Earnings Labs

CNX Resources Corporation (CNX)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to CONSOL Energy's Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Tyler Lewis.

Tyler Lewis - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Nick, and good morning to everybody. Welcome to CONSOL Energy's second quarter conference call. We have in the room today Nick DeIuliis, our President and CEO; Dave Khani, our Chief Financial Officer; and Tim Dugan, our Chief Operating Officer. Today, we will be discussing our second quarter results and we have posted slides to our website. As a reminder, any forward-looking statements we make or comments about future expectations are subject to business risk, which we've laid out for you in our press release today, as well as in our previous Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We will begin our call today with prepared remarks by Nick, followed by Dave and then Tim. With that, let me turn the call over to you, Nick. Nicholas J. DeIuliis - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Tyler. Good morning, everybody, and I want to start the call off by briefly discussing some of the high-level accomplishments of the quarter before we turn it over to Dave Khani and Tim Dugan, who will provide more the details. As we laid out in the morning's earnings release, CONSOL posted another quarter of organic free cash flow from continuing operations of $46 million, and that's an increase from the last quarter. Now, last year, we started talking about our 18-month free cash flow plan and, as we sit here today, we're ahead of that plan. Our goal has remained unchanged; however, we continue to focus on growing our NAV per share and we're going to do it through continuing to increase productivity and efficiencies, through our cost-cutting initiatives, asset sales, through modest production growth, and by capturing the upside from what's looking like a more normalized commodity. As we continue with those efforts to complete the split of our E&P and Coal businesses,…

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everyone. As highlighted in our press release this morning and indicated on slide 3, CONSOL reported a second quarter GAAP net loss of $470 million. However, there are several noncash after-tax adjustments totaling $431 million in the quarter, including on a pre-tax basis the following: unrealized loss on our mark-to-market hedge book of $280 million and an impairment charge of $356 million on our Miller Creek, Fola properties. As we announced the sale of those assets and expect these transactions to close in third quarter 2016, and we will likely recognize another $44 million in the third quarter. After adjusting for these items, CONSOL posted a net loss from continuing operations of $49 million or negative $0.21 per share, and adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations of $136 million. More importantly, we continued down the path of being one of the most efficient E&P companies with growth in free cash flow. We raised our 2016 E&P volumes to 15% to 17%, and this quarter generated free cash flow of $66 million and, to date, $516 million. We also saw total capital expenditures decrease to $38 million in the quarter, which is a 50% reduction from the first quarter and reflects the improving productivity. With the sale pending of Miller Creek and Fola, we've posted about $5.1 billion of coal deal asset value, over 23 transactions since 2012. Looking forward, we anticipate posting more E&P sale transactions now that commodity prices are rising and the market appetite for these types of transactions are improving. Stay tuned. Now looking over the E&P side, as stated in slide 5, the E&P division finished the quarter production with 99.3 Bcfe, or average daily volumes of 1.1 Bcfe per day. We also had about 4.3 Bcfe of mechanical issues and production…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Our first question come from the line of Neal Dingmann with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, guys. Say, Nick, maybe for you or Tim, just in the press release you mentioned, and I know you give some details on the 10 wells that you anticipate for the rest of the year, the eight in Monroe and the two Marcellus. Beyond this, do you see additional wells continuing in these higher-return area and I guess I'm particularly curious if you would maybe drill some follow-up wells up near the Gaut? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Well, Neal, when we put this rig plan together, as we do, we base everything not just on rate of return, but we look at end markets, takeaway capacity, land position, commitments, a lot of different factors, and that's how we came up with a list of 10 wells that we're going to drill here in the second half and we'll continue with that process as we move into 2017. But I would expect that you will see additional wells drilled up around the Gaut.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

And then, Tim, does that – that plan that you say, again, I think that makes sense on returns, does that sort of factor in next year on drilling versus completing those 91 docks, kind of, looking at that same plan? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: It does. We take the same approach to the docks as we do new wells. We get asked quite often. We got this inventory at wet docks, how do you look at those compared to continuing to drill dry gas wells, and we put the docks through the same process that we go through. We prioritize our opportunities and it's based on risk rate of return, and right now Monroe County, some of our dry gas docks have risen to the top of the list.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

And then, Tim, just one last follow-up on that. On the Utica, once you see some of these starting to hit the natural line pressure, what type of decline do you anticipate on those? Is that just kind of a typical gas well at that point? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Yeah. I don't have the decline parameters in front of me here, but we have put a decline on there based on what we've seen, what our modeling has shown us. We've done some pretty extensive modeling of our earth modeling, our completions modeling, and our rate transient analysis have given us a decline, but I don't have that number in front of me right now.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then just lastly for either Nick or Dave. How do you all see – Dave, you mentioned, not paying down particular – not particularly using equity is one of the higher items on the list. How do you all see about paying down the $466 million on the credit facility or buying back any of those outstanding bonds? I know that you've had an nice rally, so I'm just kind of wondering how you think about when you and Nick think of some of the possibilities how those sort of rank now that you have paid that credit facility down and the bonds have had a nice rally?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. So, we'll make a decision about when we generate free cash flow and we will generate free cash in the second half this year organically and then hopefully also with some asset sales. So, we'll decide how we want to use that cash essentially, whether we pay down the revolver or buy back debt. So, it will be NAV-driven. We'll also make sure we're prepared for – looking out at the next redetermination and make sure we're prepared for that as well. But, again, we're going to generate free cash flow.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Got it. Thanks for the details, guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Holly Stewart with Howard Weil.

Holly Barrett Stewart - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil.

Good morning, gentlemen. A couple quick questions just trying to get a sense for thoughts around 2017. I mean, I think as we look at the budget, there's probably no real reason to think the coal spending goes up next year, looks like D&C capital will actually rise just given the new rig activity in all the docks that are out there. So, just trying to get sort of a base assumption around spending for next year?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Just, I think, one is – we have three entities that are generating free cash flow, so you should start off and understand that. And so, when we were to raise any of our D&C capital, it will be in the light of probably making sure that we stay within cash flow overall, excluding any asset sales. But we obviously have to make a determination of how much docks we're going to bring on next year versus how many brand new wells, and so it will be a calculus we'll go through. And we have two JV partners we need to go through as well as go through our board.

Holly Barrett Stewart - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil.

Okay. And then maybe just a couple of follow-ups on the guide. I mean, it looks like your basis for the quarter was good and the first half has been pretty good. So, you expanded the base differential guidance. Is there anything you're expecting in terms of weakness in the back half of the year or is this just a conservative assumption for the rest of 2016?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

So, I think we anticipate basis getting a little bit wider in the third quarter, but then getting narrower in the fourth quarter. That's basically our internal forecast using the basis hedges that we have in place as well as our open position.

Holly Barrett Stewart - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil.

Okay. And then one final one if I could just on the MLP market seems to be sort of settling down here, thoughts around a drop in maybe the back half of the year, as we move into 2017 whether that's on the midstream side or the coal side of things?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. So, for the midstream side, CONE has talked about very publicly that if they do a drop, it would be to really help for 2016 distributions. And so, now that the MLP has jumped up into a more normalized yield, that's always a possibility. And again, it would be for 2018. On the CNXC side, again, it will probably be a function of watching the coal markets and how they improve and how the capital markets will be open for drop on the CNXC side.

Holly Barrett Stewart - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil.

Great. Thanks, guys.

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Welcome.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line Lucas Pipes with FBR & Company. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Hey. Good morning, everybody, and congrats on the continued capital improvements. That's great. I wanted to follow up on the asset sale side. David, if I recall correctly, you mentioned earlier in the call that you continue to look at opportunities you don't feel like there's a need to do something. But when you think about the processes that you currently have running, what sort of magnitude – what sort of ballpark are you looking at and what areas, specifically, do you think there's interest?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Well, if you noticed, we've executed very heavily on the coal side the last several years and with some modest E&P layered in there. I think looking forward, as the natural gas and liquids markets have improved here, and you see some transactions occur, it looks like the appetite has picked up more on the E&P side, so you'll probably see more E&P going forward and, particularly, we don't have that much coal left to sell. But as far as magnitude is concerned, I think it'll be very opportunistic. Again, Nick talked about we do not need to sell anything. We obviously want to get our leverage down into the three times or lower, and so we have a little bit of work to do. It won't all come through asset sales; it will come through a whole variety of things. So, again, we'll put enough irons in the fire to get what we want to get done. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: That's helpful. Thank you. And then you highlighted cost cuts as another lever and you've done a great job both on the Coal and on the E&P side. What do you think is going to take it to the next kind of leg down, so to say, on the cost side, specifically, in E&P what are you looking at, what's going to get these costs even lower? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Probably a big piece of that is the dry Utica with these high volume wells getting our drilling cost down or the ranges that we've talked about, down below $10 million in Monroe County and down the $12 million to $15 million range in the deep dry Utica in Southwest, PA, getting our – that will continue our drive for capital efficiency. And then on the operating side, LOEs of the dry Utica volume certainly will help drive down our operating costs and to the overall blend and help reduce our cost as we've seen in the last couple quarters as we bring on more and more dry Utica. So, I think that will continue. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Great. Well, thank you very much. Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Tuohy Brothers.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Good morning. First question was with regard to the A square root to K stuff, I just want to make sure. You said, it gives you confidence about the industry view. I just want to be clear does this formula and application mean that you believe that the ultimate EUR of the Utica is greater than current industry assumptions? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Well, I think it talks about our confidence in the Utica and it gives us a much more accurate approach to evaluating what we see in the Utica, we're looking – it's normalizing for lateral length, completion techniques, well spacing, so it really normalizes all those parameters and gives you a more accurate view as opposed to comparing IPs, which really vary from operator to operator, and procedures can vary. So we think the A square root of K just gives a more accurate view of the Utica. Now, when we talk about EURs, we think there's still a potential for upside there. When we look at the Gaut, it continues to impress us with the way it's holding up from a pressure and rate standpoint; we're seeing the same thing in Monroe County. So, we think there is potential for additional upside on the EURs.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Okay. So, if I've sort of understood what you were saying, you're saying that it gives you more confidence in the prospectivity of the Utica as a whole as opposed to maybe just an EUR uplift or whatever? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: We've got a lot of confidence in the Marcellus. And I think – as I said in my statements, we take a more bullish view on the Utica than most other operators because of the data set that we have and our acreage position. So we still think the Marcellus provides tremendous opportunity. It's still a large part of our production base, it's over 50%. We see the Utica growing, but both will be a part of our growth moving forward.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Service providers have been fairly resolute in saying that their prices have to rise to support any resumption of E&P growth. I'm just wondering, first, do you see any evidence of that yet in the impending two rigs that you're going to add, and what's sort of your forward view on that going into 2017? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Well, I think there's – when we look at our cost savings, we – in general, about two-thirds have been organic, and about a third of it has been as a result of current market conditions. And certainly when activity increases, we may see some increase in service costs, but our job is to do everything we can to keep those costs down. So that'll be an ongoing process. But we haven't yet bottom on our organic cost reductions, so there may be some offset there if we do see some increases in service costs, but we'll continue to fight that battle and work to get our costs down further.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

And, to be fair, if the prices are going up, that should suggest that commodity prices are going up as well, so it doesn't necessarily have to be negative on a margin basis, correct? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Correct. Yes.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Okay. And I'd like to ask one last question, if I may. You mentioned in the press release Marcus Hook and how it's had a salutary effect on NGL pricing. I just wondered, do you have any other irons in the fire to try to improve your NGL pricing aside from Marcus Hook, or is it pretty much tied to the growth of that facility? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Well, we're constantly working with our NGL partners to find ways to optimize our liquids portfolio, and we've been able to improve our differentials year over year and have positioned ourselves to take advantage of storage and export opportunities as the market searches for equilibrium. Now, from a market perspective, we believe that propane netbacks, in particular, will continue to improve on tailwinds of expanding infrastructure such as Mariner East II and the potential for increased regional demand. That said, we're not just waiting on the market to correct itself; we're entering into deals on a portion of our production to layer in price and delivery diversification, and we'll continue to evaluate these opportunities going forward.

Jeffrey Campbell - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Okay. Great. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Biju Perincheril with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Biju Perincheril - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Nick, if I could go back on to 2017 plans, can you give us some color on how you're thinking about whether it's going to be a free cash flow model again next year, or are you looking at spending closer to cash flow and debt reduction via asset sales? Nicholas J. DeIuliis - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The filter that we'll use is the same filter and process we used to assess the two-rig activity move that was just announced. So you could factor the rate of returns and the impact on NAV per share versus other uses. As Dave said to an earlier question, there's a big push and desire, I think, from the company perspective to stay within cash flows for a given period of time. We think that creates a lot of optionality and opportunity beyond just drill bit decisions, and we want to be in a position to take advantage of that. And the other sort of thing to consider and contemplate in this is that when we're sort of putting together the 2017 development plans or capital budgets or cash flow budgets, we've got all these other levers or places to go to get certain production growth levels, whether they're the docks in the wet area that we talked about, whether it's an incremental rig activity for new wells, as Tim said, or some other variance between the Utica and the Marcellus. So, there's different levers to pull there and mixes to look at to try to optimize.

Biju Perincheril - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Understood. And then in the Green Hill area, Tim, can you talk about some of the improvements that you've instituted there and where are you in taking those improvements and applying it in rest of the acreage? Timothy C. Dugan - Chief Operating Officer-Exploration & Production: Well, we're continuously working on improving our completion techniques, reducing our cycle times, optimizing our drilling, and it's really not field-specific. In the Marcellus, we look at all Southwestern PA and really push our learnings across the board. But I think we've seen some good quality rock there that has certainly helped us, but when you put all these other learnings that we've gained over the last two or three years in the play there, we're seeing really good rates of return, we're seeing great EURs, and it's an area of great opportunity for us.

Biju Perincheril - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

And then lastly, is there an update to the maintenance CapEx number that you gave on the last quarter?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

On maintenance capital, I think we said it was $250 million to $300 million range and that still holds pretty true, which puts us in the $0.65 to $0.75 zip code.

Biju Perincheril - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Next, we'll go to the line of James Spicer with Wells Fargo.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Just some follow-up question on the balance sheet and the improvement goals here. You've talked about potentially targeting leverage of three times or lower. Just wondering if there are other metrics that you look at at the same time, whether it's debt-to-cap, revolver utilization, anything like that, and what timeframe you're targeting to achieve your goals?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Our target would be to try to get there by the end of 2017 if not earlier, and we look at liquidity and we'll look at other metrics depending upon the moment in time if it's in a more of the down cycle, they're going to be more defensive metrics that we'll look at, and so liquidity is another one we look at.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

And what are your objectives in terms of liquidity? Just maintaining a minimum amount at a certain level?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. We have an internal number that we always look and it factors in all of the risks, our open positions, and the revenue shifts, any operational glitches that we have to cover here so – and then what we get covered by insurance. So, we look at it on how much liquidity do we need to make sure we run our businesses through all parts of the cycle.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then secondly just on your dock inventory, I think you said you're at about 91 today. Just based on your plan for this year, where do you expect to be at the end of the year?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

I will be at 91, that's for the end of the year.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Oh, that's end of the year?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, that includes the 10 wells that will be drilled with this two rig program. So, we'll close the year out at about 91.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

And where are you today then?

David M. Khani - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

We're roughly high 70s; 77, 78.

James A. Spicer - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Mr. Lewis, at this time I'll turn the conference back over to you.

Tyler Lewis - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Appreciate your interest in CONSOL Energy and look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Nick, if you could please remind the audience regarding the replay instructions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Today's call was recorded and is available for replay beginning at 12:30 today and running through August 2 until midnight. You may access the playback system by dialing 1-800-475-6701 and entering the access code of 375022. International callers may use 320-365-3844. Those numbers again are 800-475-6701 or 320-365-3844 with a common access code of 375022. With that, that does conclude our conference for today. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.