Glen Warren
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Thank you, Paul. In my comment today, I'll highlight our second quarter financial results. Discuss our capital efficiency gains and touch on AR's continued consolidation success on Appalachia. Let's first discuss some of the key highlights from the quarter. Production average a record 2.2 Bcfe per day for the quarter including a record 103,000 barrels a day of liquids. The liquids production during the quarter consisted of 6,700 barrels a day of oil and over 96,000 barrels a day of NGLs representing a 37% increase in the prior year quarter and a 4% increase sequentially, as we've remained the largest NGL producer in Appalachia. Moving onto financial highlights from the quarter, we generated $321 million in consolidated EBITDAX, a 3% increase from the prior year quarter resulting in an EBITDAX margin of $1.16 per Mcfe. We realized $3.15 per Mcf before hedges on our gas production during the quarter, which was 63% increase compared to the prior year quarter. We realized natural gas hedge gain of $55 million during the quarter or $0.38 per Mcf bringing our after tax or after hedge realized price to $3.53 per Mcf, a $0.35 premium to the average NYMEX Henry Hub price for the quarter. Quarter-after-quarter Antero continues to lead the industry in realized gas pricing before and after hedges. As it relates to liquids, we realized an unhedge oil price of $43.24 per barrel which was only $5 differential to NYMEX WTI for the quarter. The improvement in the realized oil price differential was driven by new contracts weighing into the, to commence on April 1 of this year. we realized an unhedge C3 plus NGL price of $24.14 per barrel during the quarter which represents, a 41% increase from the prior year quarter and 50% of NYMEX WTI. To provide further color, on the capital efficiency gains. I'll point you to Slide number 6 titled capital efficiency dry high growth within cash flow. Before I get into the takeaways from this slide. I will remind everyone that the standalone AR cash flow projections outlined here are all based on Wall Street research estimates as of July 31, 2017 and should not be relied upon as management forecast. With that being said, the key takeaway from the slide is that we expect to be able to grow an attractive 20% to 22% annual production growth rate while essentially spending within upstream cash flow through 2019. Circled in red you can see that the total outspent for 2018 and 2019 is just over $100 million each year only about 5% to 10% of upstream EBITDAX. Again this speaks to the major strides we've made on the operational front over the last couple of years, with our advanced completions and continued operational efficiencies that include drawing longer laterals and reductions in drilling and completion cycle times. Moving onto consolidation activity, which has received a lot more attention lately. We wanted to touch on Antero's continued success. Since the commodity downturn in late 2014, Antero has been a leading consolidated within Appalachia, given our industry leading hedge growth and firm transportation portfolio. Looking at Slide number 7, titled a leading consolidator in Appalachia. You can see that we've added over 111,000 net acres to our core Marcellus and Utica position since the beginning of 2016 including over 20,000 net acres thus far in 2017. In early June 2017, we acquired about 10,300 net Marcellus acres primarily in Doddridge and Wetzel Counties, West Virginia for $130 million. The acquisition included 17 million cubic feet a day equivalent of net production, 15 drilled but uncompleted wells with an average lateral length of 8,200 feet and one drilling pad. And that works out to about 4,000 per undeveloped acres on attractive price force on an undeveloped acreage basis. This was representative many of the consolidation transactions we've completed over the last couple of years. Core infill or bolt-on acreage that's primarily undedicated from a midstream perspective. This particular transaction added 89 undeveloped 3P locations and enhanced 74 existing 3P locations, by incremental working interest and or increased lateral length. The lateral length of the new or identified 3P locations averages 8,700 feet. So another nice pick up for some of the acreage front. What does this continued consolidation activity do for us from a core drilling inventory standpoint? For that I'll refer you to Slide number 8, titled largest core drilling inventory in Appalachia to make a couple of points. First, Antero continues to maintain the largest core drilling inventory in Appalachia with approximately 3,900 undrilled locations, that's up almost 400 locations from year-end 2016. Roughly 72% of these locations are liquids rich and is outlined in the pie chart on the slide. Antero holds about 41% of the undrilled core liquids rich locations in Appalachia. This significant liquids rich inventory has and will continue to enable us to achieve tremendous growth in our liquids production, with significant exposure to liquids pricing upside. It is important to point out, that this is chart is pro forma for all mergers and acquisitions both closed and announced to-date. So despite some large deals announced we did basing this year. Antero still has a sizable leading core undrilled location inventory within Appalachia. And we'll look to opportunistically add to this position overtime. Before I wrap up, I wanted to touch on some of the parse topics that has been notable for certain of our peers lately. At a recent conference we rolled out, our Slide number 9 titled significant value proposition. The idea behind this slide was to provide investors with enough color around the true value of great pieces of Antero story. One reason for some of parts discounts that we see in Appalachia the tax burden of it, sale of midstream security. So we're showing an after-tax value for Antero's 58% ownership at AM, after applying AR's $1.5 billion of NOLs. While we are illustrating the breakdown of the Antero, some of the parts on the slide, we do see a lot of value and integrated story, particularly as we continue to target attractive annual production growth of 20% to 22% through the end of the decade. That being said, you can see in the waterfall that when you consider the after tax AM value of $2.9 billion along with $2 billion hedge booked mark-to-market value. You arrive at implied AR standalone value of about $5.9 billion. With an estimated PDP, PBA value of $4.8 billion and that's in the grey bar there, which includes deducting 100% of gather and compression fees paid to Antero Midstream. You've arrived at implied undeveloped acreage value of $1.1 billion. Looking at our core undeveloped acreage of 492,000 net acres. This implies that AR is currently trading at only $2,300 per core undeveloped acre, a very attractive value proposition. It's instructive to compare that $2,300 per acreage trading value to recently announced Appalachia corporate transaction which most analyst pegged at about $10,000 to $15,000 per undeveloped acre. Slide number 10 titled midstream drives value for AR. Demonstrates why we believe that there should be a premium for the integration that Antero has built, where the Midstream simply serves its sponsor upstream development. Integration of the Midstream business enables us to better control our development program and provide significant visibility and to product flows and pricing Appalachia. This is very important when you can control the largest core acreage position in Appalachia and targeting 20% to 22% annual growth through the end of the decade. Midstream has also been a very attractive investment for AM as you can see the in the bullets, three times capital invested pre-IPO and we've seen 18% total annual return on AM, since its IPO. In closing, I'll point you to Slide number 11. Entitled de-risked development plans drives long-term visibility. Over the past eight years, we've built the most integrated natural gas and NGL story in the US. We run the business with a long-term mentality of ensuring we can continuously develop our 53 Tcfe 3P reserves for many decades ahead, which we believe will generate the most attractive value creation to our shareholders including management and substantial owners too. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.