Alex Pourbaix
Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead
Thanks, Kam, and good morning, everybody. I’m pleased to report we had a very strong quarter. We delivered record operating results and solid financial performance, even after a sizeable realized hedging loss. I’d also like to remind you that at the end of the quarter, our corporate hedge positions were significantly decreased to 37% of our forecast liquids production for the remainder of the year. With a continued strong performance of our assets, our low operating costs and our increased exposure to higher oil prices, I’m confident that Cenovus has turned the corner and is well positioned for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019. I will expand on that in a minute. Combined, our Foster Creek and Christina Lake oil sands projects, achieved record production in the second quarter of nearly 390,000 barrels per day, an 8% increase from Q1. We also achieved record low oil sands operating costs of $7.32 a barrel. This performance is the result of our team’s ability to consistently deliver reliable operations, as well as our decision to defer some of our oil sands production from the first quarter to the second quarter, by using the dynamic storage capability of our oil sands reservoirs. You will recall that we did this in response to very wide oil price differentials due to transportation constraints in Q1. By strategically slowing oil sands production, while maintaining steam injection to continue mobilizing oil, we were able to take advantage of our significant capacity to store barrels in our reservoirs. As heavy oil prices improved, we ramped oil sands production back up to above-normal operating levels and we’re able to recover essentially all of those stored barrels in the second quarter. Furthermore, deferring those volumes from Q1 to Q2 has helped to improve our bottom line in the second quarter, by increasing our net-back on those stored barrels. And as expected, we have not seen any impact on the integrity of our reservoirs due to temporarily storing barrels underground. This is proven to be a very effective tool in times of light price differentials and takeaway capacity constraints to help improve value for our shareholders. And you can expect us to use it again, if we believe we can create additional value. Even with the temporary rate reductions in the first quarter, we continue to expect our oil sands volumes for the year to be within our original guidance of 364,000 to 382,000 barrels per day. I believe this is a great example of our ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As I said at the outset, I believe we have now turned the corner on our potential to generate free funds flow. Even after the impact of our $697 million realized hedging loss, we generated adjusted funds flow of $774 million in the second quarter. And after $292 million of capital investment, we had free funds flow of $482 million. Going forward, with our corporate hedge positions now significantly reduced, we expect to generate significant free funds flow in the second half of the year and into 2019, based on current strip prices. With a direct line of sight to our ability to generate strong free funds flow from our operations, I want to reassure all of you that our first priority for these funds and the proceeds from any asset sales is to continue to deleverage. I believe that a strong balance sheet is the best defense against volatile commodity prices. We have a sense of urgency to delever the company to two times debt to adjusted EBITDA with a longer-term goal to meet this target at the bottom of this cycle. I’d now like to turn to our Deep Basin operations, which delivered solid results in Q2. We substantially completed our planned capital program for the year in the first quarter, and kept production relatively flat compared with Q1, while bringing on three net new wells in the second quarter. We continue to review opportunities to divest a portion of our Deep Basin assets. Our East Clearwater sale process continues to proceed as expected with good interest from capable and qualified buyers. We’re looking at additional divestitures in 2018. But we will only go through with the sale, if we believe we can realize value that make sense and is beneficial to our shareholders. In the refining and marketing segment, we had very strong throughput in the second quarter at both the Wood River and Borger refineries, following major planned turnarounds earlier this year. Our refining and marketing segment generated $357 million in operating margin in the second quarter, compared with an operating margin shortfall of $48 million in the first quarter of 2018. The increase was primarily due to discounted crude feedstock prices, strong realized crack spreads, high utilization rates, and the completion of planned turnarounds at both refineries in the first quarter. We expect to face some market access challenges for the foreseeable future. We continue our negotiations with rail companies to move our crude to stronger markets. That said, crude-by-rail is just part of the solution. New pipeline capacity is also very important to our industry. And as I said before, we do not plan to sanction a new oil sands expansion until we have confidence in future pipeline capacity increases. Last but not least, I’m pleased to announce that Kam Sandhar recently joined the Cenovus leadership team. As Senior Vice-President, Strategy & Corporate Development, Kam continues with his current portfolio reporting to Jon McKenzie, our CFO. Kam’s portfolio was instrumental to our success as a company and in maximizing value for our shareholders. Please join me in congratulating Kam on his promotion. The Cenovus leadership team is now ready to take your questions.