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Chord Energy Corporation (CHRD)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2020

$140.16

+1.79%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Jason, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the second-quarter 2020 earnings release and operations update for Oasis Petroleum. Today, Oasis management will discuss second-quarter 2020 results in the current environment. Please note this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Michael Lou, Oasis Petroleum's CFO, to begin the conference. Thank you.

Michael Lou

Operator

Thank you Jason. Good morning everyone. Today, we are reporting our second-quarter 2020 financial and operational results. We're delighted to have you on our call. I'm joined today by Tommy Nusz and Taylor Reid as well as other members from our team. Please be advised that our remarks on both Oasis Petroleum and Oasis Midstream Partners include statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those currently disclosed in our earnings releases and conference calls. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our earnings releases as well as in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. During this conference call, we will make reference to non-GAAP measures, and reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings releases and on our websites. We will not be hosting a Q&A session during today's call, but our team will be available after our call as needed. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tommy.

Tommy Nusz

Analyst

Thanks Michael. Good morning and thanks for joining our call. As you all know, the second quarter was one of the most volatile quarters we have ever witnessed in the industry given the unprecedented and dramatic changes in supply and demand brought about by various factors including the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm very proud of our team -- how our team has responded in what has been and continues to be very challenging circumstances while remaining focused on the health and safety of our employees, contractors and our communities. In the face of rapid change and macro conditions, we were able to power down our capital activity in an orderly manner with minimal cancellation penalties, similar to what we did in 2015. And similar to 2015, our cash flow was protected through our proactive hedging program. Coming into the year, we had about 70% of our 2020 volumes hedged, basically with a floor of $54, and you will see that in our EBITDA. Additionally, we took aggressive steps to lower capital spend on our cost structure including both operating and administrative costs, with full benefit on the administrative side to be recognized in subsequent quarters. On the operating side this quarter, we quickly and effectively managed the curtailment and shut-in program to protect cash flow and defer value in what was a sharply contango market. Again here, the team did a great job thoughtfully managing our shutting process including well protection and bringing production back online in an orderly fashion with minimal mechanical upsets or costs. And Taylor will provide more color on that. Importantly, we were free cash flow-positive in the second quarter and expect to be free cash flow-positive through the remainder of 2020. Before passing the call along to Taylor, I'll touch briefly on some highlights this quarter.…

Taylor Reid

Analyst

Thanks Tommy. I want to reemphasize Tommy's comments on prioritizing the health and safety of our employees. The team has done a tremendous job adjusting to the remote work environment brought on by COVID-19. And we have been executing successfully while maintaining the safety of our employees. Our field operations have performed exceptionally well with our incident rates at or near record lows as we have slowed down our capital program. On the operations front, activity was fairly limited in the second quarter as we responded quickly to the macro issues discussed earlier. As of May, all rigs and completion crews have been dropped. While we finished drilling multiple wells in both the Williston and Delaware, there were seven net completions very early in the second quarter, and E&P capital was 25% below our plans for 2Q. On the production front, in the March to May time frame, we elected to defer production on a number of recently completed wells to retain value when pricing improved. In addition to these wells, we began voluntarily shutting in existing production in April and curtailed approximately 25% of our production in the Williston Basin. Pricing eroded as we got further into April with WTI declining rapidly and Williston spot differentials widening. As a result, we elected to go into May with the majority of our Williston production shut in. However, conditions improved significantly throughout the month of May, and we began bringing volumes back online. May curtailments averaged approximately 50%. We continue to bring on volumes over the course of June and July. And at this juncture, we have most of our shut-in wells back online including the deferred completions I mentioned earlier, with only about 15% to 20% of our Williston volumes being curtailed. Our shut-in process reflected a well-thought-out, systematic plan…

Michael Lou

Operator

Thanks Taylor. The Oasis operations team continues its relentless focus on cost control across the entire organization. We not only significantly reduced our E&P capex plan, but we also reduced our midstream capital plan by over 60% to $36 million to $40 million. On LOE, Oasis had superb performance in the second quarter. Consolidated LOE averaged $6.01 per BOE for the second quarter, lower than the first quarter and surpassing expectations despite approximately a third of our volumes being shut in. Hats off to the team as this is quite an accomplishment. In looking toward the third and fourth quarter, we would expect LOE to trend a bit higher as we recommenced some workover spending. Oil differentials averaged $2.90 per barrel off of WTI in the second quarter despite Williston and Permian differentials approaching $10 to $15 per barrel at times. Our marketing team did an exceptional job, both proactively and reactively, putting Oasis in a position to generate strong realizations in what was a historically difficult market. Our team's thoughtful approach, tight coordination with the operations team and knowledge and experience in the markets allow the company to maintain incredible value for the organization. While differentials still have some uncertainty going forward, our team is poised to minimize the short-term blowout risks and is uniquely experienced to manage through both short- and long-term impacts of transportation considerations. Importantly, our midstream providers including OMP, give us significant flexibility and unparalleled access to move our barrels to the best price within the respective business. Oasis generated $93 million of E&P free cash flow in the quarter including $25 million of proceeds from selling certain three-way hedges. We continue to expect to pay down the revolver in the second half of 2020 with free cash flow. Concerning the three-way hedge proceeds in the second quarter, we took the opportunity to monetize the majority of our three-way WTI collars for $25 million as the value of these instruments were close to peak levels. We continue to have the majority of our crude hedged in the second half of the year. Details can be found in our press release. To sum things up, the environment is improving but remains volatile. Oasis continues to work diligently to aggressively reduce our cost structure and improve development economics. With that, I'll hand the call back over to Tommy for some closing remarks.

Tommy Nusz

Analyst

Thanks Michael. As we've emphasized, Oasis is taking a prudent and measured approach to how we're managing our business and continuing to focus on free cash flow generation in a volatile oil price environment. We continue to leverage technology and management practices to improve our cost structure, capital efficiency and associated value creation while strengthening our already leading emissions profile and managing our environmental footprint. I'd encourage you to check out our website for more details on Oasis' sustainability initiatives. It's been a very difficult environment so far this year, to say the least, and in many ways unprecedented. But while this round is unique in a number of ways, this is not the first time that we've experienced and worked through downturns in our business. I want to thank our team again for being so flexible and resilient and rising to whatever challenges come our way. It exemplifies the Oasis value system and reflects positively on our culture -- on the culture of our organization. Thanks for joining our call.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded, thank you for attending today’s presentation, you may now disconnect. End of Q&A: