Quarterly / Earnings Reports | Second Quarter (2Q) Update

7Gen Details Q1 2019 Results

Email    |    Print    |    Bookmark

You Need to login first

   |    Friday,May 03,2019

Seven Generations Energy reported its Q1 2019 results.

Highlights:

• 7G’s market access initiatives, coupled with a stronger condensate price environment and improved operating costs, led to adjusted funds flow of $339 million or $0.95 per share and yielded an operating netback of $21.99 per boe, 16 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2018.
• The company’s trailing 12-month return on capital employed was 11.9 percent. Cash return on invested capital was 17.7 percent.
• Investments in water handling helped reduce operating expenses to $4.93 per boe, 11 percent below the company’s full year 2018 average of $5.52 per boe. 7G’s investments in water management and conservation are reducing costs, carbon emissions and traffic by taking approximately 50 water hauling trucks off the road each day.
• Sales volumes averaged 197,400 boe/d, with liquids representing 59 percent of 7G’s total production. Condensate sales of 72,700 bbl/d increased by 8 percent compared to the same period in 2018.
• 7G now has the capacity to sell approximately 90 percent of its natural gas into premium markets in the US Midwest, Eastern Canada and the US Gulf Coast. The company’s realized natural gas price was $4.32/Mcf in the first quarter, an approximate 70 percent premium to AECO pricing. 7G continues to advance its market access initiatives, recently adding 55 MMcf/d of pipeline capacity from Chicago directly to the US Gulf Coast, taking that total capacity to 155 MMcf/d.
• Realizing the benefit of its delineation capital investments, 7G has an additional lower Montney result with initial 30-day flow rates averaging approximately 1,250 boe/d (63 percent condensate). The company is currently tying-in its first full triple-stack pad, with flow rates expected later this summer.
• 7G has the lowest carbon intensity per unit among its Canadian peers at 0.0136 tonnes of CO₂e per boe, as reported by CDP, a global environmental disclosure protocol. 7G is committed to responsible energy development that serves stakeholders through leading governance, social and environmental performance within the North American energy industry.

Key Nest 3 infrastructure development in progress, outlook for increasing free cash flow

7G had an active first quarter that included the build-out of its Nest 3 connector pipeline. This 2019 pipeline investment underpins the Nest 3 development plan and enables the tie-in of Nest 3 resource into the company’s larger gathering and processing infrastructure network. Nest 3 infrastructure development is expected to continue in the second quarter, before aligning toward a more resource development focused second half of the year. Once the connector is complete, 7G expects future infrastructure capital, as a percent of total cash flow, to fall relative to historical levels.

Capital discipline and returns to shareholders remain top priorities

As 7G transitions from one of the fastest drill-bit growth companies in Canadian history to a sustainable, free cash flow growth entity, capital discipline remains paramount. Strong liquids production, improving local condensate pricing and reduced operating costs are expected to generate free cash flow in excess of 7G’s $1.25 billion 2019 capital budget. 7G plans to apply free cash flow to a combination of share repurchases pursuant to the previously announced normal course issuer bid (NCIB) and net debt reduction.

Ops & Financials:

(1) Excludes the purchase and resale of condensate and natural gas in respect of the Company's transportation commitment utilization and marketing activities.
(2) See “Non-IFRS Financial Measures” under Reader Advisory. Certain comparative figures have been adjusted to conform to current period presentation.
(3) Represents the total of liquids and natural gas sales, net of royalties, gains (losses) on risk management contracts and other income.
(4) Refer to Note 13 of the Q1 2019 condensed interim consolidated financial statements for further details.

(1) The drilling and completion counts include only horizontal Montney wells in the Nest. The drilling counts and metrics exclude wells that are re-drilled or abandoned.
(2) Information provided is based on field estimates and is subject to change.

Ops & Resource Development

Cost structure

Operating costs in the first quarter improved to $4.93 per boe, benefitting from investments in water handling infrastructure. At this time, 7G is not updating its previously disclosed 2019 operating expense budget of $5.00 to $5.50 per boe, and will continue to progress its water management initiatives, including increased recycling of produced water.

Lower Montney resource delineation update

7G’s second partial triple-stack pad, located in the western edge of Nest 2, came on stream slightly ahead of schedule and on budget. It targeted a single well in the lower Montney, below simultaneous completions of the upper and middle Montney. The lower Montney location delivered initial rates during the first 30 days of production of approximately 1,250 boe/d (63 percent condensate), while the middle and upper locations performed as expected. The pad is located approximately a township west of the company’s first partial triple-stack that was announced last year and enhances 7G’s understanding of the lower Montney resource across a broader areal extent. With continued lower Montney success, the company could materially expand its highly economic drilling inventory, while improving full cycle returns as surface costs are allocated across a larger well count.

Full triple-stack pad and advanced completions design

The company’s first full triple-stack pad, located in the north-western portion of Nest 2, has proceeded according to plan and budget, with three wells in each of the upper, middle and lower Montney completed in the first quarter and in the process of being tied-in. This triple-stack pad will help further delineate the lower Montney potential and evaluate the effectiveness of co-completions across all three Montney benches. In addition, 7G has deployed fibre-optic monitoring, micro-seismic, and image logging to improve understanding of the subsurface fracture network and to enhance future completion designs. 7G plans to use its expanding dataset to help analyze and advance the economic benefits of increasing intra-stage clusters that could materially improve the company’s capital efficiencies.

Nest 1 update

7G’s previously announced Nest 1 perimeter test continues to flow at rates and pressures exceeding expectations. Initial rates during the first 60 days of production averaged 1,898 boe/d (72 percent condensate) while flowing at restricted rates during most of the second month. This prolific result, located 12 kilometres east of the company’s existing Nest 1 development, provides important initial production data that will help guide development planning of the company’s inventory of 480 Nest 1 locations.

Outlook

2019 guidance remains unchanged. The company has provided additional details regarding expected royalty rates to reflect the current commodity price environment. During the second quarter of 2019, brief outages are planned for turnaround work at third party processing facilities and natural gas pipeline systems. The previously provided outlook reflects these maintenance-related events.

Board & Other Updates

As previously announced, 7G’s board of directors renewal process is currently underway with Mark Monroe taking on the chair role as of January 1, 2019 and Ronnie Irani joining 7G’s board of directors as of February 27, 2019. Founding chair Kent Jespersen did not stand for re-election at the company’s annual general meeting that took place on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. Additionally, directors Kevin Brown, Kaush Rakhit and Jeff van Steenbergen did not stand for re-election. Seven Generations thanks these directors for their guidance and contributions to the conception, evolution and foundational success of the company.

Additionally, 7G’s board of directors has appointed Leontine Atkins as a board member effective May 2, 2019. Atkins was previously a board member of KPMG Canada’s National Board of Directors until early 2019, having sat on the National Acquisitions and Admissions and Succession committees. She served as a Partner at KPMG Canada from 2006 until early 2019 and was previously a Partner at KPMG Netherlands until she moved to Canada in 2006. Atkins has 30 years of experience in the global oil and gas industry, with a focus on corporate strategy in each of the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the energy value chain.

Atkins currently serves as a director of Points International, a leading global loyalty ecommerce platform, the board of Calgary Economic Development as the chair of the audit committee and on the board of Heritage Park Museum where she also is a member of the audit committee. She was also the vice chair and past chair of the audit/investment committee of the Glenbow Museum board. Atkins holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Acadia University and a Master of Business Administration from Dalhousie University. She has also obtained her CPA, CA designation as well as the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

MARKET ACCESS INITIATIVES

During the first quarter, 7G acquired an additional 55 MMcf/d of market access from the US Midwest to the Gulf Coast. When combined with 7G’s existing 100 MMcf/d of direct Henry Hub sales, the company can potentially sell nearly one third of its Montney natural gas production directly into the global LNG market. This pipeline capacity provides price diversification and differentiated egress optionality for the company’s natural gas production. 7G remains committed to expanding its market access options to enhance price realizations across its entire production suite.

NORMAL COURSE ISSUER BID UPDATE

With benchmark WTI prices exceeding the assumptions used in the company’s 2019 budget, 7G has entered into incremental oil hedges subsequent to the first quarter to establish floor pricing on 5,000 bbl/d of its production above US$65/bbl for the balance of 2019. With hedged cash flows exceeding budgeted WTI pricing, and a commitment to execute the original $1.25 billion capital program, 7G intends to allocate excess free cash flow to a combination of its NCIB and net debt reduction.

GENERATIONS – 7G’S STAKEHOLDER AND SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

7G has published on its website the fourth annual edition of Generations, its stakeholder and sustainability report. Generations 2019 highlights 7G’s commitment to differentiated stakeholder service, responsible energy development and stakeholder engagement. Generations 2019 expands 7G’s reporting of quantitative and qualitative environmental, social and governance performance. Generations is available at:

https://www.7genergy.com/responsibility/generations-stakeholder-and-sustainability-report