BKV Corporation

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BKV's full year and fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and at this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. David Tamaron, Vice President of Strategic Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining BKB Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. With me today are Chris Kalnan, Chief Executive Officer, Eric Jacobson, President of Upstream, and John Jimenez, Chief Financial Officer. Before we provide our prepared remarks, I would like to remind all participants that our comments today will include forward-looking statements which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Actual results could differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements. Additionally, we may refer to non-GAAP measures. For more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, as well as any reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, please see the company's public filings, including the Form 8-K filed earlier today. We have also posted an updated investor presentation on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Chris Kalman.

Thank you, David. And thank you, everyone, for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. I want to take a moment to reflect on the truly transformational year BKB had in 2024. Throughout the year, BKB delivered solid business performance, driven largely by impressive results from our upstream operations. We also gained momentum in our power business, actively engaging with prospective customers in the data center sector. Our CCUS initiatives progressed with an additional FID on a new carbon capture project, as well as significant steps towards securing a financial joint venture partner. At the same time, we maintained a strong balance sheet, providing us with the flexibility to advance our businesses across all our vectors. And of course, we marked the year with a major milestone by making our debut on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of September. BKV is redefining the concept of an energy company by combining traditional and new energy approaches to offer integrated energy solutions that deliver value to customers. With four business lines, including power, carbon capture, upstream, and midstream, BKV BKV's businesses generate value standalone and, in combination, create a winning formula of decarbonized, around-the-clock energy that is scalable, sustainable, and profitable. The power markets, in particular, are evolving rapidly, and I'd like to highlight some key trends shaping our power strategies. Our PowerJV is anchored on two modern and highly efficient combined cycle natural gas power plants that have a capacity of 1,500 megawatts and are located in Temple, Texas. Power generation is a key growth driver for the company, given the recent power demand forecasts across the U.S. and in the Texas ERCOT market. The power generation business in ERCOT represents a compelling growth opportunity for BKV. Rapid demand growth in ERCOT is driven by several key factors, including electrification, increasing consumer and industrial demand, and importantly, data center and generative AI demand growth. ERCOT's 2024 long-term load forecast estimates overall demand could reach 150 gigawatts by 2030, nearly doubling the 2023 peak load of 85 gigawatts, with data center developments accounting for approximately half of this growth. During the fourth quarter, our Power JV took proactive steps to enhance operational readiness of the temple complex, which involved maintenance on our combined cycle turbines and our steam turbine units. Through these activities, we have positioned ourselves to maximize uptime during peak demand periods, especially during the winter and summer months. In the near term, we have seen prices moderate due to benign weather conditions in Texas and new renewable additions to the grid. However, overall, we remain bullish about ARCOT's long-term demand growth and scarcity pricing, as demand growth is projected to outpace supply additions, particularly baseload supply. Our power business has multiple vectors of growth. First, we have the ability to increase the utilization of our existing assets through higher capacity factors as demand for baseload power increases in the market. Second, BKV is active in the M&A markets and expects significant opportunities for transactions in the next few years. Third, BKV has commissioned a study to explore building additional combined cycle units similar to our temple plants to address the projected mismatch between structural demand growth and baseload supply, as we believe there are customers focused on securing power from new generation assets. BKV's power business model is unique in our ability to decarbonize the natural gas that we combust in our power plants through our carbon capture business. This unique feature is important to future customers. BKV remains bullish on the carbon capture industry, recognizing its vital role in decarbonizing the global economy. In the U.S., carbon capture enjoys strong bipartisan support, including from the current presidential administration. The economic incentives driving its development, such as the 45Q tax credit enacted by Congress and codified in the Internal Revenue Code, have demonstrated resilience across multiple administrations. BKV is solidifying our leadership position in this business. The evidence of this is in our FID progress and project pipeline that we are continuing to execute. Further, we are in exclusive negotiations with a global energy transition investor to become a joint venture partner in our carbon capture business. As part of these negotiations, we have mutually agreed to a timeline to finalize definitive agreements and complete standard due diligence within the next 90 to 120 days. We believe EKV's CCUS business is standalone attractive, and we are in a position to drive our CCUS growth independently. At the same time, we believe a financial partner could help us accelerate this business growth accretively. Later, Eric will talk about the momentum we have at a project level to drive our overall CCUS business. We had a strong border in our upstream business. Our upstream business continues to be the cash engine driving our ability to grow across all our business lines. We are extremely excited about the strong results from this last quarter. Not only did we see solid performance, but these results also highlight how our business is strategically positioned with low decline rates, allowing us to navigate periods of lower pricing. At the same time, we are able to reinvest, grow production, and capture favorable pricing. Overall, I'm very pleased with our team's performance and our continued ability to navigate dynamic market conditions and drive towards the execution of aspirational goals. We remain focused on executing our strategy and delivering value to our shareholders across all our business lines. Now I'd like to hand the call over to BKB's President of Upstream, Eric Jacobson, to discuss operational specifics for the quarter. Eric, over to you.

Thanks, Chris. Building on the upstream theme that Chris teed up, we are very pleased with our fourth quarter upstream performance and are excited about our 2025 program. Fourth quarter production was 774 billion cubic feet equivalent per day, outperforming and exceeding the midpoint of the guidance range by 5 percent. And it was delivered by investing approximately $43 million of development capex, which was lower than the amount of investment forecasted. Across the fourth quarter, Our new well development performance was at or better than forecasted type curve. We continued our trademark of highly effective base decline management, and we accelerated development timing through strong drilling and completion performance. Simply put, in the fourth quarter, we delivered more upstream activity at a faster pace and at lower costs than we had forecast. We brought several wells online at the end of the fourth quarter to boost 4Q production which resulted in a total average annual daily production of 788 million cubic feet equivalent per day, or 774 pro forma for the NEPA non-ops divestiture. This strong overall performance continues to showcase our advantaged asset base, featuring low base decline rates coupled with competitive and robust inventory, enabling us to continue our systematic approach to capital investment according to price environments. Given this systematic CAPEX approach, we are flexing up our spend in the current environment through developing our long inventory runway of both refracts and new drills. The continuation of this CAPEX program is reflected in the guidance we provide for the full year 2025. Our development CAPEX investment into refracts and new drills is expected to continue through most of 2025, and on the back of that, our 2025 full-year production guidance reflects a range of 755 to 790 million cubic feet equivalent per day. Our 1Q 2025 guidance includes winter weather impact, and following that, we expect to realize a production ramp in the second half of the year, coincident with strip pricing rising quite favorably in that same period. As we exit fourth quarter of 2025, we anticipate our production being a couple percentage points above fourth quarter 2024 exit, even with our strong outperformance in this latest quarter. In the Barnett, we also have several differentiating factors that further set the stage for success, including an advantaged geographic position with multiple takeaway routes and ample takeaway capacity to Gulf Coast markets, including both the Gulf Industrial Corridor and LNG export terminals. The lower nitrogen content of our Barnett gas has specifically caught the attention of downstream markets as they become increasingly sensitive to certain gas specs. To wrap up upstream, we are looking forward to continued success building on the strong production inventory development, and capital efficiency we delivered in 2024. I will now move into specific CCUS operations updates, starting with our actively injecting project, Barnet Zero. As of November 2024, our Barnet Zero project had been in operation for a full year, and through year-end 2024, had injected approximately 173,325 metric tons of CO2 since project startup. The project has had an incredibly high 97% reliability rate and high fidelity injection. For 2025, we expect an injection volume range of 120 to 170,000 metric tons per year of CO2. Our Cotton Cove project, which previously reached FID, remains on track for first injection in the first half of 2026. The Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification, or MRV, plan was submitted to the U.S. EPA in November 2024, and the Class II injection well permit has been approved by the Texas Railroad Commission, with drilling expected to commence in the third quarter of 2025. The forecasted peak injection rate at Cotton Cove is 42,000 metric tons per year of CO2. During the fourth quarter, BKV also reached FID on yet another CCUS project with a leading midstream energy company at a currently operating natural gas processing plant located in the Eagleford Shale. BKV will own and operate the compression and injection facilities and receive all of the environmental attributes and 45Q tax credits associated with the CCUS project. The Texas Railroad Commission has approved the project's Class II injection well permit and an MRV plan has been submitted to the EPA for approval. The project is expected to have initial injection in the first quarter of 2026, subject to us receiving all required plans and permits, and the facility is forecasted to achieve an average sequestration rate of approximately 90,000 metric tons per year of CO2. This project further paves the way for additional NGP carbon capture partnerships. The announcement of the Eagleford area CCUS project accelerates our progress and gives us line of sight to achieving our goal of injecting over 1 million tons of CO2 by the end of 2027, largely from NGP and ethanol. Our confidence in achieving this injection goal is underpinned by our three carbon capture project FIDs to date, three received and four filed Class II well permits, and two filed and deemed administratively complete Class VI permit applications, that are under technical evaluation. For additional information, we've included our projections for the CCUS business from 2025 to 2027 and beyond in our updated investor presentation, showing details of our internal buildup for the CCUS business over the period. We are incredibly proud of the progress we've made in our CCUS business and are looking forward to 2025 and beyond. With that, I will hand the call over to our CFO, John Jimenez, to share company financials and results from our PowerJV, another key piece of BKV's winning formula.

Thanks, Eric. Before I share the Power results, I'd be remiss to not acknowledge my recent retirement announcement. It's been an absolute honor to serve BKV as CFO for the last four years. I'm incredibly proud of all that we've accomplished in my tenure, most notably the company's successful IPO process this last year. BKB is well positioned for the future, and I'm confident that the experienced leadership team, soon to include David as CFO, and its talented employees will take the company to even greater heights as they move forward. I look forward to continuing to support the team in an advisory capacity, and I'm ready to enjoy my retirement with my family later this year. And now for an update on our power operations. As expected during shoulder seasons, the fourth quarter was characterized by moderate power demand. Taking advantage of this shoulder season, we used the period to conduct scheduled major maintenance, which resulted in downtime for the plants. The average capacity factor for the temple plants during the quarter was 38%, and total generation was 1,200 gigawatt hours. For the full year, the average capacity factor was 57%, and the total generation was 7,400 gigawatt hours. During 4Q, power prices averaged $36.90 per megawatt hour, with average natural gas costs of $2.50 per MMBTU. resulting in an average spark spread of $19.37 per megawatt hour. For the full year, the average spark spread was $21.96 per megawatt hour. BKV's implied proportionate share of the PowerJV's net loss during Q4 was about $17 million, including major maintenance expense, and adjusted EBITDA was a half a million dollars. For the full year, BKV's implied share of the JV's net income was $10 million and $34 million for adjusted EBITDA. As a reminder, our PowerJV is non-consolidated. Beginning with 1Q 2025 results, we expect to begin reflecting our portion of the PowerJV's results within BKV's reported adjusted EBITDA. As we look towards 2025, the PowerJV has hedged approximately 700 megawatts of generation, Based on our pricing outlook and the current hedge position, the Power JV is targeting a gross 2025 adjusted EBITDA range of $130 to $170 million. This guidance reflects the impact of additional renewable generation combined with lower forward pricing in the short term. However, BKV still anticipates robust long-term demand growth leading to increased periods of scarcity pricing in the ERCOT market. Now shifting to the rest of BKV's financial performance. You've heard about BKV's financial framework, which underpins our strategy. Our low-decline inventory, our strong free cash flow margin, and our disciplined CapEx enabled us to continue to invest in the base while supporting the future growth of the company. Well, this quarter is another proof point which showcases our ability to execute against our strategy. Accrued capital expenditures in the fourth quarter were $60 million, which included 43 million for development and 3 million for CCUS. This is notably below the low end of our fourth quarter guidance range of 65 million, evidencing not only our ability to respond to the market conditions, but also our ability to drive capital efficiency. As Eric emphasized earlier, our commitment to capital discipline serves as a clear example of BKB's continued focus on managing capital expenditures in alignment with market conditions. Our full year 2024 accrued capital expenditures were approximately 118 million, including 82 million for development capital and 35 million for CCUS and other. This represents a 28% reduction in accrued capital expenditures year over year. For 2025, we're anticipating an increase in upstream development. We believe that total capital expenditures will land between 320 and 380 million, with approximately 220 million going towards development and approximately 130 million going towards CCUS and other. Despite our elevated capital investment in 4Q, We generated positive adjusted free cash flow and continued to delever the business. As of year end, our outstanding RBL balance was $165 million, representing a net leverage ratio of 0.65 times. We also had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $15 million. Combined with the availability on our RBL, our total liquidity as of year end was $436 million. During 2024, the company generated positive adjusted free cash flow of $92 million with an overall adjusted free cash flow margin of 15%, which included our investments in CCUS. This is a strong result considering our return to a more robust development period during the fourth quarter in anticipation of stronger overall pricing going into the new year. We are already seeing that stronger pricing trend come to fruition in the early weeks of 2025. We had a net loss in the fourth quarter of 57 million, or negative 68 cents per diluted share. This loss was heavily driven by net derivative losses of 58 million. After adjusting net income for unrealized derivative losses and other non-recurring items, we had an adjusted net income of approximately $1 million or a positive $0.01 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year of 2024, after adjusting net income for unrealized losses and other non-recurring items, we had an adjusted net loss of $40 million. In regards to our hedging strategy, I'd like to reiterate that we hedge at least 50% of PDP production for 24 months. Based on our year-end hedge position for Cal 25, we have natural gas hedged at an average price of $3.43 for MMBTU and NGLs are hedged at an average of $21.82 per BKV weighted barrel. For 2025 guidance and going forward, BKV is providing current quarter and full year guidance, which we will update as appropriate on a quarterly basis. I have covered a handful of our guidance ranges already, and you can refer to our complete 1Q25 and full year 2025 guidance, including our per unit operating costs and average natural gas price differential in the press release that was posted this morning. With that, I'd like to turn it back over to Chris to wrap things up.

Thank you, John, and congratulations to you on your forthcoming retirement. And we look forward to hearing about your travel adventures during this next chapter of your life. Only 34 countries to go on your path to 100. It has been a joy and a pleasure working alongside you, and I wish you many more successes as you pursue life to its fullest in your retirement. Before we open the call for questions, I want to emphasize a few key messages. First, BKV offers the winning formula through a combination of natural gas production, carbon capture, and power, which we believe will attract a premium in the marketplace. Second, BKV has multiple paths for disciplined growth across all our business lines. We have the ability to grow both organically and inorganically with the balance sheet and the organizational readiness to support that growth. Finally, our strong performance in the fourth quarter and throughout 2024 reinforces our ability to deliver shareholder value in line with our aspirations. With that, operator, we're ready to take any questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. We ask that analysts limit themselves to one question and a follow-up so that others have an opportunity to ask questions. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Scott Gerber with Citigroup.

Please proceed with your question.

Yes, good morning. Hey, a lot of good color on the Texas power market, Chris. You have excess capacity at your temple facilities. Data centers are getting bigger. So I'm curious, as you think about the PPA opportunity, how much of your capacity would you be comfortable dedicating to a PPA? You could power a large data center with your two plants, but that would obviously reduce the spare capacity you provide to the ERCOT system. I'm not sure how the interaction with regulators kind of comes into play, given that ERCOT's a competitive market. So you just said shed some color on kind of your comfort level around how much capacity at the plants you'd be comfortable dedicating under a PPA?

Yeah, Scott, good question, so appreciate it. Yeah, if you look at ERCOT, it's obviously a hot topic right now as it is across the grid around how much, you know, are people able to take off to kind of do these private use networks or what we call puns. You know, for us, we have two modern combined cycle power plants, each about 750 megawatts. So, you know, if you think about sort of a PPA structure, you're probably not going to want to go more than 750 on those. You're going to be able to take one down for maintenance, keep the other one running. as that redundancy is really important to a lot of these data center companies. So, you know, when you think about us, I would say sort of that 750 is about the right kind of upper limit of what we'd be comfortable with as we think about these options around sort of private use network and sort of behind the meter deals.

And what's the latest color on your progress, you know, with discussions on that front? Do you think... an agreement is possible here in 25. And then you mentioned starting to look at building additional plants down the road. So are you focused on getting that agreement on the existing plants? Are you starting to look at agreements for new plants or those separate opportunities you're pursuing both?

Yeah, good for you to pick that up. I mean, I think on the existing power plants, we have, as you can imagine, Scott, an incredibly unique position in the ERCOT market where we have, you know, 1,500 megawatts that are undedicated. We're right in the heart of the state. So, you know, those discussions, as I said, are active, and we look forward to announcements. You can imagine in the next, you know, 12 to 24 months, there's going to be a lot of deals struck in the ERCOT and then broader U.S. market. I think for us, it's – It's certainly right there. We're active. We can decarbonize it. We have those assets today. And so we feel very, you know, excited about the momentum we see in the market. And you're hearing that, not just from us, but other producers of gas and power. So we see that very, very much. And we see that activity actually picking up pretty substantially in the last, I would say, you know, 90, 100 days sort of timeframe. With regards to the new power plant study that I mentioned, That's all about what customers want. And there's some specific, you know, customers out there that want new generation assets as part of kind of doing deals. They don't want to be seen as taking power off the grid. And so our ability to kind of offer both is actually super compelling to them. And I think that that's where we see, you know, BKV being flexible, having the balance sheet, having the strategy to kind of go after both types of customers. is being exciting and I think puts us in a really great position when we talk about kind of near-term agreements and or ability to kind of strike some longer-term deals as well.

Very interesting. Thanks, Chris, for the call. I'll turn it back.

Thanks, Scott.

Our next question comes from Nitin Kumar with Mississauga Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Guys, thanks for taking my question. I want to start on the CCS side. You mentioned the potential for a JV, but you had one FID here. Congratulations on that. As I look at the capital guidance, you're guiding for about $130 million of CCUS and other. Your other CapEx has run around $15 million, a quarter or so. Should we expect more, I guess what's baked into this guidance for CCUS capital spending?

Hi, good morning, Nitin, and thank you for the question. This is Eric. Yeah, within that CCUS and other category of the $130 million, about $90 million of that is expected CCUS spend. So we'll look to, you know, further develop the FIDs that we have announced. We hope and anticipate there will be more FIDs coming, and we'll be quite active in starting to develop these projects for startup in early 2026. Got it.

And you're not assuming a JV, just as clarification, right? This would be 100% CapEx on CCS as of today?

Yes, correct. That would be our reported CapEx at 100% at the $90 million range.

Got it. And then my follow-up, I just want to quickly ask on production taxes. It looks like production taxes are a lot lower than expected. Is that just a timing impact? And should we see that reverse out here in the first quarter?

Thanks for picking that up. Actually, taxes other than income have two components, one of which is called a severance tax, which is essentially a production tax. It's a percentage of revenue. And although pricing and production volume vary, that percentage typically sits around 3%. And that didn't create any of the variance you're seeing in the quarter or in the year to date. What was creating the change in the quarter had to do with ad valorem. That's the other part of taxes that comes through that line. This is a real estate and personal property taxes that are assessed based on the assessed value of the assets. And a couple of the counties were a little bit delayed in terms of their processes in finalizing those assessed values. Those happened in the fourth quarter, and hence we had a true up once those were finalized in the range of $7 million. So that's what's suppressing the quarter. But, you know, the year-to-year, the assessed values will fluctuate on ad valorem, but severance stays pretty constant.

Yeah, so then, Dave, just so, just for going forward for modeling purposes, just assume it's back to historical levels. That was kind of a one-time hit in the fourth quarter.

Sure. And if I can sneak one more in, just on the upstream side, gas prices have obviously been much stronger as I look at your upstream guidance here. there should be some growth through the year, but you're not leaning in to the upstream just yet. Could you talk a little bit about what you're seeing there and sort of why the current level of activity?

Yeah, sure. Thanks again for the follow-up there, Nitin.

As we've shared before, and as is included in a slide in the finance section of our investor deck, you know, we'll remain committed to that systematic, disciplined CapEx investment approach. And we remain focused on, you know, free cash flow. Within that framework, as if we see prices remaining very strong in the second half of 25 and through 2026, you know, I would expect in the coming months, we'll have a hard look at, you know, upping our CapEx investment in the second half of 25. We certainly have the available and quality inventory, both new drills and refracts, in NEPA and Barnett to, you know, to invest additional capex. So that's there. So over the coming months, we'll have a hard look about reinvesting additional in the second half of 25. And should we do so, I think what we'd expect to see is a nice ramp at the very back end of 25, setting us up for a really strong 26.

And just, sorry, Dave, again, just to make sure you and everybody else are clear, our current CapEx guidance consists of what we told, you know, the analysts on the roadshow, which was we're using a 350 deck to get that capital spend. So as prices stay stronger, as Eric indicated, we'd revise as appropriate if need be.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Our next question comes from Betty Jing with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, everyone. John, congrats again on your retirement. I want to start asking about the natural gas processing CCS contract. It's really great to see that momentum with that additional contract. How does the margins change? and economics of this contract compared to your bar net zero. And then once you start rolling in the additional CCS volume, how much more low carbon power can you offer to the market once you break that in?

Eric, why don't you take the margin question and I'll follow up with the power question.

Sure. Yeah, good morning, Betty, and thank you for the question on the CCUS business. You know, as we mentioned, we're very excited to announce this third FID, continuing on with our forte in the natural gas processing space with a very large and reputable midstream operator. You can think about the margin that we're realizing from this deal, this latest NGP FID announcement, very comparable, right in line with Barnett Zero and what we've shared before there. Over the $50 a ton sort of EBITDA margin range. Yeah.

Yeah. So betting on the power. So as you know, you know, you're going to decarbonize around the clock with carbon capture.

Our Barnett Zero project at sort of that $150,000 to $100,000 a year. So around the clock, you know, utilizing that kind of a base. So, you know, we. releases that we can reach a million times. Right here. Proportionally. Right. So the amount of power that we can carbonize. And a scale. Sort of.

X. Amount. You can see how our.

I think I got some Chris.

I think you were cutting off and then out. But there are. for me, but we can follow up. And then my follow-up is on the power EBITDA guidance that for 2025, it came in a bit light versus what we were expecting before. So, can we just get a bit more color on what's the underlying assumption, what's your power price assumption that may be spark spread?

Yeah, I think, you know, just to give the context, with regard to the market in 2025, We saw a three-week summer in that carried over into the markets.

So we did layer on about 700 megawatts of hedges into 2025. I think that's going to moderate the overall outlook to some degree. And then, again, we're seeing a lot of rebuilds that are happening in the market, which are kind of legacy from two or three years ago, those projects coming online. That's depressing prices in the peak hours. in the near term. Positives there, Betty, is if you look out to 26, 27, 28 in particular, there's a huge amount of contracted base load demand coming on the market. That's where you see big, big risk to scarcity pricing in ERCOT in particular. And so we're very excited about our assets as we look into the next two to three years being positioned ideally for the market.

In the near term, there's a little bit of headwind with, as I said, with regards to kind of weather online.

Got it. That's helpful. Thanks.

We're here and we're breaking up on our end. I'm getting feedback on that as well.

Yes. Please hold. The conference will resume shortly.