MEG Energy Corp.

Good morning. My name is Ludi and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the MagEnergy's 2024 Q4 and full year results 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 the star and the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number two. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Mrs. Darlene Gates, President and CEO. You may begin.

Thank you, Ludi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Meg Energy's year-end 2024 financial and operating results. With me on this call this morning are Ryan Kubik, our Chief Financial Officer, Lyle Udebski, our SVP of Legal and Corporate Development, and Eric Olson, our SVP of Marketing. I'd like to remind our listeners that this call contains forward-looking information. Please refer to the advisories in our disclosure documents filed on CDAR Plus and on our website for more of these disclaimers. For full details on our year-end results, please refer to yesterday's press release. 2024 was a significant year for Meg. We proudly celebrated our 25th anniversary. and our continued maturation as a leading pure play thermal oil producer. We are focused on delivering increasing free cash flow per share and sustainable shareholder returns. Thanks to our team's unwavering focus on safety, operational excellence, and disciplined capital allocation, we were able to improve our safety performance, achieve record production, hit our net debt target, institute a quarterly dividend, and sanction our facility expansion project. I now want to touch on some key points that speak to our strong financial and operational performance. In 2024, we generated approximately $1.4 billion in adjusted funds flow and $837 million of free cash flow. This strong cash generation enabled us to fulfill several key commitments to our shareholders, including Balance sheet strength. We reached our U.S. 600 million net debt target following through on a focused multi-year deleveraging strategy that began in 2018. Return of capital. We instituted a sustainable quarterly base dividend of 10 cents per share and repurchased and canceled 17 million shares. Over the last three years, we have returned over $1.3 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. Production growth. We achieved our fourth straight year of record production at just over 102,000 barrels per day, delivered at a steam to oil ratio of 2.39, reflecting strong operational efficiency from our Christina Lake asset. Improved bitumen realization. we benefited from our strategy of maximizing access to tidewater to reach new international customers and improve realized bitumen prices. Heavy oil fundamentals significantly improved through 2024 as the TMX pipeline provided unconstrained egress from the basin. WTI to AWB differentials narrowed to approximately $16 per barrel in 2024, a $5 improvement over 2023. In the fourth quarter specifically, the WTI to WCS discount tightened to $12.56 per barrel from $21.89 in the fourth quarter of 2023. This represented a 43% improvement. These tighter heavy oil differentials and reduced volatility demonstrate the importance of delivering Canada's energy to global markets and its fundamental benefit to Canadian heavy oil pricing. It also highlights why continued discussions surrounding diverse market access for Canadian oil and gas remains important. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Ryan for a discussion of our financial performance.

Thanks, Darlene. MEG generated about $1.4 billion of adjusted funds flow for the year. Continued focus on cost management again yielded excellent results. 2024 operating expenses net of power revenue were top quartile at $6.32 per barrel, including non-energy operating costs of $5.39 per barrel. Capital investment for the year was $548 million. which included the start of our multi-year production growth strategy. After capital expenditures, Meg generated $837 million of free cash flow, enabling us to repay our remaining 2027 notes and repurchase 17 million Meg shares, or about 6% of our 2023 year-end outstanding shares. In total, including $27 million of dividends, we returned $481 million to shareholders in 2024, up from $446 million in 2023. Our share repurchase strategy has also enhanced our per share metrics, delivering a 5% increase in adjusted funds flow per share. In 2025, we expect to deliver strong results. Production guidance is between 95 to 105,000 barrels per day, including the approximate 8,000 barrel per day impact of our second quarter turnaround. Non-energy operating costs are expected to remain highly competitive at between $5.30 to $5.80 per barrel. And capital expenditures are estimated at $635 million. including $130 million associated with our facility expansion project and $70 million for the turnaround. With low leverage and no debt maturities until 2029, we continue our commitment to shareholder returns. And MAG's Board of Directors has declared our next quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share for payment on April 15, 2025. With that, I'm going to turn the call back to Darlene for closing comments.