Kolibri Global Energy - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Kolibri Global Energy first quarter 2025 financial conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Media may monitor this call in a listen-only mode. They are free to quote any member of management but are asked to not quote remarks for any other participants without the participants' permission. If anyone has any trouble and needs assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event has been recorded. I advise participants that this conference has been recorded today as of May 14, 2025. This call will be available on the company's website at www.kolibrienergy.com.

This call may include forward-looking statement information regarding Kolibri's strategic plans, anticipated production, capital expenditures, exit rates, and cash flow reserves, and other estimates and forecasts. Forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties, and actual results will vary from the forward-looking statements. This call may include future-oriented financial information and financial outlook information, which Kolibri disclosed in order to provide readers with a more complete perspective on Kolibri's potential future operations, and such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. For a description of assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based and the applicable risks and uncertainties, and Kolibri's policy for updating such statements, we direct you to Kolibri's most recent annual information form and management's discussion and analysis for the period under discussion, as well as Kolibri's most recent corporate presentation, all of which are available on Kolibri's website.

Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Kolibri undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking, future-oriented financial or financial outlook information other than as required by applicable law. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Wolf Regener, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Kolibri Global Energy. Please go ahead, sir.

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. With me on today's call is Gary Johnson, our Chief Financial Officer. As I'm sure you're aware, we released our first quarter 2025 results this morning, and we are very pleased with what we've achieved this quarter, which continues to build on our last few years' results in multiple ways. Production increases to 23% over first quarter of 2024. Operating expenses remain low, just over $7 a barrel of oil equivalent, leading to really good net back. We're continuing to deliver even more efficiencies by drilling five wells in the quarter and cutting our drilling times down by a further 25% in these latest one-and-a-half-mile lateral wells. This saves money and thus improves our internal rates of return on our new wells even further.

You can see from our corporate presentation how even at lower oil prices, we can drill wells and make good rates of return. Our break-even oil price is quite low. Things are going very well, and we look forward to increasing our production further when we complete these wells later this quarter. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Gary to discuss our financial results. Go ahead, Gary.

Gary W. Johnson (CFO and VP)

Thanks, Will, and thanks, everyone, for being on the call. I'm just going to go over a few highlights of the first quarter, and then we'll take questions. All amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise stated. As you can see from the earnings release today, we had another very good quarter with strong increases in net income, production, and adjusted EBITDA. Net income was up 72% to $5.8 million, with basic EPS of $0.16 per share, compared to $3.3 million and $0.09 per share in the prior year quarter. The increase was due to an increase in revenues and lower realized and unrealized commodity contract losses compared to the prior year first quarter, which were partially offset by higher income tax expense. Average production was up 23% to 4,077 BOE per day, compared to 3,305 BOE per day in the prior year quarter.

The increase was due to the wells that were drilled during 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $12.8 million, compared to $10.4 million in the prior year quarter, which was an increase of 24%, mainly due to higher revenues. Net revenue increased by 15% to $16.4 million, compared to $14.2 million, due to the higher production, which was partially offset by lower average prices, which were down 6%. Operating expense was $7.07 per BOE for the quarter, compared to $8.36 per BOE in the prior year first quarter, which was a decrease of 15%. Operating expense in the first quarter of last year did include $600,000 of prior period gathering and processing cost adjustments. Our net back from operations decreased slightly to $3,755 per BOE, compared to $3,894 per BOE in the prior year quarter due to lower average prices.

To include the impact of hedges on our net back, they were only down about 1% from the prior year quarter. With that, I'll go back to Wolf.

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Thanks, Gary. As Gary laid out, we had a great first quarter, which is continued success we've had over the last few years. The company has had quite the growth. Revenue and cash flow have grown a lot, all while keeping our leverage low, and our team has been executing extremely well. Our striving for constant improvement continues to pay off. Drilling times and cost improvements for our new wells have been huge. We've also had numerous completion improvements that have led to improved economics, and our operating expenses and net back are, from what I can see, among the best among our peers. In addition, we're intending to continue returning capital to shareholders in the form of share buybacks. Overall, our plan is to continue to execute and build and grow company value for all shareholders.

We will continue to get the word out about the company to shareholders and potential shareholders, as we have a number of conferences and presentations lined up, which you can see, excuse me, which you can see listed on our website. This concludes the formal part of our presentation, and we would be pleased to answer any questions that you may now have.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time a question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Steve Ferazani (Equity Analyst)

Morning, Will. Morning, Gary. Appreciate the detail in the presentation. Will, can you give any sense on the financial savings from those faster wells drilled and what you learned from drilling the four wells on the pad? Is that going to be transferable when I believe you still have two more wells you're going to drill on a pad in the second half?

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Yeah. I do not like quoting what we have from our field estimates until we get our actual expenses in, so I am not quoting this anyway. It was a nice amount of savings, so I will leave it at that. We will put some numbers out once I get all the firm numbers in. I would prefer to do that once we have all of our costs, since it is drilling and completion that counts in the end. Yeah, it will save us both time and money on what we have just done. Transferable? Yes, absolutely. Over the years, we have learned what works the best, what drill bits work the best, what systems, and we keep refining that and keep getting better and better at that. Our geological team is doing in intervals that drill faster but are still in our primary target.

All those things together have just been led together to, well, it's good equipment, don't get me wrong, on the contractors that we're using. Let-down time always helps too. Yeah, it's just kind of a combination of not one thing. A lot of different things are linked to it. Yeah, we expect that to carry through to all of our drilling that we do from here on out. I'm hoping that our E costs will continue to come down in the future.

Steve Ferazani (Equity Analyst)

Excellent. Any update on the timing on the second half drilling plans?

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

No, not right now. We'll just leave it at the second half. We've got locations that are almost ready to go and built, and then we'll take it from there, but we'll announce when we get a little closer.

Steve Ferazani (Equity Analyst)

Okay. And then the plans for getting the Coloidina wells to production, you're saying third quarter?

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Correct.

Steve Ferazani (Equity Analyst)

Will that be simultaneous with the east side? How can we think about that?

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

We'll finish pressure stimulating the Levine wells, and then what we also do is drill out the plugs, right, and then start slow back. When we're done completing those and pressure stimulating those, the crew will move directly over to Levine. As we're drilling out the plugs on Levine—excuse me—on the Ferguson. As we're drilling out the plugs on the Levine, the crew should be pressure stimulating the Ferguson. They won't be far behind, but Levine will come on first.

Steve Ferazani (Equity Analyst)

Yeah. Excellent. Thanks so much, Wolf.

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Oh, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. A reminder to all participants to ask a question. You may press star then one. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.

Wolf Regener (President and CEO)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and for those that listened to the replay as well. I appreciate everyone's support, and I hope everyone has a great day. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.