Donnie Moore
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jessica. Welcome everyone and thank you all for joining this morning. We had a solid third quarter. I look forward to discussing it in more detail with you in a moment. First, I want to acknowledge the other announcement we made yesterday afternoon about Mike stepping down from his positions and resigning from the board. We've been very transparent and there isn't much to add what we disclosed in our press release and filings yesterday. The board has asked me to take charge and that's what I plan to do. I have more than three decades of experience in the E&P industry and have had most of the year now as COO to get to know the team, the operations, and the assets here at Gulfport. So your expectation of us should be that we'll drive forward and my aim is to raise the bar. I met with our team yesterday after the announcement we are all focused on moving forward. The board now will continue to act in the best interest of Gulfport keeping our shareholders foremost in mind. In this spirit we will be disciplined capital allocators, we remain focused on developing attractive opportunities to enhance value and deliver profitable growth. With that, I want to move ahead to discuss our third quarter performance. As announced in the earnings report yesterday, for the third quarter of 2018, Gulfport reported approximately $84.6 million of adjusted net income on $365.1 million of adjusted oil and natural gas revenues and generated approximately $238.8 million of adjusted EBITDA. The third quarter marked a strong operational quarter for Gulfport, delivering a 7% increase in total production per day over the second quarter of 2018 and experiencing strong price realizations across all of our products. Total net production averaged approximately 1.43 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent per day, increasing 19% year-over-year, and driven by the continued outperformance of our base production wedge and active turn-in-line schedule in both of our core asset areas and an increase in ethane recovery during the quarter. Our Midstream and Marketing teams continue to enhance the value received for all of our products and with the improvement in ethane prices during the third quarter, Gulfport elected to adjust our ethane recovery in both the Utica Shale and SCOOP to optimize the barrel composition and maximize the value received for the NGL stream. On the natural gas front, we continue to benefit from our diversified portfolio as well as capitalize on opportunities created through the ever-changing flow dynamics within the basins, and during the first nine months experienced very strong pricing for natural gas, leading us to narrow our anticipated 2018 gas differential alongside earnings yesterday evening. With regard to expenses, our total per unit operating expense during the quarter equaled $0.96 per Mcfe, and when coupled with our strong price realizations, resulted in adjusted EBITDA increasing 12% over the second quarter of 2018% and 22% over the third quarter of 2017. Driven by strong resource performance year-to-date and forecasted activity for the remainder of the year, we have again increased our 2018 production guidance. And we now anticipate our total net production during 2018 will be in the range of 1.36 billion cubic feet to 1.37 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent per day, an increase of 25% to 26% year-over-year. During the nine months ended September 30, Gulfport's D&C capital totaled $638.1 million and non-D&C capital totaled $96.3 million. We remain committed to spending within the range of our previously provided capital budget, now forecasting total capital invested during 2018 to be within the book-end of the range, at approximately $815 million for the full year. Capital spend will decrease significantly during the fourth quarter of 2018 with activity decreasing quarter-over-quarter and remaining nimble in our operations to adhere to our commitment of capital discipline and the 2018 capital budget. Considering our large DUC inventory we hold in the Utica totaling approximately 55 gross wells today, we have adjusted our activity during the fourth quarter to further emphasize our commitment to the 2018 capital budget and we currently do not have a rig running in the play today. Lastly, completion activity in both the Utica and SCOOP concluded during the third quarter of 2018, and we do not expect to resume this activity until the beginning of 2019. Consistent with our previous comments, we are devoted to recognizing the most value for our shareholders, as we evaluate the best uses of our available liquidity. During 2018 Gulfport has reduced our net debt levels, and as of September 30, our leverage ratio decreased to 2.14 times at the low-end of our targeted range and down from 2.6 times at year-end, 2017. Year-to-date, we have repurchased $110 million of Gulfport shares in the open market and approximately $90 million remains under the current authorization. As of September 30, we had reduced the amount outstanding on our revolving credit facility to $60 million and held $125 million in cash on the balance sheet. Now the details. In the Utica, during the first nine months of 2018, we spud 23 gross wells, utilizing on average two operated rigs, the wells had an average drilled lateral length of 10,350 feet, an increase of 27% over 2017. And when normalizing to an 8000-foot lateral, we averaged a spud-to-rig release of 19.5 days, in line with our full-year 2017 results and highlighting the consistency of the drilling phase in our Utica operations. Turning to completions in the Utica Shale, we completed 37 wells during 2018, averaging 5.3 stages per day and completing a stage total count of 14,071 stages. During the first nine months of 2018, we turned-to-sales 28 gross dry gas wells in the Utica, with an average lateral length of 7,700 feet. This level of activity has led to very strong production from the asset, averaging 1.14 billion cubic equivalent per day during the third quarter, an increase of 7% quarter-over-quarter and 16% year-over-year, as well as marking another quarter with a record level of net production for the asset. During the fourth quarter, we plan to turned-to-sales seven gross operated wells in the Utica, bringing our 2018 total to 35 gross wells turned-to-sales throughout the year. The Utica continues to be very consistent and reliable asset in our portfolio. We are extremely pleased with the performance of the resource year-to-date. Switching over to the SCOOP, we continue to see improvement in our drilling phase, and during the first nine months of 2018, we spud 12 gross wells in the play, including 11 Woodford and one Sycamore well, utilizing on average three operated rigs in the play. The wells released had an average lateral length of 8,100 feet, an increase of 10% over 2017 and when normalized to a 7,500 foot lateral, averaged a spud-to-rig release of 64.9 days, a 10% improvement from our 2017 program average. When analyzing the wells released to date in the 2018 program, consistent with my comments from last quarter, roughly 40% of the 2018 Woodford well set have had a spud-to-rig release of 48 days or less, and 60% have been drilled in 56 days or less. As a reminder, in 2017, Gulfport had zero wells with a spud-to-rig release of less than 50 days. Our improvement continues to be further highlighted by establishing a new Gulfport record of releasing it well with a spud-to-rig release of just 43.7 days during the third quarter. As you can see our focus on identifying, implementing and realizing efficiencies in the play is yielding results. We look to continue to build upon this momentum into the fourth quarter and 2019, remaining focused on identifying areas of improvement, not only to decrease drill days but ultimately maximize value for every dollar we invest. On the completion front, during the first nine months of 2018, we turned-to-sales 15 gross wells, including 14 Woodford and one Sycamore well with a stimulated lateral length of 7,750 feet, while running one completion crew throughout the year, we averaged 3.82 stages per day and completed 426 stages in total. Production during the quarter averaged 274.6 million cubic feet equivalent per day, an increase of 11% quarter-over-quarter and 41% year-over-year. Alongside earnings yesterday evening, we provided both initial and longer-dated production results on several Woodford wells, as well as our Upper Sycamore well, which I'll touch on further in a moment. And as you can see, we continue to see great results from the Woodford well set and remain very encouraged as we gain additional longer-term production history on a larger set of wells. During 2018, we shifted our program to largely focus on full section development in the SCOOP, both in the drilling and completion phase of the operation, allowing us to realize cost efficiencies, maximize fracture complexity, and have efficient resource recovery. Full section development allows us to take our learnings from the initial well and apply those to the remainder of the well set in the section. Optimization of the well design, casing requirements, tool selection, are all were fine with every well we drill, driving performance increases and decreasing days well over well. Observing the completion results, wells completed within the full section regime are yielding very strong results, benefiting from increased wellbore connectivity achieved during simultaneous completions. Our learnings to date have led us to adjust our completion activity in the SCOOP, moving a few of the anticipated turn-in-lines expected late in the fourth quarter to early 2019, when we estimate drilling to be completed within the section and the completion of these wells can occur simultaneously. With regard to exploration activity, during the third quarter, we turned-to-sales our Miller 8 well targeting the Upper Sycamore formation. While the well is still in the very early days of production, it has a strong liquids cut, producing approximately 46% oil on a two-stream basis and 63% liquids on a three-stream basis confirming our expectation of the Upper Sycamore's potential for being a more liquids-rich resource. We look forward to gaining more production history on the well and as we plan for additional Sycamore development in 2019, we are focused on the optimal development scheme for resource recovery both in terms of density and timing of the development with respect to all producing horizons in the formation. As a reminder, during 2017, Gulfport co-developed our Serenity well targeting the Lower Sycamore solid formation in conjunction with our Winham well targeting the Woodford, with the goal of receiving early indication of what co-development could potentially look like across these two horizons. While it is still early in the long-term development of these wells, we have seen outstanding results. After roughly 300 days online, the Serenity and Winham wells continue to outperform the type curve on a daily basis. And when normalizing to the Woodford wet gas type curve, the Serenity has cumulatively produced approximately 80% above the type curve after 300 days online. And the Winham is well over 100% above the type curve since turning to sales, proving there is a significant amount of resource in place and the co-development of these zones provides strong results. As we plan for 2019, we're including the Sycamore into our development plan in a more meaningful way and currently plan to co-develop a unit as part of our 2019 program, targeting multiple producing horizons in the play, the Woodford, Lower Sycamore solid and Upper Sycamore shale at the same time. In summary, we've learned a lot over the last year-and-a-half, but we still have more to learn. We're very excited with the results to date out of the play, and it's no longer a question of if we have the resource, but now how do we get the most out of it, maximizing our recoveries and value across the play. With that, I will turn the call over to Keri for her comments.