Earnings Labs

Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (GTE)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 27, 2020

$8.92

+1.36%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+8.03%

1 Week

-12.97%

1 Month

-66.56%

vs S&P

-54.51%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Gran Tierra Energy's Conference Call for Fourth Quarter and Year End 2019 Results. My name is Jimmy and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the initial remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session for securities analysts and institutions. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcast and recorded today Thursday, February 27th, 2020 at 11 A.M. Eastern Time. Today's discussion may include certain forward-looking information oil and gas information and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the earnings and operational update press release we issued yesterday for important advisories and disclaimers with regard to this information and for reconciliations of any non-GAAP measures discussed on today's call. Finally this earnings call is the property of Gran Tierra Energy Inc. Any copying or rebroadcasting of this call is expressly forbidden without the written consent of Gran Tierra Energy. I will now turn the conference call over to Gary Guidry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gran Tierra. Mr. Guidry, please go ahead.

Gary Guidry

Analyst

Thank you operator. Good morning and welcome to Gran Tierra's fourth quarter and year end 2019 results conference call. My name is Gary Guidry, I'm Chief Executive Officer and with me today are Ryan Ellson, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Tony Berthelet, our Chief Operating Officer. We issued a press release yesterday that included detailed information about our fourth quarter and year end 2019 results. In addition, Gran Tierra's 2019 annual report on Form 10-K has been filed on EDGAR and is available on our website. Ryan and Tony will make a few brief comments and then we will open the line for questions. Ryan over to you.

Ryan Ellson

Analyst

Good morning everyone. Average production for 2019 was 34,817 barrels of oil per day consistent with the revised 2019 guidance of 34,800 to 35,000 barrels of oil per day. During 2019, we generated net income of $39 million or $0.10 per share, EBITDA of $364 million, adjusted EBITDA of $326 million, and funds flow from operations of $272 million or $0.72 per share. Gran Tierra's Q4 capital spend totaled $69 million which was down 41% as expected from the third quarter 2019 amount of $116 million. This reduction reflects the completion of the extensive facilities expansion and gas-to-power project at Acordionero which was required to fully implement the field's waterflood to enhance ultimate oil recovery. At year end, $118 million was drawn on our credit facility. This increased from Q3 as we had approximately $200 million of payables at September 30th from our active capital program in Q3 and our VAT receivable grew to approximately $130 million. Free cash flow and anticipated collection of our current value-added tax receivable will be used to reduce the amount drawn on our credit facility. We were pleased with the increase in 1P reserves to 79 million, 100% of it is oil, representing a 200% 1P reserves replacement and growth in 1P net present value discounted 10% to $1.5 billion before tax and $1.3 billion after-tax. And 1P net asset value of $2.50 per share before tax and $1.83 per share after-tax. On a 2P basis, we replaced 100% of our production and maintained the company's 2P reserves at 142 million barrels of oil and increased 2P NPV to $2.9 billion before tax and $2.3 billion after-tax and 2P net asset value per share to $6.23 before tax and $4.49 after-tax. Looking to 2020, we will focus on balance sheet strength, development of our…

Tony Berthelet

Analyst

Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. I'll briefly cover a few operational highlights from yesterday's press release and provide some updates on current activity. We are ahead of schedule on our 2020 development program at Acordionero with four wells of our 12- to 14-well program being rig released. We are currently moving the rig to pad two to continue infill drilling operations. Acordionero-55 was brought on production January 24 setting a record for spud to on production of 15 days. It has stabilized at 500 barrels of oil per day. Acordionero-56 was brought on production January 31. It is currently producing at 600 barrels of oil per day. Acordionero-57 was brought on production February 17 and is currently producing at 540 barrels of oil per day. And Acordionero-58 was brought on production this week and is currently recovering completion fluids. We continue to actively manage the Waterflood at Acordionero by sector, allowing for optimum Waterflood performance in both Lisama A and Lisama C intervals. On a field level, the current instantaneous and cumulative voidage replacement ratios are 1.1 and 0.3 respectively. Both of these numbers represent increases of approximately 180% since June of 2019. Snubbing unit operations at Ayombero-2 and -3 successfully recovered the upper completion and both wells have been secured pending further evaluation. The snubbing unit recently completed recovery operations at Chuira-1, where the upper completion has been recovered from the well and the well has been turned over to operations. The well is currently flowing to surface and is cleaning up. In the Putumayo Basin, as Ryan mentioned, we have approximately 4,000 barrels suspended due to blockades affecting our Southern Putumayo operations. We're currently monitoring the situation and will restore production as soon as practical. We are mobilizing the rig to begin development drilling at – operations at…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question-and-answer session for securities analysts. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from David Round with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

David Round

Analyst

Hi, guys. I'll start with a pretty predictable one, but obviously, a lot of focus on Acordionero at the moment. So are you able to give us a current production number there and just run through how you're expecting that to trend over the course of the year? The second one is just on costs, because obviously with the gas-to-power and better ESP reliability you should be in a pretty good position there. I can see you brought guidance down by about $0.5 from last year. But I suppose the question is, could you do better than that? Or is there anything else offsetting the savings there?

Tony Berthelet

Analyst

Thanks, David. It's Tony here. I'll take the first part of that question. Acordionero production has been averaging around 15,000 to 16,000 barrels a day for the first part of the year, so we're on track from that perspective in terms of what we set for budget for Acordionero. And forecast for the year is on track. We don't see any potential hiccups there. Operating costs?

Ryan Ellson

Analyst

With respect to the operating costs, yeah, our operating costs have come down. Part of it is as we inject more water -- our power consumption is going up by about 50%. So on a per unit cost - per unit basis it's dropping dramatically, but we are increasing the amount of power that we're using. So the number that we have in there is reflective of that forecast.

David Round

Analyst

Okay. And can I just -- a quick follow-up to the first question. Obviously, you have downtime from certain wells and I think that was pretty evident in December. But is there anything like that going on at the moment? Because I suppose my simplistic thinking assuming you got the well back on in December, I'm going with a starting point of 16,000 and then add in let's say, the 15,00 that you've added through the new wells so far, it gets me to around 17,000, 17,500 today. Is that the way I should be thinking about it? Or are there wells down at the moment that I need to take into account?

Tony Berthelet

Analyst

Yeah. I think inside Acordionero we have planned downtime associated with routine ESP repairs. And for the most part for the first part of the year we're on track with the expected failure rate and workovers. But yes, we do have a couple of wells that are down right now and that would be the gap on your number from 17,000 to our 15,000 to 16,000 number right now.

David Round

Analyst

Great. Makes sense. Thank you.

Tony Berthelet

Analyst

You bet.

Operator

Operator

Gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Gary Guidry

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Thanks to everyone for dialing in. It's a volatile time in the markets and in the world in general. We appreciate your support and your patience. We're working as diligently as we can. We will certainly advise investors once the current blockades in the Southern Putumayo are resolved. The governments are working diligently trying to resolve those issues and we're doing everything we can to support them. So thanks again for your time, your patience, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.