Tracy Krohn
Analyst · Capital One Securities. Please proceed
Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today. With me this morning as usual is Tom Murphy, our Chief Operations Officer; Danny Gibbons, our Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Schroeder, our Chief Technical Officer. They are going to be available to answer questions later during this call. So, yesterday, after the market closed, we announced solid results for fourth quarter and full-year 2017 and provided our year-end proved reserves showing that we replaced slightly more than 100% of our production. We think this is a pretty good feat on a modest capital expenditure program. We also reported positive earnings and strong cash flow. Production averaged 37,526 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which was within our guidance range. It was up about 3% sequentially from the prior quarter. We estimate that production would have far exceeded the guidance this quarter and then above fourth quarter last year if we hadn’t been impacted by substantial downtime and deferrals associated primarily with weather, pipeline outrages and unplanned platform maintenance by third parties that collectively resulted in deferred production of almost 6,100 barrels of oil equivalent per day. You may recall with the beginning of the fourth quarter, we experienced production deferrals as a result of Hurricane Nate. This, deferred production quite a number of days while many of these downstream pipelines and platforms were enabled to resume normal operations and that was like a few days to few weeks. It’s not at all unusual for us to experience downtime but fourth quarter may have set record for outrages. Fortunately, the production was deferred and not lost. So, if not produced in the fourth quarter, we will produce in next, the following quarters. So, oil and liquids represented about 58% of fourth quarter production, which is up from 55% a year ago. Mahogany, Ewing Bank 910 and Virgo fields, all oily projects delivered the largest production increases in 2017. And if you will recall, we completed three new projects in Mahogany in 2017 as we started the year with the highly successful A-18 and followed that with A-16 well, then the A-8 well and finally finished the year working on the A-17 well. That will add to production in 2018. Two projects completed on our Ewing Bank 910 field in 2016 also added the production to 2017 and recompletion of well at Virgo field in late 2016 also added production to 2017. Revenue continued to climb in 2017 as commodity prices recovered. And with unhedged production, we were able to fully benefit from that increase. The combined average realized sales price was 36.79 per Boe in fourth quarter compared to 30.83 per Boe in the same period of 2016. That represents an improvement of almost $6 per barrel oil equivalent or 19.3%. So, another thing we saw in the fourth quarter and that has continued so far into 2018 is positive crude oil price differentials. You may recall that before the collapse in crude prices in mid-2014, spiral down in 2015, we used to enjoy some very positive crude oil differentials because many of our crude prices like LLS, which prices like Brent rather than WTI. So, in 2015, our crude oil differentials became negative and at times nearly $6 per barrel negative. So, fast forwarding to fourth quarter 2017, in the months of November, December, our crude oil price differentials turned positive and we were also positive again into January 2018. What we have experienced in these last three months is a widening of the Brent WTI differential and the narrowing of the light, heavy crude differential. We suspect that lighter dip phenomenon is due to the turmoil in Venezuela and the decreased exports of the heavy sour crude to the U.S. So, adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $72.9 million, up $3.3 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2016. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year of 2017 was $268.4 million, up $89.3 million over the full year 2016. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 55% for the full year 2017, up from 45% in 2016. Our net cash provided by operating activities for the year 2017 was a $159.4 million which is an increase of $145.2 million over 2016. Yes, let me repeat that. That’s an increase of a $145 million over 2016. The increase in cash flows in 2017 was primarily due to higher realized prices, lower operating expenses and lower interest payments. OpEx decreased by $11.3 million and interest expense decreased $46.4 million. We have continued to have a keen focus on bringing our expenses down to getting back to EBITDA margins that are necessary to resume normal activities in Gulf of Mexico for all intents and purposes we’re there. Net income was $23.4 million or $0.16 per share. Excluding special items, our adjusted net income for the fourth quarter of 2017 was $24.2 million that represents a $16.5 million increase over the fourth quarter of 2016. Total liquidity at the end of 2017 was $248.7 million, made up of cash balance of $99.1 million and revolver availability of almost $150 million. So, with the pickup in drilling activity, we have been spending more but our free cash flow has improved a great deal from last year. So, during 2018 we expect to receive $65.1 million federal income tax refunds, related to specified liability losses associated with our P&A activities, allowing us to capture net operating loss carrybacks. By ending 2017 with a strong cash balance and building cash throughout 2018, we expect to be in a good position to be able to either pay off the upcoming 2019 debt maturities during 2018 or refinance them or do some combination of both. So, to provide additional financial flexibility, as we have previously reported through 2017 and now into 2018, we’ve been working to establish a drilling joint venture with private investors. We’re in the final stages of establishing that joint venture that’s going to allow us to drill and exploit assets on a promoted basis and with reduced capital outlay. We’ve completed negotiations with an initial group of investors but are subject to funding at an initial closing expected to occur by mid-March. More investors may join the joint venture before or after the initial closing. It’s important to note that establishing an investment vehicle with these outside parties that allows us to drill our wells on a promoted basis, will enable our announced 2018 capital spending plan to be much lower. But once all conditions from the initial closing of this joint venture are met, we will announce the final terms and revise our 2018 capital budget. So, additionally, this joint venture could position us in the future to participate in high quality prospects that we may not otherwise have been able to participate in. So, our 2017 CapEx, was only about $130 million and despite that replaced over 100% of our 2017 production. And we saw total proved reserves increase slightly. Our year-end 2017 SEC proved reserves were 74.2 million barrels of oil equivalent 445.3 Bcf equivalent that’s comprised of 46% crude oil, 11% NGLs and that’s a total of 57% liquids. About 74% of our 2017 improve reserves were classified as proved developed producing. 10% is proved developed non-producing and 16% as proved undeveloped. So, I think we are doing a pretty good job of converting categories of reserves. So compared to last year, our proved developed producing reserves increased 15.2% with significant contribution coming from the A-18 well at Mahogany. Present value of our reported SEC proved reserves, discounted at 10% was $992.9 million that’s up 32% from $754.9 million at the end of 2016. And of course that’s driven by higher commodity prices used with the SEC calculation but also because total proved reserves were slightly higher as well. If we utilize the NYMEX forward curve on the last day of 2017, PV-10 value would have been $1.1 billion. So, it was a good year with strong improvement in the value of our asset base. With that let’s talk a little bit about 2018. Our plan is to continue to unlock the value of our substantial drilling inventory. We’re focused on a group of oil-focused projects, comprised of a few that are lower risk and high return combined with some others that are higher risk and higher return potential that assuming success will be placed on production very quickly. Our inventory of high quality, exploration drilling and field extension projects in the Gulf of Mexico are based on advanced seismic and processing that’s amid our growing understanding of some of our key fields. So to build shareholder value, we want to balance the use of that cash generation to strengthen our balance sheet by reducing debt as well as reinvest at more high-return projects. Currently, we have established a 2018 capital program of a $130 million that includes completing three wells that we started in 2017 and commence and complete seven additional wells. Three of the wells are in the deepwater and the rest are on the shelf. We are or will be the operator on a majority of these projects. The budget also includes 12 recompletes that are expected to cost around $7.5 million. So additionally, we estimate that we will spend approximately $24 million on plugging and abandonment activities in 2018, which is way down from what we spent in 2016 and 2017. We’re pleased that we aggressively addressed our asset retirement obligations at a time of low service costs and lower commodity prices and that allows us to now concentrate on more of our drilling and acquisitions plans. So, walking through the 2018 program, let’s start with projects that were commenced in 2017 but are not yet on production. Currently completion operations are underway on the A-17 well Ship Shoal 349, Mahogany. This well is expected to be online in the middle of March. This well found a previously undiscovered deeper sand, resulting in proved reserve additions with significant upside. This well was originally targeting what we thought was the T sand, but instead we discovered a deeper sand which we are calling the V sand. We’re also able to extend known limits of one of the field pay sands, which we have seen in earlier wells. We are very encouraged by these two new signs. So, this is very interesting data that we will use to more fully understand the large subsalt reservoirs which continue to provide exciting opportunities. So once we complete the A-17 well and we get it online, we’ll get the rig over to commence the A-5 side track. That well shouldn’t take that long. We plan to get it online in the next few months. We have another well planned at Mahogany after A-5 side track but haven’t fully vetted out location, exact location of the target. We should reach some conclusion on that here in next few months. We also have some remedial work plan that will increase production as well. So, with that we also drilled an exploration well at Main Pass 286. In mid-December, the well reached TD of 14,562 feet and logged 112 feet of gross hydrocarbon interval. That resulted in new field discovery for the Company. This was an open-water exploratory location, which means it was not drilled from an existing platform restructure. We are currently doing front end engineering design, so called P design, and thus evaluating what we think is going to be our optimal development solution. We have a couple of development alternatives available to us including producing this field back to W&T owned and operated infrastructure at our Main Pass 283 platform. We’re also looking towards having this field online in early 2019, pending our sanction time with details. W&T holds the 100% working interest in this well. We recently mobilized drill rates to our deepwater Viosca Knoll 823 Virgo platform and spud the A-10 side track well in late January. We are the operator and have 80% working interest. The A-10 side track marks the beginning of what we expect to be a mostly [ph] well drilling program in our Virgo field, the first drilling to occur since the initial development of the field. The A-10 side track well was drilled up dip to known pay in an adjacent wellbore and recently reached total depth of 16,770 feet following over 300 feet of measured depth hydrocarbon column. We are moving in the completion mode of the well. We expect to have it online during late Q1, maybe early Q2. Following the completion of the A-10 side track, we anticipate moving to drill the second well in our drilling program. So, another one of our 2018 drilling programs involves Ewing Bank 910 field. If you will recall we also had a successful drilling program there in 2016 where we drilled two wells that are currently on production. Two wells planned for this year are the South Tim 311 A-2 and A-3 wells. South Tim 311 and 320 are part of the Ewing 910 field. Platform modifications are beginning on the South Tim 311 platform preparing for rig mobilization. That rig will mobilize the platform in the first quarter with a likely spud date sometime in the second quarter. So, we believe both of these wells are low risk exploration opportunities with multi-stacked pay sand potential. And assuming success, these wells could be brought online pretty quick with existing infrastructure. So, as is often the case, we have multiple recompletion opportunities, as lower zones deplete, we move up the wellbore to recomplete upper stack pay sands. These provide low cost and moreover low risk production initiatives. As we look back on our recomplete plans for 2017, we anticipate we will perform a good deal of more recompletes than we actually did. Part of that estimating process relates to when we think particular sand will deplete so that the well can be recompleted to another zone. So, in a number of cases, in 2017 the sands that we thought would deplete lasted longer and delayed the process. That’s a good result of the production reserves and cash flow, it doesn’t help providing in accurate timely guidance for this group, kind of the quality problem. As I discussed early, in order to provide additional financial flexibility, we are in the final stages of establishing a drilling joint venture be formed with private investors that allows us to drill and exploit assets on a promoted basis and with reduced capital outlay. We have completed negotiations with that initial group of investors but are subject to finding an initial closing expected to close on or before mid March. Again, more investors may join the joint venture before or after the initial closing. Once again, all conditions to the initial closing are met -- once those are met, we’ll announce the final terms and revise our 2018 capital budget. However, this will not have an impact on our drilling plans, just our ownership percentage. It’s expected that entities owned and controlled by me and my family will invest on the same terms as are negotiated with unaffiliated investors to acquire approximately 4% interest in the drilling joint venture. As it relates to our production guidance, our estimates not yet reflect what we believe are viable acquisition opportunities to increase both production and reserves. We continue to evaluate these opportunities and are confident that we can execute on some of them as they arise. Reduction in capital dedicated to drilling wells could be put to use for either acquisitions or debt reductions or both, it’s our intent to reduce debt further over the next several months. So, with that, stay tuned. Operator, we can now open the lines for questions.