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Amplify Energy Corp. (AMPY)

Q4 2024 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 6, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Amplify Energy's Fourth Quarter 2024 Investor Conference Call. Amplify's operating and financial results were released yesterday after market close on March 5, 2025, and are available on Amplify's website at www.amplifyenergy.com. During this conference call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Today's call is being recorded. A replay of the call will be accessible until March 20, 2025, by dialing (800) 654-1563, and then entering access code 71724906. A transcript and a recorded replay of the call will also be available on our website after the call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jim Frew, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Amplify Energy Corp.

Jim Frew

Management

Good morning, and welcome to the Amplify Energy conference call to discuss operating and financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024. Before we get started, we would like to remind you that some of our remarks may contain forward-looking statements, which reflect management's current views of future events and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, expectations and assumptions. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that such expectations will prove to be correct and undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this earnings call. Please refer to our press release and SEC filings for a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements made during this call. In addition, the unaudited financial information that will be highlighted here is derived from our internal financial books, records and reports. For additional detailed disclosure, we encourage you to read our Form 10-K, which was filed yesterday afternoon and our definitive proxy statement regarding the Juniper acquisition, which was filed on March 4, 2025. Also, non-GAAP financial measures may be disclosed during this call. Reconciliations of those measures to comparable GAAP measures may be found in our earnings release or on our website at www.amplifyenergy.com. During the call, Martyn Willsher, Amplify's President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide an update regarding our strategic initiatives, including our announced transaction with Juniper, two recent deals in East Texas and an overview of our activities at Beta. Next, Dan Furbee, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, will provide an overview of fourth quarter operational performance and provide a preview of 2025 activities. Following that, I will discuss fourth quarter financial results, provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity and provide additional details on our hedge book. Finally, Martyn will provide final thoughts before opening the call up for questions. With that, I will hand it over to Martyn.

Martyn Willsher

Management

Thank you, Jim. I'd like to start with an update on our recently announced transaction with certain portfolio companies of Juniper Capital, discuss our recent Haynesville transactions in East Texas and provide an update on our key development activity at Beta. On January 15, 2025, Amplify announced that it entered into a definitive merger agreement with privately held Juniper Capital to combine with certain of its portfolio companies owning oil-weighted assets and leasehold interest in the DJ and Powder River Basins. We're extremely excited about this deal and believe it is an important step in our strategic development. The deal provides numerous benefits to the organization by increasing our scale and operating margins, expanding our inventory of attractive drilling locations and providing us with a new core area for potential M&A activity. In regards to scale and upside, using flat pricing of $70 per barrel for oil and $3.50 for natural gas, year-end 2024 proved developed reserves for these assets are 18 million barrels of oil equivalent with a PV-10 value of approximately $335 million and total proved reserves are 50 million barrels of oil equivalent with a combined PV-10 value of $614 million. Amplify believes there is additional upside potential on the expansive acreage position, which is comprised of approximately 287,000 net acres and adjacent to some of the largest publicly traded US oil companies. The Juniper transaction is also expected to provide substantial synergies from an overhead and tax perspective with an expected G&A increase of approximately $1 million versus $7 million to $8 million for the existing portfolio companies and tax synergies from the stepped-up tax basis of the acquired companies. With the combined impact of the asset cash flows and deal synergies, we expect the transaction to be significantly accretive to free cash flow in 2025…

Dan Furbee

Management

Thank you, Martyn. During the fourth quarter of 2024, average daily production was approximately 18.5 MBoe per day, a decrease of 0.5 MBoe per day from the prior quarter. Production was impacted primarily by gas volumes, mostly in East Texas due to purchaser interruptions and residue gas realizations after processing, which resulted in higher NGL realizations as a percentage of our total production. Oil volumes were incrementally higher from the previous quarter despite platform shutdowns at Beta early in the quarter following the completion of the emission reduction and electrification facility projects. And 10 ESP failures in the fourth quarter at Beta, which significantly impacted our base production. The multiyear electrification and emissions reduction project has now been completed, and all of the failed wells have had ESPs replaced by the end of January 2025, and we are projecting beta production to be significantly higher in the fourth quarter for the impact of the 2025 drilling program. As of March 2, 2025, our current seven-day average production rates at Beta was 4,834 gross or 3,635 net barrels of oil per day with minimal contribution from the recently completed C48 well, which we continue to draw down since completing in mid-February. Our current production rates at Beta represent an approximate 9% increase from fourth quarter 2024 volumes. Our production commodity mix for the quarter was 45% oil, 17% NGLs and 38% natural gas. Looking forward to 2025, our production guidance range is 19,000 to 21,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The midpoint of our oil production guidance represents a 7% increase from 2024 oil production driven by our development of Beta, which is projected to more than offset the natural oil decline of our base assets. For the fourth quarter, lease operating expenses were approximately $35.1 million, a $1.8 million…

Jim Frew

Management

Thank you, Dan. I would now like to discuss the following items, fourth quarter financial performance, balance sheet and liquidity and hedging. With respect to fourth quarter financial performance, the company reported a net loss of approximately $7.4 million compared to $22.7 million of net income in the prior quarter. The change was primarily attributable to a noncash unrealized loss on commodity derivatives in the fourth quarter compared to an unrealized gain in the prior quarter. Excluding the impact of unrealized loss on commodity derivatives in addition to other onetime impacts, adjusted net income was $5.1 million for the fourth quarter. For the year, net income was $13 million and adjusted net income was $35.8 million. Adjusted net income was up 48% in 2024 compared to 2023. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $21.8 million, which was slightly below expectations. As Dan mentioned, we had some unexpected downtime at Beta due to increased well failures that reduced production and increased workover costs. However, we now have those wells back online and production has increased. Full year adjusted EBITDA was $103 million, in line with our guidance and up 17% compared to 2023. In total, fourth quarter lease operating expenses were approximately $35.1 million, which was in line with expectations. As I just mentioned, we did have higher LOE at Beta due to an increase in expense workovers. However, that was offset by lower LOE at Bairoil due to a onetime benefit as a result of an accounting adjustment. For the year, total LOE was $143 million or $19.95 per BOE, which was in line with our guidance. With respect to other costs, fourth quarter GPT costs were $4.5 million or $2.62 per BOE, while production taxes were $5.4 million or 8% of oil and gas revenue. Cash G&A in the fourth…

Martyn Willsher

Management

Thank you, Jim. Yesterday, we provided a stand-alone operational and financial guidance for Amplify in 2025. Following the close of the Juniper transaction, we will update guidance for the combined company. As noted in our press release, we have provided additional information about the Juniper assets and our 2025 Beta development plan in our latest investor presentation available on our Investor Relations website. As we look ahead, we are excited about Amplify's future. Amplify remains committed to exploiting the long-term value potential of the Beta field, and we anticipate strong growth for oil production from the area in 2025. This enthusiasm is warranted by the strong results from the A50 and C59 wells, which have breakeven prices below $35 per barrel and compare favorably to the economics of the best oil development plays in the country. The successful closing of the Juniper transaction anticipated in the second quarter will provide substantial benefits to the company and creates the flexibility to consider a range of value-maximizing opportunities for our existing assets. In summary, our team is excited for the opportunities in front of us, and we believe we have all the elements in place to make 2025 a very successful year for the company and its stakeholders. With that, operator, we are now open for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from Jeff Grampp with Alliance Global Partners.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

I want to start first in Beta. I want to dig in on this C-Sand versus D-Sand kind of dynamic with the upcoming well result. Can you give us a little bit of context, I guess, like how much legacy development or production is derived from the C-Sand? How productive is that across the acreage position? And also wondering if we should be adjusting our expectations for well performance at all on this upcoming well relative to the first couple of well results and the type curve data that we have out there? Thanks.

Dan Furbee

Management

Hey, Jeff, this is Dan. C-Sand historical development versus D-Sand. So going back in history, majority of all these wells are drilled in the '80s by Shell, and they were drilled as more or less vertical wells, as we talked about before, cutting through all sands, A through D, even some through A through F and all the production is commingled. So C and D-Sand performance in terms of a stand-alone horizontal well, like we drilled the last 2 D-Sand wells horizontally, not a lot of data to go off of. Our type curves were derived off of volumetrics and some other reservoir calculations. That's how we did the D-Sand. The C-Sand result, we expect good results. The reservoir looks good. Like we said, we completed the well a couple of weeks ago. These wells typically take a couple of weeks. You flow back water for a little while, then you start to see an oil cut and then you draw down the pressure, the oil increases over time. So we're currently drawing down the pressure. We see a good oil cut right now. And in terms of expectation of the C versus the D-Sand, like I said, there's not analog wells to go of a stand-alone C horizontal versus D horizontal either. But the reservoir characteristics of the C versus the D is not as good, but we still expect that the C-Sand will be an attractive target that will yield good results across the field.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

Great. Thanks. That's really helpful. And for my follow-up, for the planned new drills for this year, can you give us a flavor of how much of a step out are these relative to the prior wells we've drilled? Are we going into new fault blocks? Are we just kind of offsetting areas that have been kind of proven already? Or what's kind of the, I guess, risk appetite for offset wells versus kind of jumping into new fault blocks?

Dan Furbee

Management

Yeah. Low risk compared to what we've done so far. The two wells we brought on the D-Sand, A50 and the C59, each of those were drilled in the two main fault blocks we're targeting. So we call it the main fault block and our southern fault block. The first well we're drilling that we're spudding here very soon will be in the same fault block as the C59 and expect to be very low risk in terms of the reservoir and the quality. And then the most are wells in that fault block or what we call the main fault blocks where the A50 is and a lot of well results there as well. So we do not see these as step-outs from what we've done so far.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you, guys, for the details. Appreciate the time.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll move to our next question from Subash Chandra with Benchmark.

Subash Chandra

Analyst · Benchmark.

Is there an oil price where you might review your '25 CapEx plan?

Martyn Willsher

Management

Hey. Good morning, Subash. This is Martyn. I think, obviously, we've seen a lot of volatility in the oil price. I mean, I think six weeks ago, it was north of $75 a barrel, and now it's $66, $67 a barrel. So with our Beta development specifically, I think we're still comfortable in that price range. But obviously, if prices were to continue to go down from a free cash flow management perspective, we'll continue to look at it. And we do have a lot of development this year coming online in both the Eagle Ford and East Texas as well, which is the East Texas is obviously gassier. So we wouldn't anticipate any adjustments on those particular projects. So I think as you get into the second half of the year, you maybe kind of take a look at things if prices really continue to go down. But at present, we're very comfortable with what we have planned, especially with the hedging we have on the oil and gas side for this year.

Subash Chandra

Analyst · Benchmark.

Okay. Yeah. And maybe if -- maybe this is a difficult question to answer, but do you think by the time the deal closes, there's much stub CapEx from the Juniper portfolio? Or do you think their portfolio is more front-end loaded and less in the back half?

Martyn Willsher

Management

So they're currently finishing up the drilling of the two DJ wells that Dan mentioned. I actually expect those -- to be finished drilling this weekend. From there, we expect to complete those on after the merger closes sometime in kind of the second half of the second quarter. From there, we obviously have the flexibility on what we will do for the remainder of 2025 and 2026. Luckily, there's not a lot of near-term lease issues, some things that we want to consider in the DJ specifically. But for the most part, that acreage position is either held by production or long-term leases. So we have a lot of flexibility there in terms of what we would want to do from a drilling perspective. And certainly, we're going to consider that as we put together the plan for the remainder of '25 and/or the plan to kind of get going in '26.

Subash Chandra

Analyst · Benchmark.

Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I guess then finally, the Magnify '25 outlook, that's a stand-alone, not a pro forma outlook. But what do you think the potential is for Magnify with the Juniper assets, if any?

Dan Furbee

Management

It's definitely something we'll start looking at. Right now, our Magnify services are limited to East Texas and Oklahoma. It started in East Texas really as a lot of competition for services with some of the Haynesville activity, especially the Haynesville moving our way. And we found it better to bring some of that stuff in-house. We saw compressor rates going up. We saw swap rates going up, slickline units, all those different items. So we delved into it there. And yes, you're right, we're not expanding beyond Oklahoma and East Texas in our budget currently. But I think this year, we'll take a hard look at the entire Wyoming area we have now with kind of that region being the Powder, DJ, Bairoil asset up there. We kind of have a large aggregate of assets in one area and see something we’re looking at for Magnify.

Subash Chandra

Analyst · Benchmark.

Okay. We'll stay tuned. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back to our presenters for closing remarks.

Martyn Willsher

Management

Great. Thank you. Before I get to my final remarks, I do want to touch on one question I received earlier and make sure that it was -- it's clear. Regarding the A45, we've deferred that from Q4. One of the reasons or the key reason is that our development program this year is going to be eureka weighted. So A45 was drilled off the Ellen platform. And so the next two wells that we'll be drilling in the 2025 are all off Eureka. There is -- it does take a little bit of time and money to switch from Eureka to Ellen. And so the reason why that well, while we went ahead and finished the C48, the A45 will be later in the year because we're going to drill off Eureka for the first, call it, two, three quarters of the year and then move to Ellen later in the year. So that was one clarification I wanted to provide on the ‘25 Beta development program.

Martyn Willsher

Management

With that, I'd just like to express my appreciation to all of our employees for their outstanding efforts and dedication this year as well as the continued support of our stakeholders. We really appreciate you participating in the call today. And as always, if you have follow-up questions, please reach out to us directly. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today's Amplify Energy's investor conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.