Baytex Energy Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 28, 2023

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

You for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Baytex Energy Corp. 2nd Quarter 2023 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode.

Operator

The conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Ector, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Ashia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us to discuss our Q2 2023 financial and operating results. Today I'm joined by Eric Greager, our President and Chief Executive Officer Chad Kalmikoff, our Chief Financial Officer and Chad Lundberg, our Chief Operating Officer. 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.

Speaker 1

All dollar announced referenced in our remarks are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise specified. And Following our prepared remarks, we will be taking questions from analysts. In addition, if you are listening in today via the webcast, You will have the opportunity to submit an online question and we will do our best to answer all questions submitted. With that I would now like to turn the call over to Eric.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2nd quarter conference call. We reached an important milestone Operating scale on the Eagle Ford and has reinforced what was already a resilient and sustainable business. We have emerged as a well capitalized and Diversified North American E and P company and we're poised to deliver a powerful combination of increased free cash flow and increased shareholder returns on a per share basis. Before discussing our Q2 results, I'd like to take a minute and highlight the 3 key pillars to our business as we move forward.

Speaker 2

Number 1 is disciplined capital allocation. We are committed to a disciplined returns based capital allocation strategy targeting modest single digit organic production growth. Each of our core assets has 10 or more years of quality development inventory at our current pace of development and this provides us the ability to We allocate capital in response to changes in regional commodity prices and other economic, cultural or regulatory circumstances. Number 2 is our focus on free cash flow generation. Our commitment to efficient capital allocation across our portfolio is expected to generate meaningful free cash flow.

Speaker 2

We intend to allocate 50% of this free cash flow to debt repayment and 50% of free cash flow to and number 3 is maintaining financial strength. We have a strong balance sheet today with significant financial liquidity. This commitment to a strong balance sheet is unwavering. We've established a total debt target of CAD1.5 billion which represents 1.0 times total debt to EBITDA at US50 dollars per barrel WTI. This debt level will provide us with full flexibility to run our business through commodity price cycles and generate meaningful returns.

Speaker 2

For 2023 we continue to forecast exploration and development expenditures of approximately $1,000,000,000 which are expected to generate an average production rate of 120,500 to 122,500 BOE per day. For the second half of twenty twenty three we expect production to average 153,000 to 157,000 BOE per day. Based on the forward strip, we expect to generate over $400,000,000 of free cash flow in the second half of twenty twenty three and approximately $500,000,000 of free cash flow for the full year 2023. With the closing behind us, We have moved quickly to enhance shareholder returns. To date in July, we have repurchased 4,900,000 shares and I'm very pleased to Announce that our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.025 per share or $0.09 per share on an annual basis.

Speaker 2

I'll now shift to our Q2 results which include 11 days of operations from Ranger. Production during the quarter was 89,800 BOE per day, 86% oil and NGLs, which exceeded the high end of our Q2 guidance range due to the timing of operated Eagle Ford wells brought on stream late in the second quarter. It's important to note that our Q2 production was reduced by approximately 4,500 BOE per day due to the curtailment of production have been caused by wildfires in Alberta. Wildfires continue to burn in Northwest Alberta and we could see further interruptions through the summer and into the fall. For the month of July, we expect production to be curtailed by approximately 2,000 BOE per day.

Speaker 2

We are incredibly proud of how our personnel have responded to these challenging conditions with sound, safety focused decision making and genuine concern for our communities. I would also like to thank the emergency responders and firefighters who courageously continued to protect our communities. We delivered adjusted funds flow of $274,000,000 $0.47 per basic share in Q2 and generated free cash of $96,000,000 or $0.17 per basic share. Exploration and development expenditures totaled $171,000,000 during the quarter consistent with our full year plan and we brought 34.9 net wells on stream. Operationally the highlight was the completion of our 6 well Duvernay program and new heavy oil exploration in the Waseca near Cold Lake, Alberta.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, our Pembina Duvernay light oil assets are in the demonstration stage of commerciality and offer high operating netbacks with the potential for strong economics and organic growth. Our completions and facility execution tracked ahead of plan which allowed for an acceleration of the on streaming of wells. 4 of the 6 wells are in the early stages of flowback and are tracking the type curve initial rate expectations. The remaining 2 wells are expected to be on stream by mid August. In the Waseca, we drilled a 6 leg exploration well that was brought on stream in April.

Speaker 2

The Waseca formation is analogous to the Clearwater across the fairway and is highly amenable to open hole development which drives strong returns and capital efficiencies. We are planning 3 follow-up wells in the second half of twenty twenty three. We have an active second We expect to bring approximately 24 net operated and 8 net non operated wells to sales. In the Viking, we expect to bring 46 net wells on stream. And our heavy oil development We expect to bring 40 net heavy oil wells on stream, 19 at Peavine, 18 at Lloydminster and 3 at Peace River.

Speaker 2

We also have 3 SAGD well pairs in Carrabba that are expected to be on stream during the Q4. With respect to risk management, we employ a hedge program to help mitigate the volatility in revenue due to changes in commodity prices. For Q3, 2023 and Q4, 2023 we have entered into hedges on approximately 40% 35% of our net crude oil exposure. Utilizing a combination of 2 way collars with a floor price of US60 dollars per barrel and a ceiling price of US100 dollars per barrel and a 5,000 barrel purchase put at U. S.

Speaker 2

$60 For the first half of twenty twenty four we have entered into hedges on approximately 22 And of our net crude oil exposure utilizing two way collars with a floor price of $0.60 per barrel and a ceiling price of $0.99 per barrel. I also want to highlight our 2022 ESG and TCFD reports both were published yesterday and are available on our website. We have built into our culture a strong connection and sense of responsibility to our communities and stakeholders. We remain focused on key ESG initiatives including GHG emissions, abandonment and reclamation, strong and mutually beneficial indigenous relations, safety and climate risk management. These ESG initiatives are essentially driving our long term for sustainability alongside shareholder returns.

Speaker 2

I would encourage everyone to read through the reports as they contain a tremendous amount of information and Great insights into the Baytex team and our culture, something I am immensely proud of. As I wrap up my prepared remarks, I would like to reiterate our commitment to operational excellence and delivering long term value and enhanced shareholder returns. With the Ranger acquisition behind us, we are building an even stronger North American energy company with a high quality diversified

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session.

Speaker 3

Good morning. This is Justin Ho on for Greg Pardy. And thank you very much for taking my question. Just for my first question, We were wondering now that the Ranger deal has been closed for about a month now, if you could provide us with an update on how the integration process is going so far? And have there any low hanging fruit or synergies that you see with respect to the integration with Ranger?

Speaker 2

Thanks Justin. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Yes, so it is a month past close and that's important. But we were well ahead Of closing with the integration work.

Speaker 2

So people integration, technical and operational workflow integration and business process integration was all well underway. We feel really good about all of the integration steps. And it feels to me like as we proceed through The Q3 and the second half of the year planning, like we've been a combined business longer than it might look on paper. So Update wise we have taken a number of substantial steps I think To begin to unlock additional value through efforts around Managing and optimizing the surface gathering system. We're working to add compression horsepower which Should reduce the gathering system pressure expressed at the wellhead.

Speaker 2

We've been working very diligently with the team on the ground in Houston and in the field on nodal analysis and optimizing artificial lift and have actually liberated Quite a lot of horsepower from gas lift into compression, back into sort Compression and move to sales horsepower by optimizing gas lift and optimizing other artificial lift approaches. And this is just The kind of blocking and tackling you'd expect these integrated teams to be doing And we will continue to focus on continued technical work around Improving and extending stimulate reservoir volumes, improving economic returns around drilling and completions, But also the artificial lift and the gathering and processing analysis at the surface. These take a comprehensive kind of systems wide engineering approach. So You tinker with one piece and it has knock on impacts. But we're working on a handful of integrated optimization steps.

Speaker 2

But I think the biggest steps right now that we've focused on through the summer and since close has been around gathering and processing optimization and artificial lift.

Speaker 3

That's great. Many thanks. Maybe just shifting gears, we were also hoping to get a bit more color on the exploration well that you drilled out in Cold Lake and the expectations for IP30s on the remaining 3 wells. Do you view this as Another big potential play and how does it stack up versus the Clearwater which I heard you mentioned it was analogous to?

Speaker 2

Yes. So we're very excited about this. I think it's really important to point out That both the Waseca at Cold Lake as well as the REX, the Clearwater equivalent at Morinville that we We disclosed in Q1 both of these are very exciting plays. They're small cold flow heavy conventional discoveries. But what's really important to point out, while neither one of them are going to be sort of needle movers in a larger business, Each one is each one represents somewhere between 30 100 locations depending on how you risk adjust probability of outcomes.

Speaker 2

And given the fact that each one of those locations is $4,000,000 $5,000,000 of PV And all of that value accretion and value creation essentially came out of thin air. It materialized out of the efforts and the intellectual property of Our geoscience teams and the operational and technical prowess of the organization when it comes to cold flow heavy development. So I'm immensely proud of making something meaningful. Again, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars of value accretion Effectively materializing out of the just the intellectual property and time it takes to run On exploration program, I would point out that this is the 3rd discovery in 3 years. 2 years ago it was the Peavine and then 2 more this year.

Speaker 2

So 3 discoveries in 3 years in cold flow heavy. We sit on a very large Acreage position 1,700,000 net acres and because oil is where oil was, we're going to continue to create a steady diet of these meaningful value accretive opportunities. And I just couldn't be more proud of the technical And operating capability of the team. So in terms of expressing The next wells IPs, I can be bold but I'm not going to be that bold because I It's one exploration well, but the team is pretty confident in understanding the trapping structure Of these plays. And I think we can continue to put up good numbers as we continue to release The results of the second half exploration and development program both in and around Cold Lake and in and around Morinville.

Operator

The next question comes from Amir Arif with ATB Capital. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Good morning. Just one quick question for you, Eric. Just on the pace of buybacks, could you just give us a sense of how you plan To view those relative to your free cash generation, is it going to be essentially lined up quarter to quarter, so Q3 cash flow would line up with Do you expect to buy back in the Q3 or is there a lag expected?

Speaker 2

Good morning, Amir. Thanks for the question. So July was a little bit interesting because we had to catch up and also because for the first half of the year we wanted to honor The 25% framework which was in place technically right up to close. And so we hadn't been in the market because we were Essentially blacked out for the entire first half of the year. We generated free cash flow in Q2 and essentially we had to catch up In July that allowed us to take advantage of that accumulated free cash flow, but at a 25% level.

Speaker 2

So when you try to reconcile against why the 4 9,000,000 shares in July. Those are like kind of the mechanics of the arithmetic that go into that consideration. Going forward With the $400,000,000 of expected free cash flow generation through the balance of the year, If you just do the simple arithmetic given the amount of months outstanding and the $400,000,000 of free cash flow generation expected, You could see us ramp that up and it would also be logical that we would ramp that up given the fact that where we sit today is likely to be a better opportunity to buy at a lower price than it's likely to be in the future just given some reasonable expectations. And so if you expected that $400,000,000 to carry Kind of proportionately through the year that would make sense. We do however don't want to get we do want to be diligent about not getting too far ahead.

Speaker 2

For example, if we're generating substantial free cash flow and it's forecasted in December, we're not going to spend all of that on the come in say August. And so we're threading the needle between trying to be really diligent about Buying as much back as we can today while still recognizing that this is a commodities business And things can change dramatically fairly quickly. And so we're threading the needle. I think I've given you maybe enough Bits and pieces to the mechanics of the math, but you'd be right to expect us to spend half of that 400,000,000 And to do so as quickly as we can get comfortable doing so based on the way things are looking.

Speaker 4

I appreciate that color. And just as a second question, just going back to the Eagle Ford acquired assets, I know it's only been a month, but as you As you develop it at a slower pace than what Range Rover was developing, could you give us a sense of what the low costs are? And do you see any synergies on the capital side? I know you talked about the operational Group?

Speaker 2

Yes. So on the capital side, we're substantially larger business and that larger business will allow us to negotiate better terms with suppliers, steel suppliers, proppant suppliers, Hydraulic horsepower suppliers and drilling contractors and all of these things we've got an opportunity to utilize that new scale to leverage agreeable terms or more agreeable terms. And we're also planning to run All of our business as close to level loaded as we can finding the optimal points of efficiency within each asset And that will also give us opportunities as you level load the drilling and completions business and your steel supplies. That level loaded nature allows your suppliers, your vendors to also find opportunities to lower costs and that flows through. And so what I would say is we continue to see opportunities to make commercial gains in terms of better terms.

Speaker 2

But also The 2 technical teams coming together and working together within the Eagle Ford, we've had our Team that was running our investment side of our Eagle Ford Karnes interest, the Marathon operated, Baytex non operated Together with our operating and technical teams in Houston on the Ranger operated assets together with our Duvernay team because those are very analogous assets And combining their ideas and their tools and optimizing capital efficiencies. And so We continue to see opportunities to both create higher performing wells while holding the line on Capital and that should flow through over time into better and better capital efficiencies together with better commercial terms.

Speaker 4

Thanks for the color.

Operator

The next question comes from Jeremy MacRae with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes. Hi, guys. Just a couple of questions here. Your exploration success just With Waseca and then Warrenville and even Keyvine, can you give me some more sense of How aggressive your geoscience team is in terms of finding potentially more of these prospects? And how You know big and commercial and relevant, could this be in the overall portfolio here now still?

Speaker 4

Well,

Speaker 2

I think in terms of how aggressive they are we will fund we will continue to fund For the foreseeable future, an exploration, an organic exploration program in Western in the WCSB And it's let's say notionally it's going to be somewhere in the $10,000,000 range and that should fund 10 to 15 Strat Wells and Pilot Wells, deepenings and additional You know kind of petrophysical reservoir characterization as we expand our interpretation of you know Quarter logs and tighten these things up. We'll continue that investment. I would fully expect that the team is Continuing to build out prospect locations and continuing to move around our land position and Develop opportunities, I can't give you any specifics because I think that would be wrong in an exploration environment to Brown:] But we've got a lot of land and a lot to discover and I just again it's Very exciting to see 2 discoveries in a single year and every Garland:] Expectation that that steady diet should continue. And because in most of these cases, in fact in every case so far At least in these 2 this year we have already ownership of You know the rights to the land, we have teams in place, we have locations and infrastructure And so the ability for this to be material depends on the size of the discovery, but Each one of these is highly accretive based on the very, very low Cost of entry, it's the exploration and intellectual property which already exists in the organization.

Speaker 2

I know that's a lot of words, But I don't I can't really speak to the scale going forward. I would just say 2 discoveries in 1 year and a pretty steady diet. It feels like to me As we move throughout our lands and continue to apply these new interpretations of the stratigraphic sequences that we've learned over the last couple of years.

Speaker 5

Does this and As a follow-up there, does this change your the way you look at M and A up in Canada here once again in terms of the potential for these Type of exploration wells or other guys where you're thinking it's being missed by different operators? I guess what's the M and A level look like?

Speaker 2

Yes, it's possible. I think M and A is always about creating value. And so you'd have to look at The opportunity set and how the competitive environment has either bid it up or failed to recognize. In the case of Peavine a couple of years ago, the Clearwater at Peavine, I think the team did an exceptional job of Finding it, ring fencing it early and had that first mover advantage. And then as you well know the Clearwater Kind of caught fire and was priced to the point where it couldn't really create any value.

Speaker 2

And this is obviously one of the reasons why you want to have opportunities in various places because These factors will come and go. They will ebb and flow as you have opportunities to buy EBITDA. In terms of Real M and A in the near term, I'd say we are absolutely laser focused on execution today. We are going to deliver Q3, Q4, full year 2023 and a budget and a reserves book that we are going to be very, very proud of. And that is our singular focus.

Speaker 2

What happens in 2024, 2025 and beyond will depend on factors that present themselves in the future. But we're always looking for opportunities to create value over time. But I would say in the next Short while we are absolutely laser focused on demonstrating this business is as good to everyone else as we know it is given What we understand about it. So that's probably the best I can do, Jeremy. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Jasper Wichtch with Valpar. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, Eric. Thanks for taking my call. So, with the Eagle acquisition, you have become or with the Ranger You have become a significant operator in the Eagle Ford formation and you still have ample liquidity. So my question would be what potential do UC for some smaller tuck in acquisitions in your core areas both in the Eagle Ford but also in Canada?

Speaker 2

Hi, Jasper. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think in the Eagle Ford in the short term we're going to be focused On execution, we're going to be focused on integration. We're going to be focused on delivering on the second half of the year and So on a 'twenty four budget that again demonstrates the strength of this company to the outside world as much as we believe from the inside. And I think specifically around the kinds of activity, it's going to be Swaps and trades that create value, building perhaps a larger You know operated working interest and continuing to create opportunities For longer laterals, for higher working interest on the lands in which we already operate, small tuck ins, but You really shouldn't expect anything substantial to be taking place in the Eagle Ford or the WCSB in the near In the longer term, we are very, very strong believers In the economies of scale we believe that the Manville is a very high quality resource and we've got an expansive position And understand it as well as anyone and we want to continue both exploring and developing on the lands that we already own.

Speaker 2

And so Manville is really good. That includes the Clearwater. We're very, very excited about our continued organic growth opportunities in the Duvernay And what that growth leg represents organically and then continued development in and around our Eagle But we're as I said earlier, we're laser focused over the next couple of quarters and into 2024 of Delivering on this new Baytex and demonstrating the strength and resiliency of this business.

Speaker 6

Thank you. And my second question would be if you would like to add some color on what your internal The method for the IP 365 on the upper Vaseca well?

Speaker 2

Boy, that's going That's going to be a really tough one for me. As we sit here today with one exploration well, these are always designed to be Proof of concept Jasper, so I can't really forecast an IP 365. What I can tell you is it's high quality reservoir. We understand the structure of the reservoir and we understand what drives its performance. We're one well in.

Speaker 2

I think there'll be a lot more to share toward the end of the year when we get our reserves work done because These wells you really don't even have enough production data yet to hang a reasonable decline curve off of. So it would be just rank Speculation for me, but we're pretty excited about both the Waseca at Cold Lake as well as the REX or Clearwater at Morinville.

Speaker 6

I look forward to seeing the results of the other upcoming drilling campaign and the decline curve And with that, I would like to turn my call over. Thank you, Eric.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jasper.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session from the phone lines. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Ector for any questions received online.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Ashia. And I do have a few questions that have been submitted from the webcast. So I'm going to moderate these now for you, Eric. The first question Related to sort of capital allocation, can you please discuss the allocation of E and D spending between Canada and the U.

Speaker 1

S. So your thoughts on how we allocate capital?

Speaker 2

Yes. So what we've been saying up to this point really isn't changed. We were saying essentially half of our capital would be allocated to our What would have been and in all our prior language standalone Ranger assets and the other half of the capital allocated to What would have been standalone Baytex including the non op Eagle Ford. That's a way to tie What I'm saying today to the past that hasn't changed that half and half. And Over time, I think it's going to depend on economic conditions, things like how the WCS basis This widens or narrows and what other kind of circumstances express themselves in these various parts of our business.

Speaker 2

We will be allocating capital to the highest returns first. But we're also keenly aware that Each one of our assets has points of development efficiency where you really want to run. And For example in our Peavine we've been pretty clear that 12000 to 15000 BO a day although this is an absolutely spectacular asset just Anywhere in the world, it's a spectacular asset. It runs most efficiently In this 12000 to 15000 BO a day band. And we've been asked why don't you put all your capital into Peavine and it's just I realize that that's Sort of a philosophical question, but none of these assets can handle that much.

Speaker 2

So Peavine will run At a point of where it is maximum operational efficiency for lots of reasons. We have also talked about Eagle Ford, our Ranger assets in the same way. We like 2 level loaded rigs running on the Ranger lands because that level loads a single frac crew. It allows us to build a responsible refrac program into the system. And this is a way that we liberate intellectual horsepower out of the organization to work on all the other demands and dimensions of the business to continue to unlock value and it's why we've actually been able to Focus on things like artificial lift optimization and gathering and processing optimization and other things.

Speaker 2

And When we talk about capital allocation we always start with show me where these assets, each one of these assets runs most efficiently, operationally and from a capital efficiency perspective. And then we will select capital allocation according to the returns where each of the assets are running most efficiently.

Speaker 1

Okay, thanks Eric for that. A question regarding the balance sheet. You highlighted in your prepared remarks $1,500,000,000 total debt target and the question really is around The timeline to achieve that target. Eric if you want to comment or maybe even Chad Kalmykau. Sure.

Speaker 2

Yes, let me pitch it over to Chad Kaye.

Speaker 7

Sure. I think we've generally been saying we do see that being around 2 years' time. I think we think that still holds. Obviously, if you If you just take the back half of the year, the $400,000,000 using that as a proxy that would be close to the 2.5, maybe just a touch over 2.5 years. Obviously we're pretty exposed to oil and foreign exchange price, foreign exchange rates that Could change that materially obviously a $5 change in oil price up would be close to a $220,000,000 increase in our AFF.

Speaker 7

So we still think we're

Speaker 1

And maybe almost along the Similar lines related to capital allocation, balance sheets, we've introduced a dividend now. Eric, can you just discuss The potential or the outlook maybe towards future dividends and could we see dividend increases?

Speaker 2

Yes, we certainly could Brian and I appreciate the question. There's always a tension between using your free cash flow allocated to shareholder returns. The tension between those who prefer larger dividends and those who prefer share repurchases. And as it stands today we are our plans are to continue with The $0.09 per share per year dividend as a fixed base dividend with no plans to as we Sit here today raise that dividend. But what I will say is one of the nice and elegant mechanisms as you Buyback and cancel shares that reduces the number of shares outstanding against which you end up paying your fixed base dividend And it lowers the absolute value of the the total value of the dividend that is paid out of the company which Allows you to then take that additional cash flow and if the Board so chooses and if our feedback from our investment community is such that it supports then we could decide to take that additional cash and then Grow the fixed base dividend over time.

Speaker 2

But it was a very thoughtful this was a very kind of thoughtful dimension of our During our stand up of the fixed base dividend, where do we start in order to give us some room So that we can grow and this is one of the reasons why we started at this kind of notionally 2% fixed based dividend yield to give us some room to raise it over time should the Board decide they'd like to do so and should the investment community support that.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thanks, Eric. I think we have time for just maybe 2 more questions. One question relates To the Juniper position that they now hold in Baytex, Eric. And with the merger now behind us, can you just characterize Our long term relationship with Juniper?

Speaker 2

Garland:] Yes. So Juniper is our largest shareholder at I would say right now Probably as I sit here I'm going to guess at about 19.5%. And the relationship is very strong. We've been in communication with them like we are with all of our shareholders in terms of gaining Feedback from the investment community and I think these guys are long energy investors. They believe in the business.

Speaker 2

They believe in this business. They believe in the business overall of oil and gas worldwide and the role it plays in fueling economic society over time. And they're in no particular rush as they tell me to get out. And so that feels really good to me. Although we do recognize that at 19.5%, that's a large position.

Speaker 2

And I think over time they'll probably We want to get that position down just a little bit. So it creates opportunities for us. 1, it's a very strong relationship and we We understand where they are and how they feel about the business both Baytex specifically pro form a Ranger but also more broadly oil and gas in North America. But very specifically around the steps we need to take. And so I get great feedback from them as a Common shareholders, they tell me what they think and we season that in with thoughts from all the rest of the investment community along the way.

Speaker 1

Great, thanks for that question. And the last one, it's a bit of a technical question Eric related to the drilling of wells on the Ranger lands. And just maybe to summarize the wells being drilled today versus perhaps the older vintage wells Are we seeing increased performance? Are there opportunities to drive better performance? And maybe I'll add to the question on the vintage wells, do you see opportunities for potentially reentries or refrac opportunities?

Speaker 1

So just A question on spacing and the technical side of the Eagle Ford.

Speaker 2

Yes. So it's a yes to basically Brian all three of those questions the answer would be in short Yes. Yes, we're seeing better performance in the more recent wells. A lot of this has been driven by Just industrial progress and the progress of our space in general and the unconventional fracture stimulation in the art and science The fracture stimulation and unconventionals, higher fracture intensity, tighter Stage spacing tighter per cluster spacing, higher total higher pressure differentials between the inside surface of the pipe And the end of the perf tunnel drives more and more kinetic energy into the reservoir and that breaks more rock, It shatters more rock, it creates more fracture surface area in the reservoir from which to liberate or deliver oil and natural gas off the Surface of the fractures. All of that has been progressive over time.

Speaker 2

And so in any unconventional if you look at the vintaging of the wells you see Well performance on a per 1,000 foot basis go up. So BOE per 1,000 if you look at 2015, 2016 And this is in our deck. You can see the progression over time. The wells get better over time and they get better on a unit basis as well as overall. There is still room to continue driving that performance higher.

Speaker 2

And one of the ways in which You've seen the industry do this and we're doing it in spades across our unconventionals is larger board tubulars delivering more Horsepower to the reservoir to be converted into kinetic energy to fracture the rock and that is a continued evolution. You'll also see Things like in the industry you'll read about it as a term called simulfrac whereby you're able To drive more kinetic energy or deliver more kinetic energy to the rock given the units of horsepower you've got at the surface. And it's a way of managing The parasitic losses through the pipe due to friction. All of these are very technical, but yes they've gotten better. Yes, we see opportunities to continue to get better.

Speaker 2

Despite the fact that we've got development on the land, we see lots and lots of To continue to get better and sharing those opportunities across our non op technical team with experience in the Karnes trough, Our new operated technical team in the Ranger lands and our existing technical team in the Duvernay to share those learnings In and around unconventional performance and geomechanics. I would say the last question Around refracs, it takes advantage of many of the same technical progression. These older wells Many of them were completed with substantially Muscular fluids, zirconate cross linked stimulation fluids, hybrid fluids, And those fluids had a tendency to create very dilated fractures, but limited the fracture Because it tended to over dilate fractures. Today we use what we call slickwater fluids And we deliver larger jobs but also driving more fracture surface area per unit of kinetic energy delivered to the reservoir. And so The fact that again let me repeat this kind of it's true in unconventional as well as conventionals.

Speaker 2

Oil is where oil was and it's in the SRBs inside These existing fracture stimulated wells from a decade ago, we can go back into these wells and we can clean them out, set new liners, Re cement those new liners and re stimulate those wellbores and unlock existing resource because You know something like 90% of the resource remains in those existing old wellbores that have an opportunity to be restimulated.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks Eric. It's a great answer to a really good question. We've got one last question that just came in. So I think we will Try to get to this one as well before we wrap up and this relates to the sort of legacy Eagle Ford position with Baytex and can you just comment on the relationship we have with the operator.

Speaker 2

Yes, so we have a great relationship with the operator, have for a long time. These assets came into the Baytex business in 2014 and the team has worked long and hard over Almost a decade to build a good high quality technical and management relationship with the operator And continue to do so. They're a great operator. They do an excellent job. And their performance speaks for themselves, speaks for itself.

Speaker 2

And we benefit from that expertise and from the scale, but we also recognize that Having such a large non op position within Baytex as a standalone organization prior to our Ranger merger presented certain risks to the business because it was our largest asset and because it was entirely non op. But the risks weren't because we had a bad relationship or weren't because they aren't a good operator. It was because the capital allocations were entirely The decisions for capital allocation into and out of those assets were entirely beyond our control and that was at its root, the risk. But we couldn't be happier with the relationship and we couldn't be happier with the performance of the operator and want to continue leaning in on both of those.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, Eric. That does conclude the questions coming in from the webcast today. Again, I think it's been a great success providing this Opportunity to facilitate some additional questions from our shareholders. So everyone thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you operator. Thanks everyone for participating in our

Operator

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

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Key Takeaways

  • Baytex’s growth is built on three pillars: disciplined capital allocation targeting modest production growth, a commitment to free cash flow generation (50% to debt pay-down, 50% to returns) and maintaining a strong balance sheet with a $1.5 billion debt target at US$50 WTI.
  • For 2023 Baytex plans ~$1 billion of exploration and development spending to average 120,500–122,500 BOE/d, ramping to 153,000–157,000 BOE/d in H2, and expects over C$400 million of H2 free cash flow (C$500 million for the full year), funding 4.9 million share repurchases and a C$0.025 quarterly dividend.
  • In Q2 production averaged 89,800 BOE/d (86% oil & NGLs, including 11 days of Ranger), despite 4,500 BOE/d lost to Alberta wildfires; adjusted funds flow was C$274 million (C$0.47 per share) and free cash flow was C$96 million (C$0.17 per share).
  • Operationally Baytex completed its six-well Duvernay program (four wells meeting type-curve expectations) and drilled a six-leg Waseca exploration pilot near Cold Lake, with multiple follow-ups planned and a full second-half plan of ~100 net wells across its key plays.
  • Baytex has hedged ~40% of Q3/Q4 oil exposure (US$60–100 two-way collars) and ~22% of H1 2024 (US$60–99 collars), and published its 2022 ESG and TCFD reports highlighting GHG management, reclamation, Indigenous relations and safety.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Baytex Energy Q2 2023
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