Good morning, and welcome to the Canacol Energy fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen- only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Carolina Orozco, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to Canacol's year-end 2021 financial results conference call. This is Carolina Orozco, Vice President of Investor Relations. I am with Mr. Charle Gamba, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Jason Bednar, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, it's important to mention that the comments on this call by Canacol's senior management can include projections of the corporation's future performance. These projections neither constitute any commitments as to future results, nor take into account risks or uncertainties that could materialize. As a result, Canacol assumes no responsibility in the event that future results are different from the projections shared on this conference call. Please note that all finance figures on this call are denominated in U.S. dollars. We will begin the presentation with our President and CEO, Mr. Charle Gamba, who will cover the operational highlights for the fourth quarter and year-end 2021.
Mr. Jason Bednar, our CFO, will then discuss financial highlights. Mr. Gamba will close with a discussion of the corporation's outlook for the remainder of 2022 and beyond. A Q&A session will follow. Mr. Charle Gamba is joining us from the line from Bogotá, and Mr. Bednar is joining us from the line from Calgary. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Charle Gamba, President and CEO of Canacol Energy.
Thanks, Carolina, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone. Welcome to Canacol's fourth quarter and year-end 2021 conference call. In 2021, the corporation achieved several important goals with respect to creating value for our shareholders and other stakeholders, including a 6% increase in realized natural gas sales year- over- year, a 12% return on capital employed, and high and stable operating margins averaging 78%. On the exploration front, we drilled three new discoveries at Aguas Vivas, San Marcos and Siku, which at year-end accounted for 70 Bcf of new 2P reserves. We also added to our long-term exploration potential through the successful bid on two new large exploration blocks located in the Middle Magdalena basin in a licensing round conducted by the ANH in late 2021.
In 2021, we also made an important step forward in our plans to increase gas sales from our core producing area with the execution of a new long-term take-or-pay gas sales contract with EPM. This contract underpins our Jobo-Medellín pipeline project, which is currently in progress. Importantly, we ensured that we have the financial flexibility to continue executing our plans with the successful refinancing of our debt. In the fourth quarter, we issued $500 million worth of new bonds due in 2028, so that the majority of our debt is now not due until over six years from now. In the process, we are able to increase our cash on hand and secure a lower interest rate than we were previously paying.
In 2021, we continued to deliver on a return of capital to shareholders in 2020 via our quarterly dividend program with no cut due to the impact of COVID-19, and by buying back shares, a process that we accelerated when attractive opportunities presented themselves, as evidenced by our recent purchase of a large block of shares in the market. I'll now turn the presentation over to Jason Bednar, our CFO, who will discuss our fourth quarter financials in more detail. When he's done, I'll provide some more detail on the outlook for 2022.
Thank you, Charle. Although the global pandemic made it another challenging year, 2021 was nonetheless a good year financially for Canacol and its stakeholders, as we continued to execute our plan to develop our growing natural gas business. We reported approximately $154 million in adjusted funds from operations for the full year of 2021, a 6% increase from 2020, roughly in line with the 6% increase in sales volumes. Net income of $15 million in 2021 was a complete turnaround from 2020. In 2020, we reported a large loss due to a non-cash deferred tax charge.
These positive financial results allowed us to maintain our quarterly dividend, declaring just under $30 million to shareholders, applied almost $9 million to the repurchase of shares during 2021 also, which we have accelerated subsequently year to year-end, with just over $13 million applied to the repurchase and cancellation of shares in recent months, during 2022. Our dividend currently represents an annual yield of approximately 6%, with the last quarterly dividend paid in January and the next one due to be paid on April 19, 2022.
The resilience and growth in our key financial metrics also allowed us to issue a U.S. $500 million bond, which is how we're able to more than double our holdings of cash and cash equivalents to $139 million at year-end, providing significant financial liquidity as we plan for continued investment and growth in our business. Looking at our operational results on a quarterly basis, our operating netback was unchanged at $3.59 per Mcf in the three months ended December 31, 2021, as compared to the fourth quarter, the same period in 2020, but continued to show recovery from more normal levels from the slight dip we saw during a period of particularly weak gas demand in Colombia in the second quarter of 2021.
These results again highlight the stability and high- margin nature of our business. To further highlight the strength and stability of our business and financial results, we wanted to highlight the return on capital employed implied by financial statements over the last 12 quarters. Our return on capital employed remained high by E&P industry standards at 12% for both the fourth quarter and on average for the full year of 2021. A significant event in the fourth quarter was our closing of an offering of the $500 million aggregate principal amount of bonds of 5.75% senior unsecured notes due in 2028. These new bonds allowed us to refinance our previously outstanding 7.25% senior notes that were due in 2025. It also allowed us to refinance some other debts and to increase our cash on hand.
By replacing the 2025 notes, Canacol will benefit from lower interest rates, deferred maturity, and additional liquidity to be used towards capital expenditures. Notably, leading into the bond refinancing, we received a ratings upgrade from Moody's to Ba3, and were able to add S&P at a BB- rating, alongside Fitch, who maintained their BB- with a positive outlook. These ratings upgrades further highlight the strength of our core gas business. In closing, our Q4 financial results were strong and relatively stable despite the challenges that the coronavirus pandemic continued to present. We are now in an increasingly enviable position of financial strength, with an ability to maintain a steady return of capital to shareholders and increase flexibility to ramp up investment levels when we think that it makes sense to do so and if operational restrictions don't prevent us from doing so.
At this point, I will hand it back to Charle. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Jason. With respect to the outlook for 2022, we're pretty optimistic for the remainder of the year that we'll continue to see demand and related sales volumes and pricing gradually strengthen, allowing us to report continued growth in sales volumes, revenues, and funds from operations. We expect to remain well positioned to continue returning capital to shareholders while reducing our leverage ratios and investing for growth. A brief summary of the six things we're focused on for the remainder of this year. First, the drilling of up to 12 exploration development wells in a continuous program targeting a 2P reserves replacement ratio of more than 200%. Secondly, the acquisition of 470 sq km of 3D seismic on the VIM-5 exploration block to expand the corporation's prospect inventory.
Third, the purchase of rental facilities equipment and the installation of gas compression to lower OpEx and increase recovery factors, respectively. Fourth, the selection of a contractor for the new gas pipeline from Jobo to Medellín, which will add approximately 100 million cu ft per day of new gas sales to the interior in late 2024, resulting in Canacol being responsible for 30% of Colombia's domestic gas supply in 2025. It's important to note that the pipeline is being designed to expand up to a total capacity of 200 million cu ft per day with the installation of additional compression subsequent to 2024. With respect to the selection process, we anticipate selecting the final contract to be completed by mid-April. Fifth, we're continuing to return, obviously, our capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks.
Continue with our commitment of strengthening our environmental, social, and governance strategy. With respect to current drilling, we're planning to commence something that we have not done in recent years this year, which is the drilling of high-impact exploration wells targeting prospective resources in new areas outside of our historical core production area. Of note, the Pola-1 well will test a deep new gas play located in the Middle Magdalena Valley basin, where any exploration success can be tied in and put on production very quickly, thanks to the current spare capacity in the TGI gas pipeline, which is connected to the interior.
Pola-1 is situated 10 km from that TGI pipeline, which currently has spare capacity of 260 million cu ft per day, allowing us to transmit or to transport any gas we find at Pola, directly into the interior markets of Bogotá and Cali. Pola-1 is located at the northern end of the play trend, where we have secured just over 600,000 acres of land across five exploration blocks that we picked up over a three-year period, including this last licensing round, in which we more than doubled our land holding in the area. Having spent years building this land position, we're excited that we will be testing the play this year, this deep gas play. We expect to have results from the Pola-1 well in the fourth quarter.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the entire Canacol team, as well as our contractors, partners, and clients for their support and hard work during 2021. It's our team, partners, and clients that allow us to continue operating safely, sustainably, reliably, and profitably while securing investment for the future. We're now ready to answer any questions you might have.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Josef Schachter with S-E-R. You may now go ahead.
Good morning, Charle and Jason. Two questions for me. First one is, your guidance has got a pretty big range in it, you know, in terms of 2022, your natural gas sales volumes and your EBITDA. Can you give us a little more color on why? Is there some economic issues? The El Tesorito, are there some delays in that coming on stream? Or is it related to maybe business climate because of the politics? Or just maybe, you know, shed some color on the wide variance in those numbers.
Yeah, I'll maybe go first just from a high level here. You know, historically, the company had only given, you know, one set of numbers that we think, you know, was the best set, most likely scenario. When COVID hit, obviously, there was abundant uncertainty. In 2021, after the COVID pandemic hit in approximately March, we then put out a range related to 2020. We carried that forward in 2021 and 2022, where the low end of the range was simply the take-or-pay volume. For this year, that number is 160 million cu ft a day with a price of $4.74, net of transportation.
You know, obviously, we anticipate doing more than the take-or-pay, but we wanted to let people know, you know, just where the absolute baseline would be. The second set, you know, the other goalpost would be, you know, what we more actually anticipate doing, which in this year was 200 million cu ft a day. Of course, that has adjustments to allow for the interruptible pricing, etc., which of course would add on approximately 40 million cu ft a day to the 200 million take-or-pay. It's meant to be essentially two goalposts for readers to use.
Okay. Is El Tesorito coming on during Q2 and the volume starting?
Yeah, I'll hand it over to Charle here.
We're expecting El Tesorito to enter commission in the second quarter. That should be generating at the capacity here, probably into July after second quarter.
Okay. My second question is related to CapEx. You spent $100 million last year. You've got a very big program focused on exploration. And of course, you mentioned the Pola-1 well. When you look at the reserves, you have such a big gap between PDP, 1 P and 2 P. Is there going to be an increase in the amount of drilling to move, you know, the 1 P to PDP and 2 P to 1 P, because there's such a large gap there. But of course, that has a big impact on your NAV, and also your deliverability and RLI.
Yeah, we do have, you know, four out of the 12 wells we're drilling this year are development wells, specifically targeted at moving 2P to 1P. For example, the Chirimia 1 sidetrack that we're currently drilling right now will be directly along that type of a vein as well. Yes, part of our drilling program and our workover programs this year are aimed at exactly that, migration of reserve category.
The CapEx budget for this year, 2022?
I think we're outlining our guidance was up to $190 million, basically, fairly hefty budget aimed at primarily exploration. The Pola-1 well in particular, Josef, is a very deep test, 18,000-19,000 ft measured depth. We're looking at a drill and complete cost of up to $30 million. Much more expensive than our traditional wells, but you know, 10 times the reserve potential or the resource potential of our typical targets.
Wonderful. That does it for me. Thanks very much for taking my questions.
Thanks, Josef.
Our next questions come from Chen Lin with Lin Asset Management. You may now go ahead.
Hi, Charle. Hi, Jason. I've been well, how are you? Thanks for taking my questions. One, I noticed that your spot sale seems to have a pretty high price and, but it's, you know, it just come and go. Can you do you have any expectation of the spot natural gas sales this year?
Yeah, Chen, good to hear from you. The spot pricing, you know, spot volumes have been relatively good this year compared to last year in the first quarter, so far. So we're very pleased about that. The market is relatively tight in terms of supply. There's really only Ecopetrol competing with our production. So we're seeing a natural tendency towards higher spot pricing this year than last year. For example, you know, I would say our average spot prices in 2021 averaged around $360-$370, and we're seeing spot pricing now well over $450-$460. So that simply reflects two components, an increase in the demand as the economy recovers post-COVID. Secondly, a reflection of the tight fundamentals of supply and demand.
Okay, great. Thank you. Just, can you comment a little bit about your stock price in the past few years? You know, this, it's very good story, and you have a lot of success in exploration and development, but, you know, and you're doing a lot of share buyback, which and paying dividend, which shareholders appreciate, but it just doesn't seem catching the wind of the energy boom, you know, recently.
I think Jason can provide some color on that.
Yeah, I mean, that's always a difficult one. We've been, you know, relatively flat for several years here. You know, it's also been several years since the last expansion of the Medellín pipeline came on. You know, obviously the pandemic has created some uncertainty with respect to interruptible demand, and hence the range that we give in our guidance press release.
You know, with you know, obviously we're actively working on the Medellín pipeline project, and things that provide a you know, very large step change to our production, as well as some of the things that you know, backfill incremental steps you know, until Medellín's online. You know, those things are things such as Tesorito. You know, we're hopeful that the share price will respond in due course.
Okay, great. Thank you. My final question is you have some shale oil opportunity, if I remember correctly. Do you have any plan for this year or the next, in the near term?
Yeah, you're quite correct. We do hold interest in 2 non-conventional shale blocks, basically, with ConocoPhillips. We're really just waiting to see the results of the drilling pilots that ExxonMobil and Ecopetrol are going to conduct next year to test the commercial viability of that resource. We're sort of just sitting and waiting on those results to come out. If they're successful, you know, hopefully that's something we could develop in the mid to long term. No plans this year or next.
Okay. Do you know when their results will come out?
They're planning to execute the horizontal fracking pilots next year. That's Ecopetrol with their partners, ExxonMobil, on their two pilots that they're gonna be executing very close to our blocks with ConocoPhillips. I expect that we should see results from those probably second half of next year.
Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for answering my question.
Thanks, Chen.
Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Oriana Covault with Valens. You may now go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. This is Ana Priscila Diaz with Valens. I had a question regarding your drilling program. Per your last update, you mentioned that the Carambola 1 well wasn't clear whether it was unsuccessful or not. What was the status there? It was initially planned to go to Arandala 3, and I understand that now you will be moving to Chirimia 1 sidetrack. Just to understand what drove that change in planning and the actual results from Carambola 1 well, that would be great. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Oriana. Yeah, Carambola 1 encountered about a 67-ft thick gas column in the Mid-Porquero target. We're currently preparing to complete and test that well. And if it's commercial, we'll bring it on to production. With respect to the Arandala well, we've delayed the drilling of that well due to some issues we've had, surface issues there and some community issues. We've sent the rig instead to the Chirimia 1 location to sidetrack that well, which is something that's relatively easy to do, and we will reschedule Arandala for later in the drilling program this year.
Thank you. If I may just a follow-up regarding, I believe last month we heard some comments about a possibility of Canacol entering Bolivia and that interest. Just to understand what is your view regarding this? If there's any comment you could share with us regarding the Bolivian. Thank you.
Sure. Of course, yes. You know, we maintain a very active interest in assessing gas opportunities, gas exploration and production opportunities, both inside and outside of Colombia. We have been working on various opportunities, including some opportunities in Bolivia, where we see the potential to try and achieve something of the scale that we've achieved here in Colombia, in a jurisdiction located outside of Colombia. Yes, we have been looking at Bolivia for the past two or three years. We have not executed any contracts at the moment. We have been looking at various gas opportunities, exploration opportunities, and some production opportunities located outside of Colombia, and Bolivia would be one of those.
Great. That's very clear. Thank you very much.
I would now like to turn it over to Carolina Orozco for questions that were sent through the webcast.
Thank you. The first question comes from Carlos Carcasi from Seminario SAB. He's asking: What was behind the decrease of reserves in absolute terms?
Yeah, two factors. Essentially, you know, historically, we've maintained a 200% reserve replacement ratio on a 2P basis, primarily through our successful exploration drilling programs. Last year, you know, we were scheduling to drill nine exploration wells in our program. We were only able to drill 6 of those exploration wells for various issues we encountered in the field. We only drilled 66% of our exploration portfolio instead of the full 100%, the full nine wells. Of those six wells, three were discoveries, very good discoveries that added 70 Bcf in total, and three were dry holes.
The three good wells we did drill, you know, had a very good addition with respect to 2P reserves, but three of the wells were dry holes, and we did not drill the other three that we were planning to drill. The reserves adds from exploration were a little less than expected.
Also, we had a negative revision of 34 Bcf associated with our producing fields. That's a fairly large revision. It's not unusual. You know, in 2016, we also experienced a negative revision of around 7 Bcf on our 2P reserves. Typically, technical revisions generally are positive, but last year turned out to be somewhat negative. Those two factors, the lack of executing our full exploration program, as well as some technical revisions, resulted in relatively light reserve adds for last year. Those, you know, we're planning to correct that this year, obviously with an exploration or the drilling program focused on exploration, including some very large targets, much larger than we normally drill.
Thank you, Charle. The next question is from Oscar Ghezzi from Kasara Asset Management. Any updates on Jobo-Medellín? Who will build it? Any new contracts other than the EPM one? Is Promigas off the table?
With respect to Jobo-Medellín, we've been very busy on a number of fronts with that project of course. We have received bids, final binding bids from four international pipeline construction companies. We're currently analyzing those bids, and we are preparing to finalize the contractor selection, as I mentioned a little earlier, I should say, by mid-April. On the gas sales contracts, we are also negotiating additional sales contracts for the remaining 45 million cu ft per day of capacity in that pipeline. We're currently negotiating a new contract, a 10-year contract for 20 million cu ft per day, offtake to a gas distribution company.
We're negotiating with two other gas distribution companies, one in Bogotá and one in Cali, with respect to the remaining capacity. The intention is that by mid year or Q3, we will have the full 100 million cu ft per day of transportation capacity fully assigned to long-term take-or-pay contracts.
The next question is from Michael von Bormann. Can you please elaborate on any further sales or in contract negotiations with respect to the Medellín pipeline volumes? Well, I believe you just responded that one as well. Right, Charle Gamba?
That would be correct.
Okay. Now, operator, I think we have another question, a live question in the line.
Yes. Our next question will come from Pablo Sosa with UBS. You may now go ahead.
Hi, everyone, thanks for taking my questions. The first one on expenses. You mentioned that operating expenses increased in the quarter due to higher labor costs, rental and some maintenance costs. Could you provide a little more details on that? The reason why we are asking that is due to the global inflation we have experienced. Are there any relations with that? Should current levels of expenses be sustained in the upcoming years, or are there possibilities to be reduced? My second question regarding capital allocation. I know we have discussed that broadly, but trying to discuss a little bit further. Company has a solid dividends policy, the buyback program and still continue investing some exploratory campaigns.
Looking maybe two, three or even four years ahead, what would you say to be the priority for the company in terms of capital allocation? Are there any possibilities to increase dividends, increase buybacks, accelerating investments? In addition to that question, what is the company view in terms of balancing the company's equity in the capital market with these buyback programs? Those would be my two questions. Thank you.
Yeah. I think I can answer the bulk of that. Q4 saw operating costs escalate to $0.35/Mcf. What it is, you know, historically, it had been around $0.30/Mcf, in the first three quarters around $0.26/Mcf. That increase is pretty much solely related to some routine well maintenance work we did in Q4. Part of that was, you know, some field delays, part of it was the opportunity to get efficiencies by doing it all at once. That maintenance work in Q4 amounted to about $2.4 million, which, you know, adjusted on an Mcf basis was about $0.14 . If you remove that, we'd be in the low 20s.
Looking forward into 2022, our budget is a very typical, you know, although detailed, the end result is a very typical $0.30 per Mcf for operating costs in 2022. Moving on to the capital allocation question. Let's start with dividends. You know, our dividend rate at this point in time is a very healthy, you know, 6% or low 6%. You know, it takes up about $30 million of capital every year. We're clearly focused on the Medellín pipeline and growing our reserve base and productive capacity for that, to be ready for the Medellín pipeline to be commissioned. You know, my expectation over the next
couple years, that the dividend, you know, would not be increased. Of course, that's subject to change, but that's, you know, the current expectation. You know, once Medellín Pipeline comes on at 100 million cu ft a day, giving the assumed netbacks and transportation, that adds approximately $150 million of EBITDA at that point in time. And of course, at that point in time, we could look at raising the dividend. I believe you also touched on share buybacks. We're quite active in 2021, you know, for the first year, really in meaningful size of $9 million US in 2021. In 2022, we did that block purchase in January for another $13 million.
We'll continue to be active when the opportunity presents itself in terms of us feeling that the current market value is undervalued in relation to our reserve base or the company value.
I will now be turning it over to Carolina for further questions from the webcast.
We'll receive the question from Sebastián Cojante from BTG Capital. When do you expect to draw the remaining $50 million of the bridge- term loan?
Yeah. I'm sure, as everyone's aware, we're working with various, you know, potential EPC contractors or BOOM contractors, the funding, et cetera. To refresh everyone's memory, that bridge loan was put in place in order to support, you know, the Medellín Pipeline activities before the ultimate owner of it was chosen, right? When we took it out about a year and a half ago, we drew the first $25 million. We're contractually due to draw that, and that will last us through things like the environmental permitting process, et cetera. The next $50 million was scheduled to buy long lead time items, you know, such as pre-order some of the pipe, et cetera.
Now, you know, logically, you know, depending on who the ultimate contractor is or BOOM contractor, et cetera, and, the shape of that contract, in terms of the conditions precedent, et cetera, that will play the largest portion in dictating when we draw that $50 million.
Thanks, Jason. We have one last question from Nikolaos Monoyios from Ingalls & Snyder. Do you anticipate taking an equity interest in the new pipeline?
Yes, thanks. Thanks, Nickolaos. No, we have no intention at the moment of taking any interest in the new pipeline. The contracts that we have or the offers that we have received are all of a BOOM nature, build, own, operate, and maintain on the part of the contractor. The rationale there, of course, is that you know, with respect to allocation of capital, the return on our capital is much greater investing in exploration projects with margins up to 78% than in pipeline projects with returns of 12%-14%. The offers we've received to date have all been BOOM-type offers.
Thank you, Charle. We don't have any more questions. With this, we conclude our conference call. Thank you all for participating and hope to meet you again during the next conference call for the next quarter.
Thanks, everyone.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.