MEG Energy Corp.

Good morning. My name is Vincent, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the MEG Energy's 2025 Q1 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on me 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, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw a question, please press the star followed by two. Thank you. Mrs. Dora-Lean Gates, CEO, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Vincent. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review MEG Energy's first quarter 2025 financial and operating results. I'm joined this morning by members of our senior management team, Brian Kubik, our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Gere, our Senior Vice President of Oil Sands, Eric Olson, our Senior Vice President of Marketing, and Lyle Udebski, our Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Legal. I'll begin the call with opening remarks and an update on our first quarter business performance, and then I'll hand it over to Ryan for discussion of our financial results. I'll conclude with comments on the business environment and our outlook for the remainder of 2025 before taking your questions. MAKE had a strong start to 2025. Our strategy of sustainably growing capital returns has led to a 24% increase in funds from operations per share in the first quarter. After funding capital expenditures, strong bitumen production and pricing, we generated $223 million of free cash flow during the quarter allowing us to deliver $185 million of capital to our shareholders. The work we've done over the past few years establishes a strong financial foundation and lays the groundwork for the next phase of production growth. MEG remains in an enviable position to deliver substantial growth in free cash flow per share, even through uncertain commodity price environments. With oil prices under pressure, we remain focused on maintaining flexibility and discipline. Our low break-even price ensures we are well positioned, and we have the ability to adjust spending as needed. We'll continue to balance capital allocation between prudent investments in our business, share buybacks, and dividends to deliver long-term value to shareholders throughout the commodity price cycle. In the first quarter, Edmonton WTI to WCS differentials tightened to $12.67 per barrel from $19.31 in the first quarter of 2024. This represents a 34% improvement. Our realized bitumen price benefited from our strategy of diverse market access and tight differentials in all of MEG's market areas, which reflect continued strength in global heavy crude demand. Production was 103,224 barrels per day, consistent with our guidance, and delivered at a steam to oil ratio of 2.28. Production increased 3% versus the prior quarter, driven by the successful ramp up of our newest well pad. Strong performance from this new pad contributed to a 5% reduction in steam to oil ratio compared to the prior quarter, Again, validating both our high-quality resource and enhanced well-designed. Work on our facility expansion project also continued in the first quarter. Engineering and procurement work are well underway, and early construction activities have been kicked off in the field. The project delivers attractive internal rates of return across a range of commodity price scenarios, underscoring its robustness even in today's volatile market conditions. It also provides us with the necessary flexibility and optionality to manage our operating and spending plans in a dynamic market environment. Looking ahead, our 2025 production, capital, and operating guidance remains unchanged. We are currently focused on our second quarter turnaround, which commenced April 24th, and I'm pleased to share the team has communicated going well and remains in line with our expectations. Prior to ramp down, April month-to-date production averaged over 107,000 barrels per day, which highlights the continued performance of our latest well pads and positions us to deliver on a strong second half of 2025. I am very proud of our team and the work they do every day to deliver our operations and project activities safely and efficiently. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ryan to provide more details on our financial results.

Thanks, Darlene. May's first quarter operating expenses, net of power revenue, continue to be strong at $7.90 per barrel, including non-energy operating costs of $5.84 per barrel. Process trading costs increased as expected with the start-up of our most recent well patch, and non-energy operating costs will decline into our guidance range as production rises following our Q2 turnaround. Capital expenditures in the first quarter increased to $157 million from $112 million in Q1 of last year, primarily reflecting facility infrastructure costs and investments in our facility expansion project. In Q1, we generated $380 million of funds from operations, an increase of 15% from the first quarter of 2024. This cash flow provides the ability to sustain our business while maintaining a strong balance sheet and paying a sustainable dividend and buying back shares. Thanks to those disciplined share buybacks, we delivered a 24% increase in funds from operations per share. as we reduce the weighted average number of shares outstanding. This approach shows the benefits of leveraging our operating results by returning cash to shareholders, and this quarter we continued with that strategy. Free cash flow after all sustaining and growth investments was $223 million, and during the quarter we returned $185 million to shareholders with $159 million in buybacks and $26 million in dividends. Those share repurchases equate to approximately 3% of our outstanding balance at the start of the year. Our commitment to shareholder returns continues and May's Board of Directors has declared our next quarterly dividend of 10 cents per share for payments on July 15th, 2025. Thanks, and with that, I'm going to turn the call back over to Darlene for closing comments.