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VAALCO Energy, Inc. (EGY)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, May 9, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the TransGlobe Energy Corporation Conference Call and Webcast. This webcast includes certain statements that may be deemed to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this webcast other than statements of historical facts that address future production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities, and events or developments that the company expects are forward-looking statements. Although TransGlobe believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include oil and gas prices, well production performance, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market, or business conditions. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Ross Clarkson, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead Mr. Clarkson.

Ross Clarkson

President

Good morning, everyone. And welcome to TransGlobe Energy Corporation's first quarter 2014 conference call. This is Ross Clarkson, President and CEO; and with me I have Mr. Lloyd Herrick, Vice President and COO; and Mr. Randy Neely, Vice President of Finance and CFO. As usual, we will start out with a summary of the financial and operating highlights, and then we'll move into a discussion of the drilling plans for the balance of the year. And that will be followed by a Q&A session. Randy Neely will review the financials and highlights of the quarter starting on the next slide.

Randy Neely

President

Thanks Ross and good morning. Realized sales prices for the quarter averaged $94.89, which was down 1.3% from Q4 when prices averaged $96.10. Total sales volume for the company were 17,932 barrels of oil per day for the quarter, which was down 1.5% from the Q4 average of 18,213. Gross oil revenues were $153.1 million for the quarter, which was down approximately $8 million or 5% quarter-over-quarter. Despite that decrease in gross revenue, net revenue after royalties and taxes was approximately $58.5 million, which is almost unchanged from the fourth quarter when it was $59 million. This is a reflection of a lower overall government take which is occurring as a result of the higher operating costs that the company has been incurring. Total funds flow for the quarter were $32.5 million or $0.43 per share, which was down approximately $4.3 million or 11.5% from Q4. This is principally due to higher operating costs which averaged $12.13 a barrel on a corporate-wide basis. These higher than normal operating costs per barrel are reflective of the down time in Yemen where operating costs per barrel averaged $56.70, which is due to the shut in of operations there and also due to the increased costs in Egypt for workovers and downtime associated with pump issues we experienced in the quarter, which Lloyd will speak to in more detail in a few minutes. Earnings for the quarter were $16.7 million or $0.22, which is up from Q4 due to the impairment charge of $10.2 million taken on East Ghazalat in Q4. Removing that from the comparison, earnings are down approximately $400,000 quarter-over-quarter. The company spent $14.3 million in the quarter on development and exploration activities, which is consistent with our plans for the year. We ended the quarter with $107.6 million in cash,…

Lloyd Herrick

President

Thanks Randy. Company production for Q1 was 18,067 barrels a day with an average sales of 17,932 barrels a day, which just Randy said is essentially flat with the previous quarter. At West Gharib , production averaged 11,100 barrels a day during the quarter, down 7% from the previous quarter, and in April it was down to an average of 10,230 barrels a day. These productions declines are due to a combination of premature failures of our PCP pumps provided by a new supplier in 2013 and also natural declines. The PCP pump failures have impacted production by approximately 1,000 barrels a day and is expected to continue to impact production until sometime into the fourth quarter when it's expected that the problem pumps would have been replaced with more reliable pumps. At West Bakr, production averaged 5,757 barrels a day in the quarter, up 4% from the previous quarter. April production averaged 5,240 barrels a day. April production is lower due to combination of workovers and some natural declines. At East Ghazalat, production averaged 434 barrels a day to TransGlobe during the quarter, up 30% from the previous quarter and in April TransGlobe’s share production averaged 790 barrels a day. These production increases at East Ghazalat are from two new development wells which were drilled at Safwa this year. Production in Yemen continues to be sporadic due to ongoing negotiations with respective tribes. Block S-1 produced a portion of Q4 and Q1 but has remained shut-in since mid-February due to pipeline attacks associated with local tribal and employment issues. Negotiations are progressing, and it is hoped that a lasting resolution can be reached over the coming months. Block 32 production has been partially impacted by limited access to diesel and other services in 2014. However, in early May, production…

Ross Clarkson

President

Thank you, Lloyd. We're on Slide 9, which is just the locator map of our Egypt land position and we're going to start out in the Eastern Desert, Gulf of Suez area for the next few slides and then we move over to the Western Desert properties after that. So on the next slide, slide 10, this is the West Gharib and West Bakr assets which are our mean producing assets and are really the focus of the majority of the 2014 capital budget. West Gharib current production is approximately 11,100 barrels a day, medium gravity oil that sells for Brent minus an average of 12%. We currently have one drilling rig working on this area, primarily on development drilling in the Arta field with a little bit of drilling in the Hana Field, and most of the fields in West Gharib are essentially drilled up at this stage and defined, so the focus really has been on optimization and enhancing productions for water floods. We've got six water floods under way right now. The rig that is currently drilling on West Gharib in the Arta area will be moving over to the new [liasons] (ph) on North-West Gharib which is the pale yellow lands that surround everything in July, which brings me over to the North-West Gharib slide on 11. And we're just about to start drilling on the light yellow lands that surround the fields that we've been developing over the past five years now, and as you can see from the nine highlighted locations, we are targeting a mix of field extensions and new structures in this Northern area. We are able to start drilling early here because we already have the 3D seismic and extensive well control that have identified more than 70 locations in this…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator instructions). We do have a question from Chris Brown of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Christopher Brown – Canaccord Genuity: Thank you for taking my call guys. Just a quick question on our inventory assessment now for Eastern Desert. In the latest presentation, there's sort of an appraisal on development potential drilling locations of 87 and exploration inventory of 46. Does any of the recent drilling results that we've seen either at West Gharib or West Bakr make us re-evaluate the inventory numbers that we've been dealing with for the foreseeable future or are you still maintaining that with all the issues that we're dealing with on productivity and water cuts. Those were somewhat expected, that may have been a bit earlier than anticipated type of thing?

Ross Clarkson

President

Yeah Christopher, that hasn’t changed our minds at all on anything there. This is normal for what we are seeing in the fields. I mean, we always -- when you're doing a water flood project, you do expect eventually water to breakthrough on those. All of the structures that are sitting on that one map that shows all of the exploration opportunities, those still exist and certainly all the development opportunities still are there. So, we don't really see any change in that inventory. Christopher Brown – Canaccord Genuity: Excellent, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). There are no further questions registered at this time. I'd like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Clarkson.

Ross Clarkson

President

Okay, thank you. Yes, TransGlobe has faced some production challenges over the past six months. But for the most part, those are mechanical issues that we can overcome. The replacement pumps are being manufactured and air freighted from Canada into Cairo, and we expect by the fourth quarter we will see a turnaround. We are also working to get North-West Gharib drilled and into production just as soon as we can, which will start to move the numbers in 2015. Thank you very much for participating in our Q2 conference call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.