Gran Tierra Energy Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Tierra Energy's Results Conference Call for the first quarter 2025. My name is Shannon, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the initial remarks, we will conduct a -and-answer session for securities analysts and institutions. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcast and recorded today, May 2nd, 2025, at 11 o'clock a.m. Eastern time. Today's discussion may include certain forward-looking information, as well as certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the earnings and operational update press release we issued yesterday for important disclaimers with regard to this information and reconciliations of any non-GAAP measures discussed on today's call. Any production volumes are based on working interest sales before royalties. Finally, this earnings call is the property of Grand Tierra Energy, Inc. Any copy and or rebroadcasting of this call is especially forbidden without the written consent of Grand Tierra Energy. I will now turn the conference call over to Gary Gidry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Grand Tierra. Mr. Gidry, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Grand Tierra's first quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Gary Gidry, President and Chief Executive Officer, and with me today are Ryan Elson, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Sebastian Morin, our Chief Operating Officer. On Thursday, May 1, 2025, we issued a press release that included detailed information about our first quarter 2025 results, which is available on our website. Ryan and Sebastian will now make a few brief comments, and then we will open the line for questions. Immediately following the earnings call at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, 12 noon Eastern Time, we will be holding our annual general meeting of shareholders. During the meeting, I will give a brief overview of Grand Tierra, where the company is heading. We invite you to join us after this call. Dial-in instructions can be found on our website. I will now turn the call over to Ryan, who will discuss key financial highlights from our first quarter results.

Good morning, everyone. Our first quarter performance reflects strong operational execution and disciplined financial management. Our front-loaded 2025 capital program, which had up to five rigs active during the quarter, delivered record drilling times and significant cost efficiency across all our key assets that Sebastian will discuss. Grand Tierra achieved first quarter 2025 average working interest production of approximately 46,650 BOE per day, which was 14% higher than fourth quarter 2024 and 45% higher year over year due to the recognition of three full months of production from Canada and positive exploration well results in Ecuador. During the first quarter of 2025, Grand Tierra incurred a net loss of 19 million compared to a net loss of 34 million in the prior quarter. The company generated adjusted EBITDA of 85 million versus 76 million in the prior quarter and 95 million in the first quarter of 2024. 12-month trailing net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.9 times. However, this only accounts for five months of Canadian adjusted EBITDA and we continue to have long-term target of one times. Fund flow from operations was 55 million or $1.55 per share, up 25% from Q4 2024 and down 26% from the first quarter of 2024 because of lower oil prices. Grand Tierra's capital expenditures of 95 million were higher than the 79 million in the prior quarter and 55 million in the first quarter of 2024 as a result of the addition of the Canadian development program, an active exploration, Ecuador exploration program and development activities in the Cohenby field during the quarter.

During the

quarter, the company had three rigs active in Canada, one in Ecuador and one in Colombia. Currently, the company has one rig active. At quarter end, Grand Tierra had cash balance of 77 million, total debt of 760 million and net debt of 683 million. During the quarter, we repaid at maturity the remaining principal of our .25% senior notes due in 2025 in the amount of 25 million and repurchased 2 million of our .5% senior notes due in 2029, reducing gross debt by $27 million. In addition to the 77 million cash on hand as at March 31, 2025, Grand Tierra currently has approximately 110 million in undrawn credit facilities. This includes a revolving credit facility in Canada with a borrowing base of 100 million with available commitment of 50 million. On April 16, 2025, the company announced an additional 75 million reserve-based lending facility in Colombia with a final maturity in 36 months from the closing date. In terms of share buybacks, Grand Tierra repurchased approximately 450,000 shares during the quarter. From January 1, 2023 to April 29, 2025, the company repurchased approximately 5.2 million shares or 15% of shares issued outstanding at January 1, 2025 from free cash flow. Grand Tierra generated oil sales of 170 million, 71 million, which was up 8% from the first quarter of 2024 and up 16% from the prior quarter, primarily due to higher sales volumes. On a per BOE basis, operating expenses decreased by 3% when compared to the first quarter of 2024 and the prior quarter. We continue to make significant gains to reduce operating costs through efficiencies and scale. Financially and operationally, Grand Tierra delivered a strong start to 2025, demonstrating record production, enhanced capital efficiency, meaningful debt reduction, increased financial flexibility through new credit facilities, and continued focus on share returns through share repurchases. I'll now turn the call over to Sebastian to discuss our operational highlights from our first quarter results.

Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. Operationally Grand Tierra is off to a strong start for 2025. As Ryan mentioned, Grand Tierra front-loaded its capital program during the first quarter, operating up to five rigs across the portfolio while delivering record times and cost efficiencies across our key assets. In Ecuador, we successfully drilled two additional oil discoveries in Ecuador, the Iguana B1 and the Iguana B2 wells on the Iguana block. The combined wells have an average oil production rate over 30 days of approximately 1,684 barrels of oil per day from the USAN formation. These two additional wells mark our tenth discoveries in country since we entered Ecuador in 2019. The Iguana B1 well was drilled and completed in record time and under budget, establishing a new pace-setter well in Grand Tierra's Ecuador exploration campaign. The drilling rig has been stacked on the Iguana pad, tending mobilization to the new Conejo pad on the Chirrapa block to resume exploration drilling during the third quarter of 2025. The drilling of the final two Conejo wells will mark the fulfillment of all of Grand Tierra's exploration commitments in Ecuador. In Colombia, we successfully drilled the first three of five wells from the Cojambi North pad during the quarter, and all the wells were delivered under budget and 60% faster than most recent well program executed by the previous operator. We are currently in the process of drilling the remaining two wells of the program. Once we complete the Cojambi wells, the rig will move to the Costiaco pad to commence a three-well development program during the second quarter. By the end of the first quarter, the civil, electrical and mechanical field works at Cojambi reach 100% mechanical completion. This project was initiated to facilitate the processing of new production from the Cojambi North pad at the Cojambi Central Processing Facility. At Accordion Arrow, the optimization of the field continues through ongoing water flood expansion, which includes facility enhancements, electrical submersible pump upsizing, injector conversions and upgrades to the -to-power generation system. These initiatives are focused on reducing unit costs, offsetting natural declines and improving overall recovery factors. In terms of production, the field continues to strongly perform, with average production of 13,824 barrels of oil per day in the first quarter of 2025. This represents a 2% increase from the fourth quarter of 2024, despite no wells being drilled since the first quarter of 2024. Current production is approximately 14,500 barrels of oil per day, up 5% from Q1, reflecting the strong reservoir response to the execution of our first quarter water flood management optimization program. With these encouraging results, the company continues to see significant development potential at Accordion Arrow, and is planning another drilling program of 8 to 10 wells in 2026 targeting high oil saturation, unswept in-fill locations. Finally, moving to Canada, with our JV partner Logan Energy, we successfully drilled and completed two Lower Montney wells at Simonette. These two wells were brought on stream and completed with a similar optimized Lower Montney completion design as an offset well drilled in 2022. After 21 days since being placed on production, the average gross production per well was 674 barrels of oil per day, 13 barrels per day of NGLs, and 767,000 cubic feet of gas per day, totaling 814 barrels of oil equivalent per day at 84% liquids. Grand Tierra holds 50% working interest in the wells as they continue to clean up. This early production performance surpasses the prior offset well by 80% for the same period and are exceeding their budget-type curves. The company also successfully acquired 21 sections of prospective land in central Alberta along the Niskiw Fairway in early March, which adds over 50 high-quality opportunities to our drilling inventory. At Clearwater, we participated in the successful drilling of two gross .5 net wells during the quarter, and both wells are estimated to be on stream imminently. The first well drilled was a four-leg injector to support a water flood pilot in the Martin Hills block, potentially increasing reserves based off area offsetting water flood results. The second well, drawn off with 14 legs, was drilled in seal block to test the productivity of heavy oil in the Blue Sky formation. Grand Tierra is well positioned to generate sustainable value while remaining resilient amid commodity price volatility. I'll now turn the call back to the operator, and we will be happy to answer any questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session for securities analysts. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by 1-1 on your touchtone phone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Please ensure you lift the handset if you're using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Our first question comes from the line of Rob Mann with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hi there. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. The first one for me just surrounds the Cordia and Arrow and your water flood optimization program. You have a number of initiatives underway, and it seems like the production response has been strong so far. So, just curious if you could frame the remaining work to be done there and expectations after these initial results.

Rob, I think it's more of continuing the same, the daily surveillance, going back and looking and really optimizing each well in each sector. We've got the field broken into five sectors, and so as we see opportunities, we've got quick cycle times by taking the work over rate and slick line units over to manage that.

Great, thanks. That's helpful. And then just the last one here quickly. Just wondering if you could discuss your acquisition of the 21 sections of land in central Alberta. What you like there following your entrance into Canada with the I3 acquisition?

Yeah. It's a NISQ play. We drilled a three-mile horizontal, fourth quarter and first quarter of this year. Fract it. It's currently on production cleaning up. We're quite excited about the play, and we believe that with some appraisal that it has great potential. We will be talking to other operators in the area to look at joint venturing because it is quite a large play, but early days and quite exciting.

That's great. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alejandra Andrade with JPM. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my question. I had a couple of questions. First, just wondering on working capital because I see a big inflow this quarter. Just wondering if we should see any reversal in the coming quarters or if that should stay stable throughout the rest of the year. Then also, second question, I just wanted to see in terms of gas prices in Canada, how are those behaving and if anything had changed from your previous outlook. Thank you.

Great. With respect to working capital, there was a build in work capital, and that was just a function of a heavy capital program. You will see some of that unwind in the second quarter. Obviously, we do everything on a cruel basis, and so we just haven't paid all the vendors up to that point. You will see some of that unwind in the second quarter. With respect to gas prices, we're pretty comfortable with our base case budget for gas prices. They're prevailing in there quite well, and we do have the strong hedge program, so we're quite comfortable with the guidance on cane gas prices.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Schachter with CSERC. Your line is now open. Joseph Schachter with CSERC. Your line is now open.

Thanks very much. First, congratulations on the great first quarter compared to fourth and further improvement to 48, 400, so that's terrific. I have two areas I wanted to talk about. First was on slide 27 of your presentation, you talk about the opportunities in Ecuador, current production from 1500 to 2000, the other one, 2000 to 2005, and you talk about upside 20 to 30 and 10 to 15. Are we talking two years, five years? How many wells? This probably is one for Sebastian. How many years are we looking out for this upside potential?

I'll start with the timing, Joseph, and then let Sebastian add to that. Timing, because we have 100% and we operate, we control the pace. We are submitting field development plans with the government, and the intention would be over the next two to three years to get to that plateau production. Depending on volatility, depending on oil prices, these are great reservoirs, and for us, it's really a regional development. As you've seen, certainly across the Tarampa and Chenangay block, we have numerous discoveries, and when we finish our exploration at the end of this year with the Conejo, we'll have a good sense of what that regional development looks like so that we can put in power, put in infrastructure and ramp production.

Yeah, and just to follow up on that in terms of flexibility on timing, our exploration environmental impact assessment license gives us full flexibility, and we're kicking off the development DIAs as well, so those two kind of overlap and allow us flexibility to really move ahead with the development as needed.

Okay, super. Next question, with you at 48,400, your guidance is 47 to 53 in your base case, well, all three cases. Can you give us some guidance or a little more illumination on, given you knew you were at 48.4, what could happen to get you to the lower end of 47, and what are you looking at for the upside? What scenarios need to develop to give you those ranges?

Yeah, prices is the main thing that we watch because we have operating control, watching what prices are doing here, and the earlier question to Ryan about natural gas, we're very bullish on the long-term outlook for natural gas with realistic expectations of pricing, you know, the $3 to $5 type range, and we have a tremendous inventory, and so we will be watching that closely this year and over the next three years on how we manage that, and so we're very comfortable with our guidances out there, and we'll adjust accordingly with what global prices do.

Super. Well, thanks very much for taking my questions, and congratulations on the growth profile that you're exhibiting.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Isabella Pacheco with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Hi, Jean. Thank you for taking my question. Could you please give us an update on your current oil price hedging strategy? Thanks.

Yeah, we continue to have the same strategy. You know, we're looking at our objectives to hedge, you know, 30 to 50 percent out, six months out, and then 20 to 30 percent out the remaining six months. We have a pretty good hedge position in place right now, and we are looking at increasing that hedge position to meet those targets.

Okay. Thank

you very

much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Diego Espinosa with BTG Pactual. Your line is now open. Diego, your line is open. Please check your mute button. Our next question comes from the line of Rodrigo Sanhueza with Santander Asset Management. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So I have a couple. First, on capex, and I believe you addressed this question when you were talking about the working capital reversal, but there's a $27 million gap between the reported capex in the MDNA and the one in the cash from investing activities. Is this different look in accounts payable?

Yeah. In one of the notes in the financial statements, we have the breakdown on that. It really is. If you take our capital expenditures left, the positive change in working capital, our non-cash working capital, that will get you to the $69 compared to the $100.

Okay. Perfect. And the second question is on capital allocation. So you continue to share buybacks and also repurchase some bonds this quarter. While I understand you view the shares as undervalued, could part of the recent stock performance reflect maybe market concerns around solvency? And in that context, how do you weigh preserving cash versus additional share repurchases?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think if you look at the quarter, we reduced our gross debt by $27 million. So the vast majority of cash flow did go to debt reduction. And so we're laser focused on continuing to reduce debt with a modest share buyback program. So we're very dynamic and so we're always consistently looking at our capital allocation. And then we're in the process of doing that right now with the recent volatility.

Okay. Is any portion of the buyback program intended to offset dilution from equity-based compensation and maybe specifically performant-based awards?

No. It's really just we believe, if you look at where we trade on a 1P basis, we have a 1P NAV of around $20 US and a 2P, $40 million. So it's just part of our capital allocation. We think that's a great investment for the company, for all our stakeholders.

Thank you. That's very helpful. That's all for me.

Thank

you.

Thank you. Gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

I would like to once again thank everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you over the next quarter and update you on our ongoing progress. Please join us for our annual general meeting of stockholders, which will commence at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, 12 noon Eastern Time. I will give a brief overview of Grand Tierra and where the company is heading. Dial-in instructions can be found on our website. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now...