Advantage Energy Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Advantage Energy Ltd. Q2 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, July 31, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Bagnell, Vice President. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joelle, and welcome everyone to today's conference call to discuss Advantage's second quarter 2026 results. Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that our remarks today will include forward-looking information and references to specified financial measures. Advisories on those items are contained in our news release, MD&A, and annual information form, which are available on our website and on CDAR+. I'm joined today by Advantage's executive team, including John Festival, Advantages Interim CEO, and Craig Blackwood, our CFO. As usual, if you have detailed modeling questions, we'd ask that you follow up with us individually after the call. And with that, I'll turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Brian, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Now, having recently stepped into the role of CEO on an interim basis, my focus today is to give you a broader perspective on the quarter and the direction of the business and the team through this transition period. So Advantage achieved several significant milestones during the second quarter. We completed our 21-day turnaround at the Glacier gas plant, and this was a major operation. There were more than 500 individuals on the Glacier plant site at points during this turnaround. I'd really like to thank the Advantage team and our contractors for completing this important project safely and on time. We also completed and commissioned the Progress gas plant. We moved past these major infrastructure phase embedded in our three-year plan. And we did all of this while keeping a resilient balance sheet in a capital-intensive first half of the year and even in a weak natural gas environment. So completion of the Progress gas plant has several significant benefits for Advantage. Our corporate production exited the second quarter at approximately 90,000 BWE per day, and it's a new record for Advantage. It unlocks opportunities to develop liquids-rich Montney and Charlie Lake opportunities in the region surrounding the Progress gas plant. It also reduces our reliance on third-party processing and increases the utilization of our owned and operated infrastructure and reducing our operating costs per BOE. Now with these major milestones behind us, we are entering a period of lower capital intensity and greater flexibility in capital allocation. And our focus has turned towards maximizing free cash flow generation and directing those returns to shareholders. Now, Craig's going to walk you through our quarter in a little more detail. Craig, over to you.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, I'll highlight all the financial and operating information that I will discuss is for Advantage Energy only and excludes Entropy, Inc. So, starting with the financial aspects of the quarter, Adjusted Funds Flow was $88.8 million, or that's 53 cents per share. Net capital expenditures were $88.8 million in the quarter, and we've now executed over 70% of our 2026 program. This is important because the first half carried the heavier capital load. The second half will be materially lighter, which supports our transition into higher free cash flow generation for the remainder of this year and into 2027. As expected, net debt has been substantially flat during the first half of 26 and ended the quarter at $560.2 million. That's pretty notable given the large capital program, the planned downtime at Glacier, as well as the weak natural gas prices. Moving on to operations, production averaged 70,611 BLE per day in the quarter, down as expected from the first quarter due to our planned 21-day turnaround at the Glacier gas plant. The liquids side of the business continued to perform well, averaging 12,650 barrels per day, up 4% from Q1. Liquids actually represented 18% of our production during the second quarter and generated 67% of our total sales. With the Progress gas plant completed and the glacier turnaround concluded, As John mentioned, we exited Q2 at approximately 90,000 BOEs per day, and we expect to maintain that production level through to the end of 2027, of course, within normal operating variability around that level. With such major investments in infrastructure complete, we expect to see operating costs approximately, let's say, $5 per BOE in the second half of 2026, so we see ourselves trending to the lower end of our full-year guidance The Progress gas plant is important for our liquids development. It opens up drilling opportunities that didn't exist beforehand, most notably at our liquids-rich Valhalla and Progress plates. In fact, at Valhalla, we just brought on a new three-well montane pad on production in the second quarter that delivered average per-well IP30 rates of 1,375 BOE per day, and that was about 44% liquids, which is an outstanding result. and in progress, we just recently split a two-well pad offset in our initial 16 to 36 discovery well, which had very strong oil-weighted production. Glacier continues to be an outstanding asset. Nine wells have been brought on production so far in 2026, achieving average peak IP30 rates of 16.4 million cubic feet per day of raw and natural gas. At Wembley, a three-well pad is currently being completed and will be brought on production in the third quarter. Turning to Entropy, it was also a very active quarter for them as well, completing and commissioning the Glacier CCS Phase II project concurrent with our turnaround. This project will substantially decarbonize the Glacier facility and will contribute to Entropy's operating income with project funding provided by Entropy's investment partners and not Advantage. Hedging and market diversification continue to be an important part of our strategy. For the second half of 2026, we've hedged approximately 48% of our forecast natural gas production and 43% of our forecast crude oil and NGL production. For 2027, we've also hedged approximately 34% of forecast natural gas production and 26% of forecast crude oil and NGL production. That basically leaves us with direct APO exposure for the just 12%. And for 2027, we have a co-exposure of about 16%. We also continue to proactively layer in hedges extending right through to 2029. Lastly, during the second quarter, we also transitioned to a new covenant-based credit facility. Boring capacity remains at 650 million, but now in a three-year facility that extends to June 2029. that CILI provides a more flexible financial financing platform, including lower borrowing costs relative to our prior reserve-based structure. From our perspective, this is a great reflection on the increased scale, financial strength, and sustainability of our business, and we thank our banking syndicate for their continued support and confidence. With that, I'm going to turn it back over to John, and thank you.

Thank you, Craig. With our heaviest period of capital spending now behind us, we expect the business to generate strong free cash flow for the second half of 2026 and into 2027. So based on current commodity pricing, we expect to reach the net debt target range of $400 million to $500 million in the second half of 2026, while repurchasing up to 5% of our shares outstanding. Share buybacks are going to be our main vehicle for shareholder returns while our shares are trading below intrinsic value. But before completing the call, I want to comment briefly on the leadership and the broader organization. The board has begun a formal CEO search process, and the objective is straightforward. We want to identify the best qualified individuals that lead Advantage into the future. That process is being approached thoughtfully and deliberately. with the goal of ensuring the company continues to build on the strong foundation already in place. So since stepping into the CEO role over the last few months, I really have been impressed by the quality and discipline and depth of the Advantage team. Over the last few years, you've seen the results from our Montney operations, and you can also concur that we have done well in those technical areas. This is a highly capable organization. The company has a strong technical, financial, operational and commercial team. Obviously a high quality asset base and a clear capital allocation framework to deliver shareholder returns into the future. So the team has not missed a beat through this period of leadership transition. They continue to execute a very active capital program and I would like to thank our employees, contractors, board and shareholders for their continued support. With that, I'm going to turn the call back over to Brian. Thank you, John.

That concludes our prepared remarks. And Joelle, would you please open the lines for any questions? Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the hands up before pressing any keys. Your first question comes from Jamie Kubik with CIBC. Your line is now open.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'm just curious on the liquid rates in the quarter. How repeatable is the oil rate that you guys put up this quarter into the next several quarters and and how is your drilling mix adapting to the current commodity environment? Thanks.

Thanks, Jamie. It's Neil Bokenfohr here.

Our corporate philosophy on liquids is we think we can maintain a flat production. About 60% of our remaining capital for the balance of the year is oil weighted. Anything that's being spent on gas is basically completing wells that have been drilled already. Our program is weighted towards liquid in the second half. We'll bring on a three-well Wimbley pad in Q3. We also have our Progress Drilling, which is a two-well pad offsetting our new Progress 421 gas plan. That's a liquid-weighting opportunity as well.

We're optimistic and confident that we can maintain liquids through the second half of the year.

Thank you, Jamie.

We can direct Charter Lake, Montney assets into that gas plant. We actually have a tiny little bit of white space in it for liquid growth and gas growth over the balance of the year. So our interconnectivity between our infrastructure allows us a lot of flexibility on capital rotation and where we position wells.

Okay, that's it for me. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you have a question, please press star 1.

We do have one question on the webcast that I'll read out. It's from Kevin Little at Macquarie. The question is, how do you think that production will trend in 2028? Will you continue with 5% to 10% annual growth expectations? And at what price would it take to restart development in Northeast BC in the Caribou plant area, that's the Conroy area? I'll just make a comment that, as you know, we are holding flat at roughly 90,000 BUEs a day through at least the end of 2027. Our current three-year plan only goes until the end of 2027, so we're in the process now, we're beginning the process of considering our next three years, which would be 2027 through 2029. And as you know, we have a very deep set of opportunities for development in our portfolio. It will take some time to evaluate where we want to go with that, whether more in a liquids direction or in Northeast BC. That would be maybe in a more gas-focused direction, but no plans at the moment. And we'll do our work. And when it comes to the price, I would say we need to complete our work, but our estimate would be somewhat higher than what we see in the current forward strip.

Maybe just Craig here, in terms of the 5% to 10% production growth, as Brian said, we have a deep inventory. That being said, we're also about delivering returns to shareholders. We will evaluate what we see. We will watch what happens with commodity price. And if it makes sense, we can grow. If it doesn't make sense, then we will buy back shares depending on our share price as well. So we're about delivering returns. We are not about delivering production.

Thank you, Kevin. Joelle, I'll pass it back to you for one last check on the phone lines. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star one. There are no questions at this time.

I'll turn it back to Brian for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everybody, for joining the call.

Have a good long weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.