Vermilion Energy Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Production exceeded guidance, averaging 125,800 BOE per day, prompting Vermilion to raise full-year guidance to 121,000–123,000 BOE per day while maintaining its CAD 600–630 million E&D capital budget.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company generated approximately CAD 122 million of second-quarter free cash flow and reduced net debt by CAD 70 million to CAD 1.22 billion; debt has declined by roughly CAD 840 million over the past five quarters.
  • Positive Sentiment: Vermilion increased its shareholder-return target to 40%–60% of excess free cash flow from 40%, renewed its share-buyback program through July 2027, and expects buybacks to accelerate.
  • Positive Sentiment: European gas growth is gaining momentum, with first production from the large Wisselshorst discovery, a recent German bolt-on acquisition adding about 1,000 BOE per day, and plans to increase German production toward 10,000 BOE per day by 2030.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Third-quarter production is expected to fall to 116,000–118,000 BOE per day due to planned maintenance in Ireland, Germany, and Canada, before recovering to approximately 122,000 BOE per day in the fourth quarter; 2027 capital spending could rise toward CAD 700 million if Australia drilling proceeds.
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Earnings Conference Call
Vermilion Energy Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Vermilion Q2 2026 Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on July 30th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dion Hatcher, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Dion Hatcher, President and CEO of Vermilion Energy. With me today are Lars Glemser, Vice President and CFO, Darcy Kerwin, Vice President, International and HSE, Brandon McQuaig, Vice President, North America, Lara Conrad, Vice President, Business Development, and Travis Thorgeirson, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Planning. Please refer to the advisory on forward-looking statements in our Q2 release. It describes forward-looking information, non-GAAP measures, and oil and gas terms used today. It outlines the risk factors and assumptions relevant to this discussion. Second quarter of 2026 was another strong quarter for Vermilion, with production averaging 125,800 BOEs per day, exceeding the top-end of our guidance range. Positive results across our portfolio continue to support performance that is trending ahead of our five-year plan that we communicated during our Investor Day in December of 2025.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

With this current performance in mind, with significant progress in debt reduction, we have increased our return on capital target in a range of 40%-60% of excess free cash flow, up from 40% previously. Production performance is driven by record output at Mica Montney, continued strong execution in the Deep Basin, and the stage restart of production in Australia following the back-to-back cyclones earlier this year. Based on operational performance year-to-date, we have increased our full-year production guidance, now 121,000-123,000 BOEs per day, while maintaining our E&D capital budget range of CAD 600 million-CAD 630 million. Our E&D capital expenditures and operating expenses are weighted towards the second half of the year. We expect full year costs to be within the stated guidance ranges for these items.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

In the Montney, strong performance from the most recent BC six-well pad at 8035 drove quarterly production at Mica of 18,000 BOEs per day. The pad achieved an IP90 of more than 950 BOEs per day per well, comprised of 3 million a day of natural gas and 470 bpd of oil and NGLs, with DC cost reduced to CAD 8.2 million per well. These results continue to support the quality, the repeatability, and the improving capital efficiency of our Montney inventory. In the Deep Basin, activity was moderated through spring breakup. The program continues to outperform budget expectations. This has been the primary driver of corporate production outperformance through the first half of the year. In Europe, following the quarter end, we achieved another important milestone in our German deep gas exploration program, with the Wisselshorst well being brought on to production in July.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

This represents the first production from the largest discovery Vermilion has made in Europe to date. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our teams for their commitment to safe operations during the many steps required to bring this well in production. We are excited about the next steps, debottlenecking the production with a new sales pipeline, as well as drilling the next two wells on this license in 2027. Elsewhere, the Osterheide well continues to perform in line with prior quarter rates, with cumulative free cash flow of CAD 43 million since startup. We expect production growth in Germany to be driven by our deep gas exploration program, reaching 10,000 BOEs per day by 2030, given the significant resource continuing to grow into the next decade. Also in Germany, we closed the previously announced bolt-on acquisition following quarter end.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

The transaction adds approximately 1,000 BOEs per day of production, weighted 85% to natural gas, as well as ownership of key infrastructure around the Osterheide well. Adding production from Wisselshorst and these acquired assets is particularly impactful with the recent rally in European gas prices, currently over CAD 25 per MMBtu through winter 2026. European storage levels are well below average for this time of year. The current pace of refilling is not sufficient to reach the 80% target before winter. We plan to increase our domestic gas production through debottlenecking the infrastructure as well as exploration development across our significant land base in both Germany and the Netherlands. With a growing prospect list of high return capital-efficient targets, Vermilion is well positioned to grow our production and free cash flow while providing our communities with a reliable source of energy.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

In Australia, production operations at Wandoo safely resumed following repair work completed during the quarter. Our next export is planned for the third quarter. We expect to return to more regular exports thereafter. Our five-year plan continues to progress well. Operational execution across the portfolio, combined with the first production from Wisselshorst and continued success in the Deep Basin and Montney, reinforces our confidence in the ability to generate growing free cash flow. Before I pass it to Lars to further discuss these results, I want to take a moment and acknowledge the challenges faced by several of our employees, contractors, and their families that have been impacted by the fires in Southern France. Our thoughts are with you. We hope the situation continues to improve in the upcoming days.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Thank you, Dion. In the second quarter, Vermilion generated fund flows from operations of CAD 231 million on E&D capital expenditures of CAD 110 million, resulting in free cash flow of over CAD 120 million. Capital allocation remains focused on disciplined investment, continued balance sheet improvement, and shareholder returns. During the quarter, net debt was reduced by approximately CAD 70 million to CAD 1.22 billion. As of June 30th, 2026, net debt to trailing four-quarter fund flows from operations was 1.3x. Over the past five quarters, Vermilion has reduced debt by approximately CAD 840 million, accelerating progress toward our CAD 1 billion net debt target and significantly strengthening the balance sheet. This continued de-leveraging has also reduced structural financing costs, with unit interest expense declining approximately 35% from the prior-year. We are on track to reduce full-year interest expense by CAD 30 million from 2025.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Reflecting this progress, as well as improved visibility to future cash flow and confidence in the sustainability of the business, we have enhanced our return to capital framework. Vermilion now intends to return 40%-60% of excess free cash flow to shareholders compared to the previous target of 40%. This framework continues to be supported by our base dividend and ongoing share repurchase program. Subsequent to the quarter, we announced the renewal of our NCIB out to July 2027. During the quarter, we returned approximately CAD 26 million to shareholders through dividends of CAD 21 million and CAD 5 million of share repurchases. With the increased return of capital target, we expect the pace of share buybacks to increase.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Turning to commodity risk management, Vermilion recognized a gain on hedging during the quarter as a realized loss of CAD 57 million was more than offset by unrealized mark-to-market gains of CAD 174 million on our hedge portfolio. These unrealized gains reflect changes in forward commodity prices relative to our hedge position at March 31, 2026. Our percentage of production hedged will decrease in the second half of 2026 relative to the second quarter levels, which increases our exposure to current elevated commodity prices. Operationally, Canadian production averaged 99,605 BOE per day during the quarter, which included record production from Mica. We continue to actively manage AECO exposure and prioritize profitability over production during periods of weaker natural gas pricing. We maintained strong well performance and continued to shift Deep Basin activity toward liquids-rich opportunities in the Rock Creek, Niton, and Ellerslie.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Several of our wells in Canada, in both the Deep Basin and Montney, ranked among the most prolific wells brought online during the quarter. In Europe, in addition to our work getting Wisselshorst online and preparing for follow-up drilling, our activity this quarter focused on workovers, maintenance programs, and preparation for drilling activities in the Netherlands during the second half of 2026. These activities, together with production from Wisselshorst and Osterheide, support the continued development of our European gas platform. Looking ahead, we expect third quarter production to average between 116,000 and 118,000 BOE per day, reflecting planned maintenance activities in Ireland, Germany, and Canada. This is consistent with our assumptions at the time of the budget release. We expect Q4 production to be approximately 122,000 BOE per day, with European gas production back in line with first half levels.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

For the full-year, production guidance has been increased to 121,000-123,000 BOE per day, while E&D capital expenditure guidance remains unchanged at CAD 600 million-CAD 630 million. Both operating expenses and capital expenditures are expected to be weighted toward the second half of the year, as Dion previously noted. The increased production guidance reflects our strong operational performance year-to-date, which has more than offset the impact of back-to-back cyclones in Australia earlier this year. We are confident in the ability of the company to continue to deliver on our Investor Day outlook. I will now pass it back to Dion.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thank you, Lars. In summary, Vermilion delivered another strong quarter and made significant progress executing our five-year plan. Production exceeded the top-end of our guidance range, free cash flow totaled CAD 122 million, and net debt was reduced by another CAD 70 million. These results reflect the strength of our asset base, the quality of our teams, and our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Vermilion continues to focus on what we can control. As a result, we're seeing structural improvements in the business through stronger capital efficiency, improving well performance, and lower controllable costs, which improves our full-cycle margins. Operationally, record production at Mica continued Deep Basin in performance and the successful restart of Wandoo support strong results across the portfolio. In Europe, we achieved first production of Wisselshorst, marking another important milestone in executing our long-term European gas growth strategy.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Financially, our balance sheet continues to strengthen with approximately CAD 840 million of debt reduction achieved over the past five quarters. As leverage declines and visibility to growing free cash flow continues to improve, we're increasing our shareholder return framework to target 40%-60% of excess free cash flow. Looking forward, operational momentum remains strong. Production performance for the first half of 2026 has allowed us to increase annual guidance without increasing capital expenditure. Supported by a repositioned portfolio, growing European gas exposure, a strengthening balance sheet, and a disciplined capital allocation framework We believe Vermilion is well positioned to continue generating sustainable free cash flow and shareholder value. With that, we will now open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Menno Hulshof with TD Cowen. Please go ahead, Menno.

Menno Hulshof
Menno Hulshof
Analyst at TD Cowen

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with the question on the higher level operational setup through the middle of next year, and you did touch on this to some degree in your opening remarks. I understand that you can't provide guidance for 2027, but beyond turnarounds this quarter, is there any significant downtime or other considerations we should be aware of between now and the middle of next year? And I think you did guide Q4, but what could the exit rate look like for this year?

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Great, Menno. Thanks for that. A couple of comments. To your point, I think the turnarounds that we're planning for and executing here in this quarter, Ireland's a great example. That is a five-year cycle on that turnaround, that would be very unique, but something we plan for on that key asset. Looking out from now into mid-2027, the answer is no. We don't see any key downtime. Quick answer is no. The setup, we're quite excited. If you look at the exit rate, Lars' referenced this, we're back to 122 or better. If you reference back to European gas, what does that mean for our business? The first half, we were 95 million a day-100 million a day. Hopefully, we're on the higher end of that range as we exit this year.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

We'll get these turnarounds behind us and I think have a strong Q4, and that really is a good setup going into 2027.

Menno Hulshof
Menno Hulshof
Analyst at TD Cowen

Terrific. Second question is on the Germany drilling program. Can you maybe just remind us of how you manage the risk on these larger wells, including the two that will get drilled next year? I understand there's the farm down component, maybe you could just remind us of the broader risk mitigation strategy and maybe also the math on the out-of-pocket cost of Vermilion in the event of a dry hole. Because if I recall, it's significantly lower than the actual well cost. Thank you.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thanks, Menno. A lot of good questions there. First of all, I think it comes down to the quality of the team and the G&G and the science and the decades that we have, multiple decades of working on these structures in Europe. This particular formation, the Rotliegend, is something we've been drilling for decades. Second, I would say we're in a proven fairway. When you look at some of those maps where we're drilling these structures, it is not uncommon. There's multiple, let's call it, a handful of structures that have cumulatively produced over TCF. If you're going to find big oil, big gas, start drilling in areas where there's been big gas found. We're excited about the setup. As to how we look at the risk-reward, let's call it. First is economically.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

If you think about the cost to drill these wells at CAD 50 million, our target rate is 30 BCF recoverable. Wisselshorst, of course, is twice that. If you spend CAD 50 million in the success case, and that gets you the drill, the test, the on-lease gas plant, the pipeline, for CAD 50 million and you get 30 BCF of gas, that's CAD 1.15 MCF. If you assume gas prices are CAD 13, and of course, they're more than double that now, if at CAD 13, the NPV per well is CAD 60 million, right? You can see with Osterheide, it's been on for a year and it's cummed over CAD 40 million of free cash flow, and the well hasn't started to decline yet. The success case, I think is pretty, hopefully, straightforward.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

The failure case is we drill the well, we don't like what we see, we get out of the well, it's less than CAD 15 million. Okay? The CAD 50 million is the all-in success case. The dry hole case, let's call it, is sub 15, so 15. The final point is commercially. When we drilled Wisselshorst, we knew that it was a very large structure, also we viewed that one as a little more higher risk, but it was big. Commercially, we did use a farm in to provide a promote, and with that carry, it effectively meant that the after-tax dry hole cost was zero. Right? Or less than zero, maybe. That's another quiver in our strategy here, is we can use farm ins. They're good prospects. We're going to drill these prospects.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

If someone wants to come in and leverage some of the great work we've done, commercially, we can further reduce our risk. Hopefully, that gives you right from, hey, we're looking for big targets in the area where big gas has been found. We've got a team that's been doing this for decades. We've done all the technology and reprocessed seismic, the failure case is sub 15, commercially, we can further mitigate that failure case with a promoter carry.

Menno Hulshof
Menno Hulshof
Analyst at TD Cowen

Thanks for the rundown, Dion. I'll pass it back.

Operator

Thank you.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Greg Pardy with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Greg.

Greg Pardy
Greg Pardy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Thanks. Good morning. I want to stay just maybe on the back of Menno's question, maybe just to stay with Germany for a minute. Just in terms of the next two exploration wells that you have planned for early next year, I am just wondering how far away those might be from Wisselshorst. Then in addition to that, maybe just any potential deep bottlenecking opportunities that you would have in that area, maybe just to increase rates and what is required to accomplish that.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thanks, Greg, for those questions. I'm going to pass it over to Darcy to just talk about the location of the next two Wisselshorst wells and some of the steps, as noted, for the de-bottlenecking of the gas.

Darcy Kerwin
Darcy Kerwin
VP of International and HSE at Vermilion Energy

Greg, thanks for that. To answer your first question, those next two wells are located on a common pad, so they'll be drilled together on one pad. That location is between 1 and 2 km away from the original Wisselshorst discovery well, as the crow flies. In terms of de-bottlenecking the first Wisselshorst well that we brought online, we are in the process of permitting, acquiring land to build a new sales pipeline for that well. We expect that that pipeline be online, ready for service towards the end of next year. We do, for the next two new wells, have a plan for an initial gas plant on that one site to capture their production.

Darcy Kerwin
Darcy Kerwin
VP of International and HSE at Vermilion Energy

We have the opportunity to twin that gas plant on that site if we have strong results there. That sales pipeline that we're building for Wisselshorst 1 will also be the sales point for the next two wells in Wisselshorst. Lots of opportunity to de-bottleneck that area next year with this sales pipeline and then hopefully a new gas plant for those next two wells in a success case.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thanks, Darcy. To summarize there that sales line, it's a 12-inch piece of pipe. I think all the material is ordered. We're going to plan to start construction here early next year. As Darcy noted, that'll allow us to open that well up and get it up to that full 16, 17 million a day design rate. Further on that is this twinning of the infrastructure that Darcy mentioned. Effectively, you're able to double, to go from 17 to 34 million a day with the amount of gas we've got behind pipe. First step, Greg, to your point is, as Darcy mentioned, is getting that 12-inch pipe in the ground, and we're well on our routes to do that.

Greg Pardy
Greg Pardy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay, terrific. Yeah. No, thanks for that. Maybe just staying with Europe, maybe just moving into the Netherlands. In the past, you probably drilled potentially smaller prospects. Now, what I understand is you're drilling maybe perhaps fewer, but bigger prospects. Am I thinking about that the right way? Just any color around that would be great.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Yeah. I'll pass it back to Darcy. I think you can just unwind the clock a little. In the Investor Day, Geoff MacDonald would have talked a lot about this. The plot that I think he was emphasizing is these targets are 2.5x-3.0x bigger than what we were targeting before. Darcy, you want to build on that?

Darcy Kerwin
Darcy Kerwin
VP of International and HSE at Vermilion Energy

Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yeah, in the Netherlands, I think if we look back the last 10 years, as you said, the prospects we were drilling were getting smaller. That was really driven by an effort from the permitting side to stay drilling on existing leases in existing areas. We've been continuously pursuing drilling locations outside of those areas to access some of these bigger pools. The drilling that we have planned for later this year as well as next year, is on the back of that, where we are stepping out a little bit further from our existing operations and able to access bigger pools again in that area. Permitting for the wells that we have planned this year firmly in hand, we're ready to go once we have the rig available towards the end of September.

Darcy Kerwin
Darcy Kerwin
VP of International and HSE at Vermilion Energy

Wells for 2027 and 2028 are in the midst of permitting. We have everything in hand to drill the wells in 2027 and onward into 2028 in these bigger pools.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Yeah, the team's done great work again on the permitting, also the technical side, building on Darcy's comments, to bring these larger structures forward. We're quite excited to allocate capital there.

Greg Pardy
Greg Pardy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Got it. All right. Thank you very much, both of you.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Great. Thanks, Greg.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Dennis Fong with CIBC WM. Please go ahead.

Dennis Fong
Analyst at CIBC WM

Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Sorry to keep focusing on Germany here. Obviously, a lot of kind of exciting things there. I was hoping to dig into the recent concessions that you've been awarded and how specifically you're thinking about balancing, we'll call it step outs or follow-up drilling, like things that you're doing at the Bommelsen license, versus, we'll call it little E exploration work to, again, further build out the depth of inventory that you have out in Germany, especially with the winning of these new concessions.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thanks for that, Dennis. I can give you a good summary there. The team's done a great job with the land we currently have, which is obviously a big number, over 1 million net acres, identifying those nine structures, and we see up to 30 wells on those structures, and we're excited to now develop Wisselshorst, but also test some of those additional six structures in the upcoming years. To build on that, deals like the one we closed, but also the new concessions, another 500,000 net acres. The team will do, let's call it more of that study G&G work, relatively low cost, pulling a lot of data. We'll spend the next two-three years really defining the prospectivity, maturing prospectivity. You would look at the next couple of years after that to think about drill commitments and those kind of things.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Really, we see this with the defined inventory that we've got, let's call it a decade at a risk base. Things like this new concession is really extending that runway even further. I think, as we're having this conversation two years from now, Dennis, we'll be able to start to point to things on the map. Right now, it's a lot of land in the fairway that we like. We're going to spend one-two years just doing the G&G work to mature what we expect to be some prospects on that. It's just really building on that decade that we've got in front of us. You're going to see us test some new structures in the upcoming years, as well as develop the Wisselshorst.

Dennis Fong
Analyst at CIBC WM

Okay, great. I appreciate that color and context there, Dion. My next question focuses a little bit more on the balance sheet and allocation of free cash, allocation to shareholders. Obviously, you've continued to delever, and this is kind of a nice bump up in terms of directing 40%-60% of excess free cash towards shareholder returns. Can you talk towards what kind of drives you to maybe a 40% versus a 60%? Is that more commodity or kind of value that you see in the shares? How do you think about the confidence that you build in terms of allocating more and more free cash to shareholders? Especially just given as you've improved, obviously, depth of inventory across the asset base and then continue to execute across the various assets, whether it be in Canada or in Europe, or Australia.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Right. Lars can't wait to answer that question. I'm going to pass it over to him.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Great. Yeah. No, thanks, Dennis. I'll just try to give a little bit of context in terms of how we arrived at the decision to move to 40%-60%. Maybe two key data points that we look at. Obviously, the first one is just the status of the business today, in terms of where we've taken the balance sheet, the quality of inventory. What I'll spend a bit more time on is just the rate of change of how we've gotten here. Made the comment in my remarks, we've reduced net debt by CAD 840 million over the past 15 months. A lot of progress there made in a short period of time. You think back to 15 months as well, we had just closed the Westbrick acquisition, consolidated into a 1.2 million acres Deep Basin position.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

We still had some infrastructure spend in the Montney to execute on, some key pads to deliver on as well. We were still trying to quantify what we had in Germany. You fast-forward 15 months to the end of the second quarter here, I think a lot of boxes have been checked in a very short period of time. Those are the type of things that we want to look at. It's sort of structurally, are we executing on the plan within the business? As we look back, we said, "You know what? We are more comfortable increasing that return of capital." You'll recall when we did the Westbrick acquisition, we temporarily reduced the return of capital from 50%-40%. With those boxes checked, happy to move to the 40%-60%.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Now, one thing that we are going to continue to maintain here is flexibility within that 40%-60%. You think back to the second quarter here, lots of volatility, whether it was commodity price-wise, share price-wise. We want to maintain flexibility in terms of how we allocate capital over the longer-term. With this announcement today, we are looking to increase what we're allocating to shareholder returns. Then maybe just the last point I'll make, Dennis, if you go back to the Investor Day last December, we laid out a framework of what we wanted to achieve here over the five-year plan in terms of end of 2030. I think we are well into that plan, delivering on that plan. We've been able to increase our guidance here in 2026 on the production side, maintain the capital as well.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

We are looking at this from a long-term perspective, in terms of allocating that capital. Maybe just lastly, you asked about Australia as well, in terms of how we think about allocating capital. We continue to evaluate the prospect of drilling in Australia in 2027. With where oil prices are, we are leaning towards that being the right decision. As we foreshadowed in our Investor Day, that would push capital for 2027 into that CAD 700 million range, something that we'll manage within this framework. Anyways, I'll maybe stop there, Dennis, just to see if there's any follow-up.

Dennis Fong
Analyst at CIBC WM

Yeah. I appreciate that color there, Lars. I guess that was kind of a little bit of a lead into my follow question is kind of how to think about 2027 CapEx. Again, as you see that kind of free cash flow rate of change in the second half of next year as you round out effectively Montney drilling and then I guess now this Australia program, does that help drive more comfort in maybe moving up that targeted range if the balance sheet improves and so forth? Is there going to be a balance in terms of where you want to really drive down net debt even further because, for whatever reason, on a go-forward basis?

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

Yeah, no, I think you framed it very appropriately there. As we get into the second half of 2027 and then sort of, let's call it the later three years of the five-year plan that we laid out Capital comes back into that CAD 600 million-CAD 630 million range as the business grows towards that 130,000 bpd. The reason that we are able to keep capital within that range, grow production, are for the reasons that you referenced there. Montney infrastructure spend starts to come down. We start to get some gas behind pipe in Germany online. We get the Australia drill behind us as well. Those will be the type of things that we look at. I think with the flexibility we have in the framework now, we don't necessarily need to wait for those inflection points to buy back shares.

Lars Glemser
Lars Glemser
VP and CFO at Vermilion Energy

If we want to be a bit more aggressive leading up to that, we have the capability within the framework here. The vice versa is also true in terms of targeting within that 40%-60%.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Maybe just to build on Lars's comments there, because Lars would have presented a slide, it's in our deck, that shows how that CAD 1.7 billion of excess free cash flow potentially be allocated over that five-year timeframe. If you look at that plot, it shows the net debt getting down midpoint around CAD 750 million. Shows the dividend, of course, lots of runway there. Then on share buybacks, right? We showed a range, but share count was coming down about 30%, right? Now, that, of course, would have been based on a CAD 12 stock price, but that was based on CAD 70 oil, that was based on CAD 13 TTF. To summarize this, Lars' points there as the business fundamentals continue to improve, as we return to capital, there's more free cash on the system. We're looking forward to returning more of that.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Again, I think the IR day five-year plan is a good summary of what this business can deliver at reasonable commodity prices, i.e., CAD 70 oil. It's a big number, CAD 1.7 billion of excess free cash flow over five years.

Dennis Fong
Analyst at CIBC WM

Great. I appreciate the color, both of you. I'll turn it back.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thanks, Dennis.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Dion Hatcher for closing remarks. Please continue.

Dion Hatcher
Dion Hatcher
President and CEO at Vermilion Energy

Thank you again for participating in our Q2 Conference Call. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Dion Hatcher
      Dion Hatcher
      President and CEO
    • Lars Glemser
      Lars Glemser
      VP and CFO
    • Darcy Kerwin
      Darcy Kerwin
      VP of International and HSE
Analysts
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