11/14/2025

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Freehold Royalty's third quarter 2025 webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, David Spiker, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call with me is Rob King, our COO, Shana Morihera, our CFO, and Todd McBride, our Manager of Investor Relations. So before we get started, I just want to advise everyone that certain statements on this call are considered as forward-looking information. and we caution the listener to review the advisory on forward-looking statements in the news release and MD&A found on our website. So for the quarter, we achieved production of 16,054 BWI a day with a liquid weighting of 65%. This represents a production increase of 10% from Q3 2024, reflecting the contribution from our Permian Basin acquisition in late 2024 in addition to continued drilling activity across our asset base. With the acquisition work, we have shifted to a much more balanced portfolio, where 45% of our production in the first nine months of 2025 is from the US, now representing 53% of our revenue. This is a material shift from the first nine months of 2024, where 36% of our production was in the US. This balanced approach allows us to take advantage of stronger U.S. pricing with a realized oil price of $93.25 a barrel for the first nine months of the year compared to $79.03 a barrel for our Canadian oil. There's a similar story on the natural gas side where U.S. realized pricing was $2.72 at MCF over the same period, twice that of our Canadian gas price of $1.34 at MCF. So the liquids weighted

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

North American portfolio, we're delivering best in class operating margins.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

In Canada, our heavy oil production grew 13% compared to the same quarter last year, as producers continue to actively develop our lands in the manual heavy oil and clear water plays. Drilling activity in Canada picked up after spring breakup with 83 wells drilled this quarter. In addition to the heavy oil drilling, We are seeing an uptick in drilling activity related to the Belly River, Cardium, and the light oil and liquids-rich man-mill section in western Alberta. A number of our operators are having success in these plays with horizontal drilling applications. On the gas side, we see production down 6% compared to the third quarter of 2024, as the weaker gas pricing in Canada, it was $0.63 an MTF ACO in the third quarter, has kept gas-directed drilling rigs on the sidelines. As we head into winter, with a stronger Canadian gas price outlook, we're seeing licensing activity and drilling activity pick up.

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

Drilling activity in our U.S.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

lands continues to be concentrated in the Permian Basin, with 92% of the quarter's activity focused there. Activity has been steady year over year, as our large investment-grade payers, such as ExxonMobil, continue to execute their capital programs. ExxonMobil plans to grow their Permian production from about 1.6 million oil equivalent barrels daily to 2.3 million by 2030. Given Freehold's mineral title position in the Permian, this would reflect approximately 100 BUE per day growth from our ExxonMobil operated lands, which is approximately a 20% increase from our current overall Permian production levels. This quarter, we have four large well paths, 63 growth wells in total on those four paths drilled in the Permian and all currently in various stages of completion. These large paths are operated by investment grade operators and are a good reminder of the scale and scope of drilling and completion operations in the Permian. In the Eagleford Basin, as we've seen in previous years, production was lower quarter over quarter due to timing of drilling activity

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

from our largest payer, ConocoPhillips. The exciting thing that is going on in the U.S.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

right now is that we're seeing considerable infrastructure build out underway to improve gas take-away capacity out of the Permian Basin to feed the rapidly expanding Gulf Coast LNG export capacity and data center growth. Gas production from the Permian is growing at a faster pace than any other U.S. basin with the next phase of pipeline expansion expected to be in service late next year. Freehold has 11 million cubic feet a day of gas production in the U.S. and is well positioned to participate in the ramp-up of gas required to feed LNG demand and the data center power requirements. In support of the strong leasing activity we've seen year to date, particularly in the U.S., we just had a four-well pad permitted on one of those leases targeting the deeper Barnett Shale and the Permian, as operators continue to look to unlock the multiple reservoir benches in this resource-rich basin. Both sides of the border, we're seeing operators focusing on optimizing well placement in the reservoir, advancing drilling efficiencies and lateral lengths, and enhancing completion designs. We continue to see a shift to longer horizontal wells in the U.S., with our average horizontal well length increasing 12% year over year. In 2025, almost 40% of the wells drilled on freehold lands in the Midland Basin are three miles or longer compared to only 30% in 2024. These continued improvements in accessing the reservoir have resulted in a 15% improvement on average production rates when compared to last year's averages. Similarly in Canada,

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

Average wealth performance is up 25% compared to 2024 across our lands.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

So turning to our financial results, we generated $59 million of funds from operations in Q3 2025, or $0.36 a share. With this funds flow, we paid $44 million in dividends to our shareholders. We reduced our long-term debt by $9 million. and we invested $5.8 million in acquisitions focused on purchasing undeveloped lands in the Permian Basin and select Western Canadian operating areas. Freehold continues to advance its ground game strategy of acquiring mineral title lands in the US ahead of the drill bit. This approach enables us to acquire lands that are held in perpetuity in areas that have significant undeveloped resource and drilling inventory. On the Canadian side, we continue to partner with talented technical teams to fund their drilling programs in exchange for a royalty and a drilling commitment. So our portfolio offers investors exposure to the premier oil and gas basins across North America, including our growing heavy oil segment in northern Alberta, the lighter oil plays in southeast Saskatchewan, exposure to Gulf Coast pricing with our Eagle Ford assets, and a growing light oil and natural gas production contribution from the Permian. Our U.S. portfolio is driving 33% higher pricing when compared to our G and asset base, benefiting from light sweet oil production, close to markets, and strong U.S. natural gas pricing, supported by the aforementioned LNG build-out and growing demand for natural gas fire power generation to feed data centers. We continue to deliver a monthly dividend of $0.09 per share, with a payout ratio of 72% through the first nine months of 2025, and sustainable to prolonged U.S. $50 WTI price levels.

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

So with that, we're pleased to take your questions. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Certainly. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again, and please stand by while we compile our Q&A roster. Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And I have a question. Our first question will be coming from Jamie Kubik of CIBC. Your line is open, Jamie.

speaker
Jamie Kubik
Analyst, CIBC

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question for your team. I just had a couple of questions for you on the U.S. business. It looked like net drilling was down year on year despite the increase in asset heft, I suppose, after the acquisition that you completed last year. Can you just talk about some of the nuances in that? And then can you also talk about the NGL volumes in the U.S., what you're seeing on that side, it looked like a pretty big number again this quarter.

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

Thanks. Hey Jamie, it's Rob here.

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

I'll answer the first part and Shane will answer the second part. So on our U.S. drilling in Q3, I think a lot of it was probably more related to our Eagleford asset. When we look at our Permian drilling, which was clearly the you know, the key focus of our acquisition activity in 2024, you know, that we've sort of, you know, certainly seen the expectation, you know, in the drilling results sort of in line with, say, what our expectations were. You know, on the Eagleford side, that's probably more of a timing, you know, issue that we've observed with our key payer in the Eagleford being ConocoPhillips. And that activity that we expected to see in Q3 looks like it's been pushed into Q4. And then on the NGL question, Shana's going to touch on that.

speaker
Shana Morihera
Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Jamie. It's Shana. So just a little more color around the NGL volumes that we are seeing. So we have seen an increase in the NGL yields that we're recognizing on some of those 2024 acquisitions. The challenge is the timing of when we get recognized by some of our operators for those assets. So there is a bit of a lag there. in the US compared to what we would see here in Canada. So we did have some adjustments that came through tied to those higher NGL yields. We're not expecting that to continue going forward as we trued up a lot of those balances in the third quarter.

speaker
Jamie Kubik
Analyst, CIBC

Okay, thank you. And then maybe a bit of a different question here, but can you just talk about the capacity increase in your credit facility what you look to do with the increased capacity and how you're thinking about capital allocation here.

speaker
Shana Morihera
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks. Sure. So I can take that one, Jamie. So yes, we did increase our existing credit facility to $500 million from $450 million just to provide greater financial flexibility. We still plan to live within cash flow, but I think having that extra capacity makes sense for pre-holds. We also extended the credit facility by a year to a tenure to November of 2028. So feel that it gives us options. And as I said, that additional kind of financial flexibility going forward.

speaker
Jamie Kubik
Analyst, CIBC

OK, thank you. And then maybe last one from me is just on the NCIB. Didn't see any activity from freehold in the quarter. How are you thinking about that capital allocation option going ahead?

speaker
Shana Morihera
Chief Financial Officer

Sure, I could take that one as well. So I think first and foremost, you know, we remain committed to our current dividend. And so we see that as being sustainable kind of through a prolonged US $50 barrel environment. So with the lower commodity prices, we have increased our payout ratio. So sitting around 72% year to date. So that does exceed our target dividend payout ratio of 60%. However, we still believe kind of under mid-cycle pricing, 60% remains competitive. So in terms of alternate uses of capital for the available funds from operations, we continue to be excited about our Permian ground game and other Canadian opportunities where we can get kind of high T and low 20 returns. So in terms of the NCIB, you know, it continues to remain in place as an option, but You know, it is a tool available to us, not something we've initiated on at this point.

speaker
Rob King
Chief Operating Officer

Okay. Thanks for the call. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

And I'm sure no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back to Dave for closing remarks.

speaker
David Spiker
President and CEO

Okay. Well, thank you all for joining our call today and allowing us to share with your enthusiasm for business and all the things that we have going on in our business today. So thanks again and have a good weekend.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

And this concludes today's program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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