Tim Duncan
Analyst · ROTH Capital. Please go ahead with your question
Thanks, Sergio, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. It is a pleasure to discuss our third quarter, which is highlighted by another positive earnings quarter, bolstered by solid free cash flow generation, and numerous positive milestones related to our capital program, with more discoveries leading to developments than we had originally anticipated, which we'll discuss in more detail. During the quarter Talos continued to generate solid financial results with strong production rates and high margins, driven mainly by premium price realization in our conscious cost management efforts. Despite the production impacts associated with Hurricane Barry, we generated sustainable free cash flow while continuing to invest in several of our key projects for the year, namely Bulleit and Orlov in the deepwater U.S. Gulf and Zama appraisal in Block 7 and Block 31 in offshore Mexico. On the business development front, we executed agreements with both BP and ExxonMobil, respectively, related to exciting exploration opportunities. Finally, on the balance sheet front, we substantially increased our liquidity with a borrowing based commitment increase in the third quarter. Our leverage metrics continue to improve with net debt to last 12-month EBITDA at 1.1 times. So, let's turn to the quarter highlights. Production was 52,600 barrels equivalent per day, which is 73% oil and 80% total liquids, and generated revenue of approximately $229 million. As we stated in our last earnings call, we knew Hurricane Barry would impact third quarter, forcing us to shut in approximately 85% of our production for about a week in July and causing approximately 4,000 barrels equivalent per day of production deferment in the quarter. Our current and third quarter action production rate are back to the normalized 56,000 to 57,000 barrels equivalent a day. WTI prices in the period averaged $56.45 a barrel but our realized price was $59.54 a barrel after deductions, so a net of over $3 premium to WTI, which represents one of the benefits of our asset base because the quality of our oil and our access to infrastructure which leads to premium pricing. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter inclusive of our hedge settlements was approximately $158 million. It was $152 million excluding the realized impact of our hedges. The EBITDA margin or cash margin was $32.57 per Boe hedged and $31.47 per Boe unhedged. Although we had a 69% adjusted EBITDA margin, which includes negative impacts from hurricane Barry, those onetime reductions were offset by seeing impact of cost savings initiatives within our operating cost structure. We invested $116 million in our third quarter in our capital program, inclusive of our P&A activities. Of this approximately $100 million was deployed in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico while $16.1 million was spent on our efforts in offshore Mexico where we had further success in our Block 31 exploration campaign and associated evaluation program, which concluded in October. As of the end of the third quarter, we maintained over $600 million of liquidity following an increase in our borrowing base commitment to $850 million, which we announced earlier in the quarter. The Company's net debt balance is approximately $705 million, and leverage as measured by net debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA was 1.1 times. We continue to closely monitor and maintain a conservative balance sheet which we believe is amongst the best in our peer group. We also continue to add to our 2019 to 2020 hedge position in the quarter, and Shane will provide those details shortly. We completed two separate transactions with BP and ExxonMobil, respectively, which will provide exposure to material exploration prospects with potentially significant resource volumes. In our Green Canyon area, we acquired the Hershey prospects from Exxon, which lies on four contiguous blocks, which is over 23,000 gross acres, immediately adjacent to several of our key Green Canyon area assets and infrastructure. The agreement is structured with the contingent payment that requires no upfront consideration and no drilling obligations, but rather earn-out payment if certain success milestones are achieved, which adds optionality and flexibility. We are now looking to bring a partner into the project to join us. It is our second exploration-related transaction with Exxon in 2019, and the third overall transaction with the company in the last 18 months, including Ram Powell. We executed a farm-out agreement with BP related to the Puma West prospect, also in our Green Canyon core area. This prospect is situated on exploration acreage that we acquired through our combination with Stone Energy. After we reprocessed our seismic over the block, we were encouraged with the exploration potential and the sub-salt Miocene window, and prospective targets similar to those found in BASIS POINTS' Mad Dog field to the east. After permitting the well, we engaged with BP to expedite project execution ahead of the lease expiration. Shortly after executing our transaction with BP, the well spud in October. Chevron has since joined the partnership with a 25% working interest in the project from BP, bringing the final working interest levels to 50% BP as operator, 25% Talos, and 25% Chevron. As mentioned previously on the call, we also had exploration success in offshore Mexico in the third quarter and our shallow water Block 31 Xaxamani exploration campaign, which consisted of the Xaxamani-2 and the Tolteca-1 wells, both of which achieved better than expected results. The Xaxamani 2 well had 148 feet of gross TVD pay with a 78% net to gross ratio in two shallow oil sands. In the Tolteca-1 well, the objective was to further delineate the deeper of the two sands found in the Xaxamani-2 well, more outboard of the first of all, possibly defining the reservoir limits within oil-water contact. What we found was a thicker than expected pay sand with 120 feet gross TVD pay and a very encouraging 95% net to gross, all in the deeper target and without an oil-water contact, increasing the potential size of the resource. So, as we pull the geological data set together prior to disclosing the resource potential, we’re encouraged not only by the results here, but how this success could open up other shallow oil targets with similar geophysical characteristics on the contract area. The discovery is located in less than one mile from shore and in less than 100 feet of water. So, much shallow water than what we are doing in the Block 7 area where Zama is located. Because our activity in Block 31 was part of 25% cross assignment trade with our Block 2 contract, Talos has now drilled eight wells across three different offshore contracts, reinforcing our belief in the potential of offshore Mexico. In our offshore Mexico Block 7, as I mentioned on the last call, we continue to be very proud of the execution of the appraisal program in Zama in the first half of the year. The geological data set we've collected there is unprecedented for an appraisal program in offshore Mexico. We are continuing to advance our predevelopment work and anticipate a third-party reserve estimate by [indiscernible] by the end of 2019, providing an independent view of the resource potential. We also filed for and received a two-year extension of the primary term on Block 7 in the third quarter, which will allow us to test other exploration ideas on the block through September 2021, including our Xlapak and Pok-A-Tok prospects. So, several moving pieces and upcoming milestones on Block 7, including our ongoing unitization discusses with Pemex, all of which -- all of with the hope of reaching FID in 2020. Some of the other additional highlights across our core areas. The Green Canyon area, which includes the Tornado field in the broader Phoenix complex, as well as our Green Canyon 18 field accounted for net daily production of 19,700 barrels equivalent day. Following the previously announced success of Bulleit and Orlov projects, we believe those discoveries can each generate gross unrisked production of 7,000 to 10,000 barrels equivalent per day once brought on line. We expect Orlov to begin first production early in the first quarter of 2020, ahead of schedule, and Bulleit to follow in the third quarter of 2020. The Mississippi Canyon core area which includes the Pompano, Amberjack, Ram Powell and Gunflint deals, had a total net production of 19,000 barrels equivalent a day in the third quarter. In our Ram Powell asset, work is ongoing to host production from the Stonefly subsea project, which is expected to come on line in the first quarter of 2020, will become another source of income for Talos, as the Stonefly operator will pay a production handling fee and their proportionate share of the operating cost of the facility. Our shallow water and other core area accounts for both our shallow water assets as well some small deepwater assets. This core area produced 13,900 barrels equivalent a day in the quarter. During the quarter, we commenced production from one well in our Ewing Bank 306 field and also drilled and completed our Grand Isle 82 well which initiated production in October. Asset management activities, our asset revitalization and maintenance program generated 2,700 barrels equivalent a day gross or 1,500 equivalent a day net in the third quarter at a highly economic conversion cost of 3,400 per Boe per day. As we begin to look forward, we're finalizing contractual terms for two rigs related to our 2020 drilling plan. Among those, we expect to utilize a platform rig for near-field exploration in our Green Canyon and Mississippi Canyon core areas, starting with the Green Canyon 18 platform. We also expect to sign a contract for a deepwater rig in the coming weeks. The deepwater rig contract will commence in 2020. And we will utilize the rig in the Bulleit development in next year's deepwater projects, which we’ll announce in due course. As always, our goal is to build a capital program that combines asset redevelopment and near infrastructure drilling for short turnaround to production, while also allocating capital to high impact exploration projects, all targeted inside generated free cash flow, and we look forward to providing more details on our next call. In summary, we believe it's been a highly successful quarter for Talos, despite the material weather shut-in. We continue to deliver solid financial performance, generated free cash flow in the U.S. business while investing for the future on both sides of the Gulf, and drilling opportunities and business development activities, while also maintaining financial discipline with sustainable liquidity and low leverage. We continue to remain excited about the Company's prospect for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020, and continue building resilient and highly profitable company with attractive prospects for the future to drive shareholder value creation. I'll now turn it over to Shane to discuss the details of our financial results.