints out of the area. It's one of the reasons it's such a nice layer on to what we do. But no, we're good on infrastructure up there.

Patrick O'Rourke (Equity Research Analyst)

That's sort of what I suspected. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jason Mandel with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jason Mandel (Analyst)

Hi, guys. Nice performance. Appreciate you taking the question as well. Just wanted to spend a moment on the five-year plan, looking to spend the sort of step up the spending from, I guess, this year about CAD 300 million to kind of a base rate of CAD 400 million over the next few years. Do we think about that spending level as, I don't know, more or less flat over those four years at CAD 400 million, or is it going to be rising from the CAD 300 million over time to average CAD 400 million if you follow what I'm asking?

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Yeah. It's a bit of a ramp up to CAD 400 million, and maybe we go to CAD 410 million or CAD 420 million. We're not sure yet, but the annual plan will be set here in September. But I would say CAD 400 millon is a good average number across those years. But we'll have to ramp up to it, and we're starting that ramp up right now with the capital increase that we're talking about along with the production increase. And what I'd say about that, and part of the driver here is we always said that we were going to look at where we were during breakup and that we were also pointing the high end of current guidance at CAD 275 million to deliver high end of production guidance at 77,000 bbls a day. What we saw from Q4 to Q1 was a nice rebound on production to 78,000 bbls a day.

That was with a historic weather event in Texas that, while people say we benefited from pricing, actually we would have rather not had that storm and delivered some fantastic additional barrels from Eagle Ford. So it's with that. There's a little bit more activity coming into Eagle Ford. There's more Clearwater coming into our plan. So now we're up to CAD 300 million. Maybe you see next year go to CAD 350 million, and then we move to CAD 400 million beyond that. But I think it's in the IR deck. You'll see the numbers that are notional at this point, but you'll see that ramp up from the CAD 300 million today to CAD 350 million next year to CAD 410 million, I think, for the last two or three years of the plan. But I would say it's scoping right now, but it's a good shape, and it's a good outline for our future. We're absolutely 100% committed to it.

Jason Mandel (Analyst)

Okay. That's great. Really helpful. And then maybe a similar question on the production getting from the high 70%s now into the low 80%s on a production basis that was sort of given for that rough plan. When do you kind of think that you'll be, I don't know, 80&+ on a run rate basis? Is that by late this year? And then just the last follow-up question, at the higher level of production, can you give us a sense as to what the sort of new level of maintenance capital spending would be? Thanks, guys.

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think we'll see an exit rate now thanks to what we're doing at around 77,000 bbls a day. That compares to 70,000 bbls a day last year. And so I just talked about the bounce up, the nice rebound we had from 70,000 bbls-78,000 bbls. If we exited 77,000 bbls per day, and we typically have a strong Q1, as we always do, you could very quickly see us moving to the bottom end of the range of that 80,000 bbls-85,000 bbls a day at the early part of our five-year plan. And I believe those numbers, again, are outlined in the IR slide. I don't have the number of the slide in front of me, but production should be very close to 80,000 bbls a day.

If we're exiting this year at 77, 000 bbls strong Q1, and if we see WTI at $55+, there's no reason we shouldn't get into that range much more quickly. And then on the question around sustaining capital, I think we plan to hold that 80,000 bbls-85,000 bbls pretty flat. This is not a growth plan here. Remember, we came down through the pandemic. So this is not a growth plan. I would look at something like CAD 375 million as sustaining capital to keep us in that 80,000 bbls-85,000 bbls a day range. So the 400,000 bbls kind of drives us up there, but you don't need it to stay there.

But I would look at this as a new, optimized, faster deleveraging, maximization of free cash flow plan, still, as our mantra has been, but it's where the assets and the capital efficiencies want to take the business from an optimization standpoint.

Jason Mandel (Analyst)

That's great. Thanks so much for the detail. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Phil Skolnick with Eight Capital. Please go ahead.

Phil Skolnick (Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks. Just how would you think about kind of timing? You talk about 2022 and to the end of the five-year outlook that you could look at dividend and share buybacks and organic growth. How do you think about those three buckets in terms of free cash flow and what kind of a payout ratio? I'm sure it's too early, but I guess you probably maybe have some kind of high-level thoughts on that as well.

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Yeah. I've been doing a lot of thinking about that. And clearly, 2021 is still going to be primary focus on deleveraging. And so I would look to all of that CAD 250 million-CAD 300 million of free cash flow on strip today moving to the balance sheet. And we've got to stay steadfastly focused on that objective in the near term. That moves us down to a pretty interesting place, though, with respect to our liquidity. Our financial liquidity moves to CAD 550 million-CAD 600 million. And we then have no issues with, as we look ahead to the 2024 bonds, we can manage our way through that in a timely and prudent manner.

So in 2022, if we see the macro environment where we are now, Phil, where we're substantially above $55, I think you could see us start to implement a program that up to $55, all that free cash flow moves to the balance sheet. But if we're in the environment we're at today and we have surplus free cash flow to the plan, then that is when you would see us, if we're trading where we are right now at 3x EV to DACF, then I would think we would look strongly to share buybacks. But we're also, with our board, we're being challenged quite a bit around at what point, as long as we believe this future, why don't we consider layering on dividends starting sooner rather than later? So we'll have that debate. And then, of course, we've got tremendous growth potential in the company.

We've got tremendous 10-year inventory in our core plays. We've got the Duvernay, which is not really included in any of those numbers, and we've got the Clearwater, which we're not including in any of the numbers. We've got some other projects that are not included in any of the numbers. Tremendous organic growth, but the macro environment, the market sentiment, and we ourselves are not ready yet to contemplate real growth in our asset base beyond 80,000 bbls-85,000 bbls a day. But that would also be considered because the returns are so strong, and as I said, we allocate to our strongest returns. But I would look at it that way, Phil. Free cash flow to the balance sheet in the near term through 2021, if we see greater than $55 WTI next year, look for some shareholder-friendly initiatives coming sooner rather than later.

Let's get to the longer-term debate on whether we grow or not beyond 80,000 bbls-85,000 bbls later.

Phil Skolnick (Analyst)

Okay. Perfect. Just one last question. I guess then, given the amount of organic growth potential and with Duvernay and Clearwater not being included in the five-year outlook, I guess then you don't really see a need to do any kind of acquisitions, even if it's tuck-ins?

Ed LaFehr (President and CEO)

Yeah. I would say we're always looking at acquisitions and we always do tuck-ins. We've probably done 10 inorganic deals this year, acreage acquisitions, acreage swaps. We've added over 100 net locations with a substantial amount of value. A lot of that's in the Viking. Some of it's in our core areas of heavy oil, but there are still people who are positioning out of those areas. So we'll always do the tuck-ins and little bolt-ons that are circa CAD 5 million-CAD 10 million of cash every year or capital every year. So we'll always do that. I think in terms of mergers, it would have to be something that would be substantially accretive to our cash flow. It would have to compete for capital, which is a very high bar when we're looking at CAD 15,000-CAD 16,000 of flowing barrel.

Capital efficiencies for the mid to longer term, this is a very high bar to compete with. So we see a lot of it going on. I've always been an advocate of consolidation. We've done one ourselves with Raging River and Baytex coming together. And I think that was prudent from a deleveraging standpoint. But the company and the position and our asset base is in a different place now. And we would just have to see something that made a tremendous amount of industrial logic and accretive to our shareholders to even contemplate going there.

Phil Skolnick (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Ector for any closing remarks.

Brian Ector (SVP of Capital Markets)

Thanks, Cherise. And thanks, everyone, for participating in our first quarter conference call. Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.