2/10/2026

speaker
Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Prairie Sky Royalty Limited fourth quarter and year-end 2025 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in 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 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host So Andrew Pills, Dressen and CEO, please go ahead, sir.

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for dialing into the Prairie Sky year-end 2025 conference call. On the call from PSK are Pam Cazale, CFO, Dan Bertram, CCO, and Mike Murphy, VP Geosciences and Capital Markets, as well as myself, Andrew Phillips. Before we begin, there's certain forward-looking information and statements in our commentary today, so I would ask listeners and investors to review the forward-looking statements qualifier in our press release in MD&A, which can be found on our website. 2025 was a successful year for PSK on all fronts. We achieved 6% oil growth over the year, reaching a record 13,940 royalty oil barrels per day. We expect further records in 2026. Our PDP reserves grew alongside our oil production at over 7% year over year. Leasing activity remained robust. The company entered into 189 lease arrangements with 90 distinct counterparties. Leasing continues this year at a similar pace. On the capital allocation front, we executed on $100 million of acquisitions with excellent projected returns. In addition, we canceled 2.6% of the outstanding shares of Prairie Sky while paying $243.4 million in dividends. Looking into 2026, the team will continue to focus on leasing our leading undeveloped land base to qualified counterparties across the basin. Over the year, numerous discoveries and pool extensions were found across our extensive portfolio with decades of remaining inventory on some of North America's most economic plays. With 98% operating margins and unmatched duration, we're in a position to provide strong returns to our owners in the coming years. We're pleased to announce that 2% increase to our annual dividend to $1.06 per share per year, and our first quarterly dividend will be $0.265, effective March 31, 2026. I will now turn the call over to Mike to further discuss activity on our lands.

speaker
Mike Murphy
Vice President, Geosciences and Capital Markets

Thanks, Andrew. 2025 drilling activity was strong for Prairie Sky, with an estimated $2 billion of gross third-party capital spent on our lands. This represents an estimated 8.3% of total industry conventional capex in the basin, and this is up from 6.9% in 2024. Activity was especially strong in our key oil growth plays, including Clearwater Spuds up 9% year-over-year, Mandelstack up 11%, and Duvernay up 67%. Multilaterals continue to drive increased productivity per well, with 80 multi-lad spot in Q4 and 285 spot in all of 2025, representing 40% of all drilling activity on PSK lands, up from 36% in 2024. We now estimate half of our Clearwater volumes are underwater flood support, providing for a highly sustainable, low decline production base. Improved recovery contributed to a 42% increase in Clearwater 2P reserve volumes year over year. Clearwater Royalty Oil production has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 20% since 2022, and we expect double digit growth from the play again in 2026. In the Duvernay, Royalty production increased 90% year over year, with growth primarily attributed to activity in the West Shale Basin. With sizable third party operator budgets in this part of the play this year, we expect the Duvernay to once again represent the fastest growing play for Prairie Sky in 2026. I'll pass it over to Pam to discuss the financials.

speaker
Pam Cazale
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Prairie Skies 2025 oil royalty production reached a record annual average of 13,940 barrels per day, a 6% increase over 2024, with Q4 volumes averaging 13,750 barrels per day. Growth in oil royalty production was focused in the Clearwater, Mandelstack, and Duvernay oil plays, which now represent 29% of our oil royalty production. up from 25% in the prior year. We also achieved 17% growth in NGL royalty production in Q4, with production averaging 2,915 barrels per day. This growth was driven by Duvernay and Montigny volumes and positively impacted our NGL-realized pricing as pentanes and condensate made up approximately 35%, or over 1,000 barrels per day of these volumes. With a strong fourth quarter, NGL royalty production grew 5% year-over-year, Total royalty production was 64% liquids for the year. Royalty revenue totaled $102.9 million in the quarter and $441.7 million for the year, which was 94% liquids. Other revenues added an incremental $8.8 million in the quarter and $36.5 million for the year, driven by bonus consideration of $22.6 million. During the quarter, Prairie Sky settled the deferred share units for directors who retired last year of $7.2 million. Directors had until December 15, 2025 to exercise their DSUs. Funds from operations totaled $80.5 million or $0.35 per share in the quarter and $353 million or $1.50 per share for 2025. Looking forward, Prairie Sky's 2026 annual pricing sensitivities, which are all net of G&A and taxes, are as follows. A $5 per barrel change in US dollar WTI would increase or decrease funds from operations approximately $24.5 million. A $1 US change in the light or heavy oil differential will increase or decrease funds from operations approximately $5.5 million. A $0.25 per MCF change in ACO would increase or decrease funds from operations approximately $4 million. And a one cent change in the U.S. to Canadian FX rate would increase or decrease funds from operations approximately $4 million. Entering 2026, we have tax pools of $1.18 billion to shelter future taxability at approximately 10% per year. This means that in 2026, the first $118 million of cash flow is tax-free, with incremental cash flow tax at 23.5%. We've prepared our 2025 U.S. tax information, and our 2025 dividends will be a 44% return of capital for U.S. investors. This information can be found on our website. We will now turn it over to the moderator to proceed with the Q&A.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question at this time, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To try a question, simply press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question coming from the line of Michael Harvey with RBC Capital Markets.

speaker
Michael Harvey
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Yeah, sure. Good morning, guys. Just a couple of quick ones. First, on the West Shale DuVernay, volumes almost doubled this year. It looks like this year you could be in a position where you kind of get broadly similar growth percentage-wise numbers. Just wondering if you would generally agree with that or take another view. And then second, On the return of capital program, maybe just remind us the philosophy on the buyback. How sensitive is it to your share price, or is it just more of a sweep if there's looking to be excess cash at the end of a particular quarter?

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Yeah, good morning, Mike, and thanks for the questions. Yeah, on the Duvernay, we don't obviously provide specific guidance for plays or guidance in general, but there will be strong growth associated with the Duvernay. I think one of the things you'll see is a little bit more volatility in terms of In terms of the actual production volumes, given that like in Q3, we saw a substantial pad that came on and we had a big, big bump in our volumes. So, but I think overall, over the years, you'll get some significant growth out of that. I don't know that it'll be just under 100% growth this year. but it will be very strong growth. And it really depends on when those volumes actually come on, how they're staggered throughout the year. And then on the return to capital, we obviously have the dividend, which we increased a couple percent. And then on the buyback, we will buy back stock this year. We have a buyback in place currently. And when we think about the business and we look at kind of terminal values, et cetera, we come to a share price that's a multiple of our current share price. So we believe there's good value anywhere in these ranges. So we will be active buying back shares when we come out of blackout. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks. Have a great day.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Our next question, coming from the line of Jamie Kumick with CIBC, your line is now open.

speaker
Jamie Kumick
Analyst, CIBC

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Can you just talk a little bit about the the trend that we saw in the quarter with respect to oil volumes checking back a little bit and how we should think about the profile for Prairie Sky in 2026. And then lastly, can you just talk a little bit about the average royalty rate being drilled in the profile right now and what that might mean for 2026 and onwards? Thanks.

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Yeah, you bet, Jamie. On the first question on the trending, again, you saw that big pad come on in Q3, so we had a substantial spike in our volumes. And so we're well ahead of our own internal estimates and analyst estimates. And then, of course, those wells come on with a very high decline. So you saw those declines in Q4. We have a number of new pads coming on throughout the year in 2026. So you will see those kind of a little more volatility, I guess, in the volumes. But I think on average, We'll see similar growth rates. So on the trending, I guess that's just one thing to expect. In the past, if you go back three years, you've seen very rateable growth, mostly due to very kind of predictable pads coming on throughout the Clearwater and the Manville stack and at very predictable volumes. And then with the DuVernay adding to that and being a big part of the growth. you get these very substantial volume spikes and then some substantial declines, of course, that come alongside with it. So I think you'll see volatility, but in the end, it's a good news story because it'll smooth out over the year. And then the second question, sorry, what was the second question again?

speaker
Pam Cazale
Chief Financial Officer

On the average royalty rate.

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Oh, yeah. Yeah, on the average royalty rate, it's down like 0.2%, I think, on the well spot in Q4. We do expect some volatility in that as well, but as As per usual, I think it'll kind of average north of 6 throughout the year. We just don't know exactly how that'll come on. It depends on the seasonality of drilling and where those wells are drilled. With some of the longer laterals you're seeing in the Duvernay, they're slightly lower, but again, we have a high royalty rate there, so those should come on at slightly higher royalties. And then the Viking, of course, in Q3 will add to that when they're mostly 17.5% royalties. But again, I think you can expect similar average royalty rates to 2025.

speaker
Jamie Kumick
Analyst, CIBC

Perfect, thanks. And could you also talk a little bit about the outlook perhaps that you might have for the Manville stack and the Basel Quartz for 2026? Obviously good growth in the Duvernay and Clearwater in 2025. Can you just talk a little bit about maybe what has you excited in the Manville stack and Basel Quartz next?

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Yeah, you bet. So in the Manville stack, we were about 200 net royalty barrels in 2022. That's grown all the way to just 1,000 net royalty barrels. We are seeing very robust programs throughout that area from a number of privates, including the lineup in Caltech's trilogy, as well as Canadian National Resources' licensed number of wells on our lands that haven't come on yet. So we are expecting pretty strong growth in the man bill throughout the year. Don't know exactly what that number looks like, but it'll be substantial. And then the basal quartz, for the first time we added it as a segregated play in our corporate presentation. And you can see the volume has been roughly flat. We have done a number of acquisitions just given the really high quality operator that we're dealing with there, as well as the robust economics. And just given the... gas processing plants that they've acquired throughout the area. They have a lot of access capacity now and have a very strong program coming out of breakouts. So we're expecting some pretty strong growth from that play as well. It'll certainly be in the double digits, but don't know exactly what that'll look like. And that's a light oil play with liquid surge gas. So that's a play that we think will show growth over the next five years.

speaker
Jamie Kumick
Analyst, CIBC

Okay, thanks for the color. That's all for me. Thank you.

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Appreciate the questions, Jamie.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And I'm showing over the questions in queue at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Andrew Phillips for any closing remarks.

speaker
Andrew Phillips
President & CEO

Thank you very much, everyone, for dialing into the Prairie Sky year-end and conference call, and please feel free to call Pam, Mike, or myself with any questions you have, and have a great day.

speaker
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and 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.

-

-