W&T Offshore, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the W&T Offshore first quarter 2021 conference call. During today's call, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the company's prepared comments, the call will be open for questions and answers. During the question and answer session, we ask that you limit your questions to one and a follow-up. You can always rejoin the queue. This conference is being recorded and a replay will be made available on the company's website following the call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Al Petrie, Investor Relations Coordinator.

Thank you, Eileen. And on behalf of the management team, I would like to welcome all of you to today's conference call to review W&T Offshore's first quarter 2021 financial and operational results. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our comments may include forward-looking statements. It should be noted that a variety of factors could cause W&T's actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. Today's call may also contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the first quarter 2021 earnings release that we issued yesterday for disclosures on forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Tracy Crone, our Chairman and CEO.

Thank you, Al. Good day to everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2021 conference call. With me today are Janet Yang, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, William Williford, our Executive Vice President and General Manager, Gulf of Mexico, Steve Schrader, our Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, and Stuart Opkirchner, our Director of Geosciences. They're available to answer questions later during the call. So 2020 was an extraordinary and difficult year for energy companies, but W&T proactively took measures to reduce our costs and capital spend while we maintained free cash flow generation. Those measures have carried into 2021, and with an improving global outlook, we were able to meaningfully increase our free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter. Operationally, we performed quite well. We exceeded guidance in several areas. We were above the midpoint in production, below the midpoint in LOE, and below the low end of guidance for G&A. As we look to the remainder of 2021, under the strengthening commodity price conditions, we are forecasting strong free cash flow generation, and we will continue to evaluate additional accretive acquisitions and opportunistically pay down debt. Our focus remains on operational excellence and free cash flow generation. This means that we will continue to take a measured approach to drilling while funding our capital expenditures with available cash and cash generated from operations. We expect to use our dry powder for acquisitions. We do have significant flexibility to adjust our capital spending up or down at any time since we have no long-term rig contract commitments or drilling obligations. Our lower production decline profile allows for reductions in capital expenditures without significantly impacting near-term production levels. In the first quarter of 2021, we spent just $1.6 million of our $30 to $60 million 2021 capital budget. As we mentioned in our year-end call, our 2021 capital program is weighted toward the second half of the year, and the corresponding production uplift will be more impactful in 2022. Turning to our operational and financial results, we had good results in the first quarter of 2021 as we have expanded margins and operated efficiently in an improved commodity price environment. We saw significant increases in our free cash flow and generated $40 million in free cash flow for the first quarter of 2021. That's a 182% increase over the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was higher by 63% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 and totaled $57.6 million in the first quarter of 2021. This was due to higher commodity prices and increased production volumes. We reported a small net loss of $0.7 million, or penny a share, but excluding primarily a $16.3 million unrealized commodity derivative loss, our adjusted net income was $15.9 million, or 11 cents per share. So turning to production, for the first quarter of 2021, W&T produced 39,657 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or 3.6 million barrels of oil equivalent, That's an increase of 4% compared to 38,261 barrels of oil equipment per day in the fourth quarter of 2020. Production was above the midpoint of our guidance due to better runtime efficiency despite some February downtime associated with the winter storms. Total liquids production increased slightly to 50% of production in the first quarter of 2021. Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2021, we're forecasting our production to be up modestly from the first quarter and average 38,500 to 42,500 barrels of oil equipment per day. Our operations team is doing a good job of maintaining our production despite not having any new wells coming online until late this year. Our full year 2021 production guidance range remains at 38,000 to 42,000 barrels of oil equipment per day. For the first quarter of 2021, our average realized sales price per BOE increased about 35% compared with the fourth quarter of 2020, with meaningful increases in pricing for oil, NGLs, and natural gas. Our first quarter 2021 average realized crude oil sales price increased 32% to $56.73 per barrel from $42.84 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2020. So our NGL sales price was up 47% for the fourth quarter of 2020 to $23.88 per barrel, and our natural gas price was up 27% to $3.35 per MCF. So excluding the effect of hedges, revenue for the first quarter increased quarter over quarter by 33% to $125.6 million, driven by higher realized pricing and increased production. So despite the improved pricing environment, our focus will remain steadfast on capital discipline, operational excellence, and most importantly, free cash flow generation. Now, turning to costs, with the sharp downturn in prices in the first half of 2020, we quickly implemented several successful initiatives to reduce our lease operating expenses. We swapped our higher-cost contract personnel with full-time employees, reduced transportation costs by lowering the number of boats and helicopters needed through operational efficiencies, cut work over and facilities costs through vendor and supplier cost reductions, and increased our focus on projects that maintain and optimize production. We've not reduced our commitment to safety, operational compliance, or environmental protection with any of these actions. Combination of those proactive cost reduction measures along with reduced expenses from certain fields, no longer on production, and fewer facility projects and workovers resulted in LOE in the first quarter of 2021 being at the low end of guidance and down 2% compared to the fourth quarter of last year. G&A was $10.7 million in the first quarter of 2021, which was below the low end of our guidance range due to lower incentive compensation and payroll expenses and the employee retention credit associated with the CARES Act. While we were below our guidance range, G&A costs were up compared to the $7.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, which benefited from a $2.7 million credit related to a settlement with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, referred to as the BESI, that resolved some pending civil penalties issued by that agency. Looking at costs for the balance of 2021, we reduced our full-year G&A guidance of $49 million to $54 million, from $51 million to $56 million, as we continue to focus on cost containment. We did increase our annual LOE guidance to $158 to $174 million, from $153 to $169 million, due to increased vessel-mandated costs, higher hurricane-related repair costs remaining from last year, and costs associated with returning some fields of production that were previously shut in. Additional results on our expense guidance are in the earnings release we issued today. Okay, so turning to the balance sheet, in 2020, we were able to reduce debt considerably and at a significant discount. In the first quarter of 2021, we continued to pay down our debt and increase our liquidity position. We have remained true to our strategic vision that has guided us for nearly 40 years to maximize the value of our premier assets that have strong, stable production and and generate solid free cash flow. We used a portion of our strong free cash flow in 2021 to pay down our credit facility by $32 million in the first quarter. Our revolver balance is now at $48 million. Balance on our senior note stands at $552.5 million, compared with $625 million at year-end 2019. This positive proof that one of the keys of our ongoing success has been our ability to generate positive free cash flow and to use that free cash flow wisely to fund accretive acquisitions and pay down debt. At March 31, 2021, our total liquidity stood at $191 million, comprised of $53.4 million in cash and $137.6 million in availability under our revolving credit facility. Total long-term debt, including $48 million in revolving credit facility borrowings, is $593.8 million. net of unamortized debt issuance costs. In January 2021, W&T's bank group completed its regularly scheduled semiannual borrowing base redetermination, and the borrowing base was set at $190 million. We remain in compliance with all applicable covenants of our credit agreement and the senior second lien notes indentured. We believe we continue to have a strong balance sheet and have more than sufficient liquidity to meet our needs going forward, and we continue to look at good opportunities that may arise. Now, turning to operations during the first quarter of 2021, we performed one workover and one recompletion that in total added approximately 400 net barrels of oil equivalent per day to production. Workovers and recompletions are good near-term projects that help to abate natural declines And we plan to continue to perform them as they are often some of the best economic projects in our portfolio. The successful Cota well that we drilled last year is currently in the development phase of the project and is expected to be on production in late 2021. We've built a tremendous group of assets through organic growth and acquisitions. Despite the higher commodity price environment, we continue to look at acquisitions that meet our criteria. especially those that provide a solid foundation for our ability to generate free cash flow. We've integrated two strong acquisitions over the past 18 months and will look to those types of opportunities moving forward. We believe that market conditions in the Gulf remain very favorable for accretive acquisitions and our improved balance sheet and strong cash flow generation have positioned us to actively pursue these opportunities. Now before I close out the call, I'd like to discuss our inaugural ESG report that we issued last month and is posted on our website that discloses three years of relevant ESG data on the company. Since day one, we've been committed to developing and producing oil and gas resources in a safe and environmentally responsive manner, while meeting or exceeding all regulatory requirements. These core values have guided our success and provided the foundation for W&T to grow into a trusted operator in the Gulf of Mexico, a generous partner to the communities where we operate, and good stewards to the environment. We believe that every employee has a responsibility to ensure that we operate with the highest regards toward ESG, and I believe that success is achieved with empowerment. With that in mind, we've empowered our management to allocate resources and tools necessary to create a working environment focused on accomplishing our ESG objectives. We have a multidisciplinary ESG task force that contributed to creating our initial ESG report. Those folks have the ongoing responsibility to monitor our adherence to our ESG standards and to formally communicate their findings on to me and our board and suggest opportunities for further improvements. We look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress, and we remain committed to empowering America safely and a more sustainable manager for another 40 years. In closing, the rising pricing environment presents many opportunities for W&T. We have a premier portfolio of both shallow water and deep water properties in the Gulf of Mexico with low decline rates and significant upsides. There are many opportunities for acquisitions in our focus area, and we constantly look at any that can meet our stringent criteria. Our disciplined approach to growth has allowed us to navigate many cycles in the past. We remain opportunistic, and we'll look for ways that we can add value to W&T through controlling costs and closely managing our capital spending. We remain focused on generating free cash flow by operating efficiently and executing our long-term strategy to maximize shareholder value. Our management team's interests are highly aligned with those of our shareholders, given our 34% stake in W&T's equity, which is one of the highest of any public E&P company. This alignment of interest ensures that we're truly incentivized to maximize shareholder value and mitigate risk. With that, operator, we can now open the lines for questions.