Callon Petroleum Company

Good morning, my name is Chantal and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Callum Petroleum fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. Kevin Smith, Director in Best Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Chantel. Good morning, and thank you for taking the time to join our conference call. With me on today's call are Joe Gatto, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Jeff Balmer, SVP and Chief Operating Officer, and Kevin Haggard, SVP and Chief Financial Officer. During our prepared remarks, we may reference the earnings results presentation and our fourth quarter and full year earnings press release, both of which are available on our website. So I encourage everyone to download both documents if you haven't already. You can find the slides on our events and presentations page and the press release under the new settings, both of which are located within the investor section of our website at www.galwin.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone to review our cautionary statements, disclaimers, and important disclosures included on slide two of the presentation. We will make some forward-looking statements during today's call that refer to estimates and plans. Actual results could differ materially due to the factors noted on these slides and in our periodic SEC filings. We will also refer to some non-GAAP financial measures today, which we believe help to facilitate comparisons across periods and with our peers. For any non-GAAP measures we reference, we provide a reconciliation to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure. You may find these reconciliations in the appendix to the earnings presentation slides and in our earnings press release, both of which are available on our website. Upon our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for Q&A. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Joe Gatto. Joe?

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning to everyone joining us for the call, especially on a day with concerning developments in other parts of the world. As we run through our introductory comments, I encourage everyone to take a look at the earnings presentation on our website for additional background on our commentary. But before we get started, I'd like to formally introduce Kevin Smith, our new Director of Investor Relations. Kevin has over 15 years of industry experience in the energy sector, working most recently in investor relations and previously as a research analyst covering the E&P industry. We are excited to have him here with us, and I'm sure you'll all enjoy working with him. I'd like to start by discussing the fourth quarter, during which we once again achieved stellar results and beat expectations. For the quarter, total production came in at over 112,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. This was at the high end of guidance, driven by strong well results from the Permian Basin and an efficient integration of the Delaware South acquisition. Additionally, operating cost categories came in at either the midpoint or below guidance, as our strong cost controls were effective at mitigating inflationary pressures. Overall, Town's operating performance, combined with our disciplined capital spending program that was below budget for the year, drove free cash flow generation to a new record of approximately $125 million for the quarter. As I went back to 2021, we began the year with ambitious goals for leverage improvement while maintaining a disciplined reinvestment model and advancing our sustainability initiatives. I'm very pleased to say that we delivered across the board on those commitments. Early in 2021, we outlined a capital allocation framework reinvestment rates of 65% to 75% of our operating cash flow and planning prices. In 2021, Calend's actual CapEx ultimately represented less than 60% of our operating cash flow, as commodity prices proved to be higher than our planning prices, while our capital plan remained unchanged, setting the stage for excess free cash flow to flow directly to debt reductions. This cash flow profile was a clear product of our operating profit margin that grew by roughly 141% year over year and remains top tier in the industry. As I mentioned earlier, aggressive debt reduction on both an absolute and leverage metric basis was a key focus for the team in 2021. Our free cash flow generation, combined with our asset monetizations and liability management initiatives, contributed to $760 million of absolute debt reduction and resulted in a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of two times on a fourth quarter annualized basis. These are impressive achievements that have put us in an advantage position for further balance sheet improvement and disciplined reinvestment in a robust portfolio of drilling locations. Alongside our operational financial performance, we are all proud of the work the collective organization has done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve Calend's overall carbon footprint. As you may recall, Last spring, we announced meaningful goals to reduce flaring and GHG emissions by 2025. Given our progress in reducing flaring in 2021, paired with increased methane emissions initiatives that are in process, it has accelerated our goal timeline by one year to 2024 and increased our GHG reduction target to at least 50%. As part of raising that bar relative to our original GHG goals, We also expect to reduce our methane intensity to less than 0.2% by 2024, reduce total flaring to below 1% by 2024, and eliminate all routine flaring this year. In the presentation materials, we've outlined an inventory that represents 15 years of locations that are economic at $50 per barrel and below, based on third-party estimates. But I also want to highlight our substantial approved reserve base of 485 million barrels of oil equivalent at year-end, comprised of 60% oil and 85% Permian volumes. Importantly, we increased PDP volumes by almost 30% in 2021, and PDP now represents 57% of total approved reserves. In addition to adding improved volumes at an attractive valuation through acquisition, we replaced over 100% of our 2021 production through the drill bit at a PDP F&D cost of approximately $8 per BOE. In total, Our SEC PV10 valuation increased by nearly $5 billion as we exited the year with an SEC PV10 value of $7.1 billion. For 2022, we have set a capital budget of $725 million, which represents an operating cash flow reinvestment rate of approximately 60% at $75 per barrel WTI and is expected to generate free cash flow of well over $500 million using that oil price assumption. At recent strip pricing levels, The implied reinvestment rate would decline to approximately 52%, and free cash flow would increase to nearly $700 million. Our capital allocation to the Permian will increase to 85% this year as we advance our scale development model across a recently expanded opportunity set of over 135,000 net acres in the basin. Importantly, Calum's steady development program and proactive contracting strategy for key services, which we began last year, will help mitigate inflationary pressures being seen in the spot markets. As a result, we are forecasting cost inflation for our drilling completion and equipment costs in the range of 10%, driven primarily by labor, steel, and fuel costs. We are also budgeting approximately $20 million for environmental projects and initiatives, which are being accelerated this year to achieve the new goals and missions that I discussed earlier. Looking at our 2022 production profile, We expect a production reset in the first quarter of 2022 as our production levels are impacted by fourth quarter divestitures of approximately 3,000 VOE per day and a shift to a larger scale development model on the newly acquired properties, which will impact the timing of wells placed on production. More specifically, the number of wells placed online in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 combined will be similar to the number in the third quarter of 2021 alone. Our POPs will rebound to over 30 net wells in the second quarter of this year in conjunction with an expansion in our duck inventory to over 45 wells in the first half. This increased inventory will accommodate larger project sizes in the Permian and create operational flexibility for future quarters. Note that this shift in production timing will not compromise the sustained level of strong free cash flow generation with a forecast of over $125 million in the first quarter. With this positioning for more efficient scale development across a larger portion of our asset base, we expect to deliver 10% growth in our oil volumes during the course of the year and an average annual total production rate for the year in line with 2021 that came in at approximately 105,000 VOE per day after adjusting for acquisition and divestiture activity during the year. Based on the forward curve, we also forecast sequential increases in operating cash flow through 2022 despite market backwardation. To sum up our outlook for the upcoming year, I'll leave you with a few key points. Talent's extraordinary pace of deleveraging in 2021 will continue into 2022 on the strength of bleeding cash margins and a maintenance capital program that has benefited by a scaled development model. With free cash flow potential and excess of 10% of enterprise value at recent strip pricing, we see a clear path to adding shareholder value as enterprise value is transferred from debt balances to equity value. The value proposition has a strong foundation and an inventory of 15 years of locations at $50 per barrel WTI and below, with additional upside and ongoing delineation from a multi-zone resource base. In other words, this is a sustainable business model, not a story of near-term liquidation of high-graded inventory. I will now turn it over to Jeff to discuss operations.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. As Jill pointed out, the operating environment over the last 12 months has presented many challenges, and I'm proud to say that our team was up for them. Thanks to our focus on execution and cost control, we had an outstanding year. Our production results came in at the high end of guidance, as well-performance trended above expectations. Additionally, we exhibited exceptional cost control, as we came in at or below the midpoint of capital cost and lifting cost guidance, even in this inflationary environment. Now dig into the cost environment and what we're doing to offset inflation later in my prepared remarks. Now I'd like to discuss some of the operational highlights we had during the year, starting with the Eagleford. While we did not have any completion activity in the Eagleford during the fourth quarter, I cannot overstate how important the 29-well Irvin West project that came online during the second quarter played in our production results for the year. The Irvin West project was the largest horizontal well development in the company's history and took tremendous planning and coordination across essentially every part of town. And it's been a terrific success. Another highlight from the Unifor is our ongoing efforts to vastly reduce emissions by having our fields on the electric grid. During the year, we connected five full fields to the power grid. And this allowed us to take 43 generators from service which not only reduces our carbon footprint, but also results in over $2 million in annual savings. This year, our plan is to continue expanding the field of electrification across the Eagleford assets to release an additional 30 more diesel generators. Also, we'll be replacing over 60% of the pneumatic devices with instrument air to help us move closer to our overall methane reduction targets. So shifting to the Midland Basin. We continue to have success with multi-bench targeting and our life of field development philosophy. During the fourth quarter, we completed an eight well, three zone development in the Wolf Camp A, Wolf Camp B, and Lower Sprayberry formations, bringing on two of those wells at the end of 21 and the other six in early January. Results to date for that project are excellent, with all wells meeting or exceeding our expectations. The drilling days for the eight wells, which had an average lateral length of roughly 11,000 feet, averaged about 10 days from spud to rig release, which represents a reduction of 10% versus our average drilling time. So again, continued efficiency. Moving to the Delaware, we were very active during the fourth quarter, bringing online 16 wells. Three of the wells, which I'll discuss later, were from our newly acquired Delaware South property. So Primex has become Delaware South. Two Ward County wells that we brought online that I would like to highlight are the Crowhart wells that we completed in the third bone springs formation. So a modestly non-traditional formation. These 5,000 foot lateral wells had an average 30 day IP rate of over 1,845 BOE per day, of which 85% was oil. So again, short 5,000 foot laterals making a significant amount of production. And the remaining wells in that development were WOLFCAM completions, all of which were performing in line with our expectations. Throughout the year, we've been very active in the Delaware Basin, converting old gas lift systems to ESPs or electric submersible pumps. And this decision has significantly helped improve well performance and reduce upfront costs of artificial lift systems. Our ESP management program is top tier and has resulted in an 80% improvement in runtime since 2018. Last year, we secured additional secondary gas gathering options for the Permian region to help reduce our total gas flared. We also tested a dual fuel and electric frac fleet in the Permian region. The success of these two projects led us to sign full year contracts for 2022 for both an electric frac fleet as well as a high substitution rate dual fuel fleet. This year we plan to upgrade natural gas treatment facilities and we will be replacing a majority of our natural gas operated pneumatics with no bleed devices or instrument air to support our methane emission reduction initiatives. So next I'd like to provide you with an update on the recently acquired Delaware South assets. And really this has been as close to a seamless transition from an operation standpoint as possible. We completed the acquisition in October on the 1st, and within hours of closing, we had a crew onsite drilling out frac plugs on the three wells that were drilled and completed by Primex. Our team successfully brought the three wells online within seven days of closing. These wells have been producing for roughly 90 days plus and have oil cuts similar to our Delaware East assets and are performing in line with expectations. Currently, we're operating two rigs in our Delaware South assets. We recently brought online six additional wells and plan to place another five wells on during the remainder portion of the first quarter. We're very excited about implementing our drilling and completion methods on this acreage. The size and stable nature of our overall development plan allows us to lock in supply and service contracts at more favorable pricing than operators that are having to deal with the tight spot market. As Joe mentioned, our capital budget is going to be primarily focused on the Permian Basin as we increase our attention to our Delaware assets. We plan on continuing to prioritize multi-adventure development opportunities as we've really shifted away from the one and two well pads to focus at a larger scale. Over half of our 2020 Delaware program will target our new Delaware South assets. And then in the Midland Basin, our focus will be on multi-zone infill development, primarily focused on the middle and lower Sprayberry, and of course the Wolf Camp A and B zones. In total, we've allocated approximately 85% of our DNC budget to target the Permian. In the Eagleford, we'll continue to drill infill wells on our core acreage and remain focused upon optimizing completion methods and costs. So lastly, I'd like to discuss the steps we're taking to offset inflation. Just like our peers, we are experiencing cost inflation with average well costs between 8% and maybe 12%. We're primarily experiencing inflation in items like raw materials and fuel. And then, of course, we're also seeing our service providers pushing for price increases to reflect the tight labor market. To offset this, we've locked in long-term service contracts and rigs and factories. Our size and scale allow us to use active vendor management and really partnerships, and provides the opportunity also to buy in bulk, pushing efficiencies. That is primarily due to a very stable, well-outlined development program. And then specifically, one area that we think we can bring down our lifting costs is in the Delaware South assets. We'll use our in-house expertise in chemicals management to source more effective and cheaper chemicals, and we've made significant progress in reducing our natural gas treatment costs. Additionally, again, in the Delaware South, we've already seen our proficiency in ESP runtime increase the overall runtime for the field and the overall productivity of the new Delaware Basin assets. So to wrap up, we exceeded expectations across the board in 2021. We've got the right plans, the right assets, and the right operations team in place to once again deliver in 2022. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin to handle the finances.

Thank you, Jeff. During the fourth quarter and full year of 2021, we delivered on our promises, set new records, and achieved key financial goals like our deleveraging target. Let's quickly look at some of these highlights. We set a new record for EBITDA, posting approximately $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the year. We delivered on our divestiture targets and realized $210 million for adjustments. Perhaps most importantly, we reduced our leverage ratio by over two turns during the year. A remarkable achievement ending the year with a pro forma leverage ratio of 2.3 times. With regard to this 2.3 times, this is a pro forma calculation on leverage, which follows the closing of the Primex acquisition October 1st. This pro forma metric is based on the same calculation we use with our lending banks and bond. During the fourth quarter, we once again were able to expand our peer-leading cash margins. Despite the higher lifting costs associated with our new Delaware South properties, which are targeted for significant reductions in 2022, as Jeff mentioned, we realized an increase in operating margins as the high oil weighting of our asset base plus lower gathering, transportation, and processing on a per unit of production basis led to an 8% sequential increase in our quarterly operating margin to approximately $49 for BOE. This top-tier margin helped us realize adjusted EBITDA of $339 million in the fourth quarter, a 16% increase over our third quarter results. The new company record level of adjusted EBITDA and reduced interest burden combined with our disciplined capital spending has led to record levels of free cash flow. During the fourth quarter, Calend generated an adjusted free cash flow of approximately $124 million, For the full year, we generated roughly $274 million of free cash flow. Our capital discipline has provided the opportunity to reduce debt levels and strengthen the balance sheet. During 2021, we reduced our debt balance by $290 million and lowered our RBL borrowing level to below 50%. If you consider the $470 million in cash we borrowed for the Primex acquisition, it is really $760 million of pro forma debt reduction over the course of the year. This also has positive implications for our equity value. Calend has now reduced debt levels for two consecutive years. Since year end 2019, we have paid down roughly $500 million of debt. We view this as a form of returning money to shareholders as it has moved value from debt to equity holders. We are not done here either. Based on our initial 2022 guidance and consensus estimates, We expect to generate approximately $500 million of free cash flow in 2022 at a flat $75 oil price. This quantum of cash flow puts us in a position to achieve absolute debt levels approaching $2 billion and a leverage ratio around one and a half times by year end. The continued achievement of our stated financial goals should also allow us to remove the second lien notes from our capital structure and reduce our overall cost of debt so our financial metrics more closely mirror those of a Double B credit rating. Turning to hedging, our hedge program for 2022 is fairly complete, minimizing the downside risk while still leaving upside potential. As we look to 2023, we remain proactive in adding additional hedges. You can see from the latest slides we've begun to add 2023 oil hedges that protect the floor of $70. The market has been helpful in this regard with both the oil and natural gas curves strengthening recently in the out years. The strides we have made in deleveraging over the past two years plus the positive outlook for cash flow puts us in a good position to start having meaningful discussions about returning money to shareholders. While we are increasing equity value through debt reduction, We are rapidly approaching the point where many of our debt reduction and leverage goals will be achieved. We will need to discuss other ways to increase shareholder value. In the near term, we can do this organically through continuing to invest in our business and creating value organically. In the future, we can look to return capital shareholders through means like dividends and share buybacks. This is something we will be evaluating throughout the year as we investigate the best options to generate value for our shareholders while protecting the balance sheet and affording us corporate flexibility. With that, I'm going to turn things back over to Joe before we move to Q&A.

Thanks, Kevin. I think it's clearly appropriate to finish up here by thanking our employees for their tireless efforts and dedication, which drove an exceptional year for Cal and certainly set us up for great things to come. So with that, I'm going to turn it back to Operator to open up for Q&A.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star 1. To allow time for everyone to ask a question, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Derek Whitefield with Stiefel. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, all, and congrats on your portfolio and the leveraging progress.

Thank you.

Perhaps for Jill or Kevin, kind of ending with where you guys ended in your prepared comments, your leverage stats have dramatically improved to date as a result of your actions since 2020 and the improving commodity price backdrop. With the potential to achieve sub one and a half times net debt to leverage in 2022, how should we think about your long-term preference for capital allocation for free cash flow once you achieve that metric?

Derek, I'll start off there and see if Kevin wants to jump in, but clearly we're on a great path here and we've got to follow through, but things look good to continue dramatic reduction on the power of our cash margins here. I think the deleveraging will continue to be at the top of the list. Even if we get to one and a half target, we're still going to look to bring that down, as you might have seen in the materials, sort of a medium-term goal is to bring that closer to one times but alongside that you know as kevin mentioned there's clearly options uh continue to invest in a very strong inventory and as we get to our leverage metrics um and look out on a longer term planning horizon you know returns of capital and assess that we've started assessing that just to get ahead of it um we think later this year we'll be in a position to make some more tangible decisions around it but Right now, it's certainly around keeping options open, delivering on our commitments out there, and also taking feedback from investors. There's certainly a lot of return of capital models being deployed right now, and to talk to our investors and understand where their priorities are as well is a key piece of that.

Great.

And as my follow-up, referencing slide 12, Could you elaborate on the importance of your delineation objectives for 2022? More specifically, are you seeing these opportunities as a means to high-grade development activity, or is this simply an evaluation to add inventory depth?

I think that we have some compelling opportunities here. These are, you know, not in our core locations. We're always delineating. I think, Derek, you're dealing with, especially in the Delaware, around a multi-zone resource base when you're there developing you know some of the core zones we like to take the opportunity to to uh target some of the non-core zones to see one if they're going to compete for capital uh you know we've seen results in these zones and other spots some are you know very good and compelling you could compete for capital uh but as you know in a place like a delaware basin co-development is is certainly important potentially when you're developing zones. So if this is going to be an economic zone over time, you probably want to know that sooner than later. So if it makes sense to develop now with the other zones, you want to put that into the plan.

If it's not going to compete for capital, we're not going to continue to put money into that effort. Very helpful. Great update, guys. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Eric.

Our next question comes from

neil again with drift your line is open um we're gonna go um maybe a little long that that same line i'm just wondering um really would love to hear from you or jeff just on the the largest scale development you know i've always said you know why others were out there i guess you know just just targeting maybe one or two zones you guys not only have been doing a a large development but you've had great success and i'm just wondering maybe talk a bit about you know what you just kind of mentioned a little bit i'm just wondering how much of the plan

much more efficiencies are you seeing with that maybe just jeff if you could maybe share a little bit more on the upside you're seeing from this larger scale development yeah absolutely that you know the calendar has remained committed to that and i'm very proud of that fact even through 2019 20 and 21 um you know the development philosophy really remained the same from a very robust top-to-bottom analysis and implementation of the program. And you'll see that very well represented here in 2022 also. You know, the nice part about the integration of these several companies over the last couple years with the Carrizo and now the Primex is you have three independent datasets that are all now congruent with each other, specializing in slightly different areas. the ability of the group to analyze all those different independent data sets and put those together in a development program allows optimization of each particular pad and development system using larger, more regional aspects of it. So you'll see, even in some of the mature assets like the Midland Basin, we put in an eight-well pad that was had one side bounded on an infill basis and reasonably tight spacing, not tight, tight, but certainly, you know, 660-ish. And we have fantastic results with, you know, several of the Wolf Camp B wells averaging over 1,000 barrels of oil a day. So you'll see that continue to be reflected in the overall 2022 program. The Delaware Basin South assets, the newer assets, we're starting with a little bit broader spacing just to get an idea of the overall productivity and depletion aspects. So we'll do some additional subsurface logging and take some different analyses to see how the fracture systems influence items, how the wells interact with each other both vertically and laterally. But the overall top to bottom, left to right development program is very healthy within this company.

great details yep and then maybe just joe for you by um just kevin just to follow up um obviously the jump you talked about this morning unprecedented precedent on what was going on with oil prices and you mentioned a little bit taking advantage of the um sort of baseline or four i'm just wondering from either a joe maybe your question for you is maybe from an operational or a hedging perspective are there things that you would think about doing in the near term incremental things to do in the near term? Or is this, you know, no, is it sort of business as usual, I guess?

Yeah, for operational and capital deployment standpoint, you know, I think it's certainly business as usual. As we talked about, we have a steady plan that's well outlined that we're executing well on. Obviously, you know, maybe others are thinking about dialing out activity, maybe more private companies or very small portion of public companies. We're not going to be doing that, obviously, as we've talked about. We're focused on taking that excess free cash flow above our planning prices and put it to debt for the foreseeable future. I think you also have to take into account some of the spot market pricing out there. If you wanted to make that decision, it is a very different price point. It's sort of a step change, certainly from where we are. So maintaining that right cost structure, maintaining steady development and maintaining a clear focus on debt reduction is where we are. And with better prices, we'll just take that extra cash flow, benefit from the pricing that we've sort of locked in here and take the benefit there. But on the hedging side, I want to turn it back to Kevin. He can talk a little bit about how we've approached the market over the last few weeks and how we'll look at it going forward.

Yeah, I think over the past couple of weeks, we've taken advantage to layer on probably some basics layer of hedges as insurance, kind of protecting that $70 floor in 2023. And really, those are light ads, and that's kind of an early look. Certainly, the movement in the price curve today has had discussions around the floors here early on and seeing if there's a chance to take advantage of some movements in the price there as well. I would remind you that as the financial position and balance sheet continue to improve, you'll probably see overall a lesser percentage of production edge as our balance sheet is able to carry through some of these cycles.

Great details. Thank you all. Thanks, Dale.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Philip Johnson with Capital One. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks. Question for Kevin on cash taxes. Obviously, you guys aren't expecting to be a cash taxpayer this year, but if prices remain strong, when do you think you might become a cash taxpayer?

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think at even price levels like this, it's still out beyond our medium-term forecast. Okay.

Sounds good. And then, I appreciate all the details on the year-end reserves. I'm wondering what kind of next 12-month PDP decline rate for both oil and gas is embedded in the numbers and maybe how those decline rates have changed kind of versus what was assumed in your year-end 20 reserve report.

Yeah.

Jeff, you want to?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're kind of in the mid-30s. relative to the PDP decline rate, and it stayed relatively flat, which is a little hook and crook, because when we brought in some additional assets, such as the Eagleford, which tends to have a little bit of a more mature profile, versus, say, some of the higher initial decline rates from some of the Delaware Basin new wells and those kinds of things, it's modestly, coincidentally stayed in the same arena. So, from a PDP basis, we see relatively consistent overall decline rates from 2021 through 2022. And of course, there'll be some fluctuations with that. But the reserve picture remains extremely robust. And when you glue that next door to the overall inventory that Calend has, it's an outstanding value proposition.

Okay, great. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Joe Gatto for closing remarks.

Thanks again for everyone for joining the call and your continued interest in Cal and everything that we've done this year and certainly what we expect to do going forward. We'll look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.