Greenfire Resources Ltd. (GFR) Q4 2024 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Greenfire Resources Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] and today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. Robert Loebach, Vice President of Capital Markets. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Greenfire's conference call for our Q4 and full year 2024 results. Please note that today's call includes forward-looking statements and references non-GAAP and other financial measures. We encourage you to review the associated risks detailed in our latest MD&A. Unless specified otherwise, all monetary figures discussed today are in Canadian dollars. Capital expenditures and production figures presented today are based on our working interest net to Greenfire, unless noted otherwise. Joining us on today's call are key members of the Greenfire leadership team, including Adam Waterous, Executive Chairman; Colin Germaniuk, President; Tony Kraljic, Chief Financial Officer; and Jonathan Kanderka, Chief Operating Officer. Upon the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will open the floor to questions from participants. I will now hand the call over to our Executive Chairman, Adam Waterous. Adam, please go ahead.

Thank you, Robert, and thanks, everyone, for joining our conference call this morning. Obviously, there's been a lot of change at Greenfire over the last few months, with WEF taking control of the Board and Colin Germaniuk being appointed President. Colin is a deeply experienced SAGD professional with a proven track record of capital-efficient organic growth in thermal oil operations. And with Colin in the driver's seat, we remain excited about our investment in Greenfire. Nevertheless, as WEF has looked under the hood, so to speak, over the last 2.5 months, it's become clear that the previous stewards of the business were fundamentally running the business for the short run, electing to prioritize near-term production adds at the expense of long-term net asset value maximization and return on equity. Greenfire is currently forming a new development plan for the company, which, at a high level, will prioritize drilling new well pairs and undeveloped reservoir at the Expansion Asset and managing the base production of the Demo Asset. Greenfire will not be giving specific 2025 production or capital guidance at this time. I will now hand the call over to Colin.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks, Adam, for the introduction. I'm very excited to speak with you all today as we embark on a new chapter for our company. Greenfire is currently undergoing a significant transition. I'm privileged to lead this talented group as we work together to reposition our company for sustained success. The many changes we are going to discuss today reflect our commitment to addressing past challenges and seizing new opportunities. As part of this transition, we're moving away from a short-term mindset to a strategy focused on long-term value creation. This overhaul will span our culture, operating strategy and capital structure. The goal is clear, we're trying to maximize net value share per asset and the asset portfolio and enhance return on equity for Greenfire shareholders. This means prioritizing projects and investments that will deliver strong returns, even if they don't yield immediate results. We're committed to building a sustainable future for Greenfire, not chasing quarterly results. So what does this look like in practice? First, we're overhauling our culture to prioritize safety, regulatory compliance and high performance. This includes embedding a safety-first mindset throughout the business, introducing new incentive programs, flattening the organization and revamping internal processes to strengthen our regulatory compliance systems and drive productivity. Second, we're conducting a comprehensive review of our development plans, capital expenditures and operational strategies and are in the process of building updated development plans for the Hangingstone Facilities. We will release our 2025 guidance and provide further additional details on our new development plans when they are available. And finally, we are reassessing our capital structure and intend to adjust it over time to better position the company for longer-term growth. With that, let's move to our 2024 operational results and 2025 operational update. Greenfire's production in Q4 2024 was 19,400 barrels a day, which is a 1% increase above Q3 2024 and a 12% increase from Q4 of 2023. The full year production averaged 19,000 barrels a day -- 19,300 barrels a day, which is a 9% increase over 2023, driven by our drilling campaign launched in August of 2023. Moving over to 2025. Our production to date has averaged 18,000 barrels a day, which is a 7% decrease from the prior quarter. This is a result of operating performance at the Expansion Asset, which is including impacts from ongoing steam generation equipment repairs, unexpected facility downtime and natural production declines. Currently, 1 of our 4 steam generation units is offline with an associated impact on production of about 1,500 barrels a day to 2,300 barrels a day. We are implementing mitigation strategies to limit production impacts and are developing a comprehensive plan to restore full steam capacity, and we'll provide updates in due course. Meanwhile, strong performance at the Demo Asset has partially offset this reduction. Following a leadership change at Greenfire, a review identified potential underreporting of sulfur dioxide emissions at the Expansion Asset. Greenfire takes its regulatory obligation very seriously, and we immediately reported the potential exceedance to the Alberta Energy Regulator. And we're currently in discussions with them exploring remedies, including potentially adding a sulfur recovery unit to the Expansion Asset. The extent and any potential exceedance and any remedies, penalties or orders imposed by the AER are unknown at this time. Despite these challenges, I'm genuinely optimistic about what lies ahead. We own a high-quality SAGD asset, with substantial value generation potential for its long life and concentrated reserves base. And we have a strong dedicated team of industry experts who bring experience and a shared commitment to turning things around. These are the foundations of our future success, and I'm confident they'll carry us through this transformation. I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Jonathan, to discuss 2024 reserves.

Thanks, Colin. Greenfire achieved significant reserve growth in 2024, driven primarily by the inclusion of full field development plans across approved land base at the Expansion Assets. At year-end 2024, 1P reserves increased by 28% to 235 million barrels, while 2P reserves grew by 72% to 409 million barrels compared to the previous year. These initiatives have resulted in a 2P reserve life index of 58 years. The updated reserves reflect a before-tax present value discounted at 10% of $2.5 billion for 1P reserves and $3 billion for 2P reserves, making growth of 21% and 25%, respectively, from year-end 2023. After adjusting for debt and cash, this translates to a 23% and 27% increase per share for 1P and 2P reserves, respectively. I'll now hand it back over to Robert to discuss our hedging program.

Thank you, Jonathan. Greenfire executed an updated WTI hedging program in the first quarter of 2025 to enhance price certainty for a portion of the company's production. Greenfire replaced its previous WTI costless collar contracts, which had an average price range of approximately USD 57 to USD 83 a barrel with fixed price swaps covering 9,400 barrels a day of WTI at an average price of approximately CAD 101 a barrel for the full year of 2025. With this updated hedging program in place, we believe the company is well positioned to make long-term investments to deliver value for shareholders in the current volatile commodity environment. I will now hand the call over to Tony to discuss Greenfire's financial performance.

Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everybody. Greenfire's adjusted funds flow for Q4 2024 reached $53 million, contributing to a full year total of $172 million, up significantly from $10.5 million in Q4 of last year and $73.2 million for the full year last year. Capital expenditures were $13.2 million in Q4 and $92 million for the full year. Adjusted free cash flow hit $39.8 million in Q4, driven by favorable WTS differentials as well as reduced operating and capital costs. Adjusted free cash flow for the full year 2024 was $80 million. The company maintains a robust liquidity of $117 million, including $67 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand and $50 million available under the senior credit facility supporting our ongoing business execution. In July of 2024, Greenfire redeemed approximately USD 61 million of its 2028 notes under the excess cash flow sweep mechanism. As of the year-end, no principal repayment was due, with the next redemption scheduled before September 2025. Following the change of control involving WEF, the company was required to make an offer to repurchase the 2028 notes at 101% of their par value, pursuant to the terms of the notes. This offer concluded in February of 2025, and a total of USD 5,000 in aggregate principal amount of the 2028 notes was badly tendered and redeemed by the company. In Q1 2025, with the support of the company's bondholders, Greenfire completed an amendment to the 2028 note indenture. This raised the permitted capital expenditures under the 2028 notes from CAD 100 million up to USD 150 million over any 12-month period. This is expected to better position the company for operational stability and long-term growth. Over time, we plan to reevaluate our capital structure to better serve Greenfire shareholders. In addition to strong liquidity, the company remained well positioned with $1.6 billion in federal taxes, lower pre-payout royalty rates at Expansion Assets due to substantial unrecovered royalty balances and no gross overwriting royalty obligations at the Hangingstone Facilities. With that, I'd like to turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And today's first question comes from [ Michael Bowen ] at Sona.

I just like to ask in terms of what you found and now you are in the operations, shall we say, are the assets worse than you expected? Or how would you describe the state of them? And why is it taking so long to put together a formal business plan given the previous management's guidance essentially?

Sure. It's Adam Waterous here. I'll take that call -- I'll take that question. The -- we tried to give some sense -- the previous business plan was designed to optimize short-term performance, trying to optimize production while minimizing capital. And in the face of that, that sounds maybe like a reasonable objective. If you take that sort of objective to extremes, you can lead to degradation of long-term net asset value. We have a very different objective as an investor. And what we're trying to do is compound per share net asset value and optimize that return on equity at the same time. And that can end up being quite a dramatic difference in terms of how you allocate capital, how you develop the resource. So I think there are maybe 2 implications for that, that you could expect. One is that when we ultimately determine what our capital spending program is going to be in development program is it's going to look very different than the previous management's development plan. The second thing I would also tell you is that one of the dynamics that the company had been operating under is it was extremely capital constraint would be, I think, an adequate a fair description. And sometimes, when you are extremely capital constrained, you make decisions which are not in the long-term interest of compounding per share value. And let me give you maybe a simplistic mental picture. If you're running a car and you don't go for your regularly scheduled oil change, you can save some money. You actually maybe save some money for a while. But ultimately, it catches up on you. And so we'll be very focused now on going through regular oil changes and on prudent maintenance procedures. So that's how we think about it. Hopefully that's a...

Okay. It is. But I mean, is the state of the business and the fact that we've got another step down in production in January worse than you expected?

I would say in terms of -- I'll tell you here's what's positive. We're very positive on the resource. The resource is -- we think has long-term development potential. I would say a fair comment is that the business had been managed for the short term to an even greater degree than we would have expected. And that I think that would be a fair comment. It's -- it was managed -- I would just so you have -- it is the opposite of how we would have managed this business, the opposite. So for expectations that -- to give you some sense in terms of how we thought about it.

Okay. And what do you think about the old management team's plan? Clearly, production was supposed to be much higher than it ended up. Was it fantasy really to aim for that type of production level over that time frame in your opinion?

I best answer this to try to maybe go back to what I said a little bit earlier. The development plan that we will ultimately provide will be radically different than the previous management teams. So that gives you some perspective of what I thought of the last management team's development plan.

And our next question today comes from [ Nick Asterion ], a private investor.

Appreciate all the help and the color on the stuff. There's 2 questions I have. One is on capital allocation and one is on operations. On capital allocation, how do you guys see stabilizing -- prioritizing stabilizing the core business and the existing business versus future potential acquisitions? And I ask that just because you guys have Waterous, obviously a private equity fund. And with Strathcona, your track record has been buying a bunch of businesses. And then on operations, is there any permanent damage or any structural issues surrounding their drilling plan that they had put in place, but hadn't quite panned out on productivity? Or is there anything else that perhaps the long-term net asset value is permanently impaired from? So that's my 2 questions.

So this is Adam Waterous again. I'll take the questions on acquisition, and then I'll turn it over to Colin to talk about capital spending and impact on value. So we like a few things that have attracted us to Greenfire. One, as I mentioned previously, is the resource. We think that, over time, it can be effectively and profitably developed. The second thing we like about Greenfire is we do like the neighborhood. From our firm's perspective, this is the first investment we've made in the Athabasca region. We like the SAGD business in general. This is the fifth SAGD business that our firm has bought over the last 5 years. And this is right in the heart of SAGD country, so to speak. So we like -- so like now, whether or not we might be able to make any further acquisitions is indeterminate. But we do like the neighborhood. We think that's one of the positives about Greenfire. Now the question maybe -- I'll have Colin answer that.

Yes. It's Colin Germaniuk here, the -- to your question about was the reservoir damage as a result of drilling, and the answer is no. You can't damage a reservoir through drilling operations. Performance might not have been where the previous management expected it to, but there's no reservoir damage. We still like -- still very much like the quality of the asset, and our near-term development plans will be going to kind of undeveloped reservoir.

Got you. So -- and then to double click on that. Was the problem with the drilling plan the last couple -- the last year or so, was it too ambitious and they had all these maintenance issues that were catching up with them? Or was the infill and the reservoir engineering and design plan totally off-based off of, say, the steam chamber size and the dimensions of the reservoir? Was it kind of not -- did it not make sense that they were drilling so long and they shouldn't have expected high productivity at scale?

I think directionally, the plan might have made sense, but they were drilling into a reservoir that had very high recovery factors already. So I think the remaining oil was -- the remaining productivity was kind of less than what they originally expected. And from a cost perspective, drilling into a very high-pressure reservoirs, it just adds more capital. So there was some cost overruns there.

And this concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Robert Loebach for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. On behalf of Greenfire, we appreciate you joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results conference call. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.