Good morning and afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Advantage Energy Limited Q1 2025 results conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode, and following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require media assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, 2 May 2025 . I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Brian Bagnell, Vice President. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Kelsey, and welcome everybody to Advantage's Conference Call to discuss Q1 2025 results. Before we get started, I'd like to refer you to our advisories on forward-looking statements that are contained in the news release, as well as advisories contained in Advantage's MD&A and annual information form, both of which are available on SEDAR and on our website. We've also posted an updated corporate presentation. I'm here with Mike Belenkie, President and CEO of Advantage, and Craig Blackwood, our CFO, as well as other members of our executive team. We'll start by speaking to some of our financial and operational highlights. Once Mike has finished speaking, we'll pass it back to the operator for questions and go to the webcast. As usual, we'd like to ask that if you have any detailed modeling questions, that you follow up with us individually after the call.
With that, I'll turn it over to Mike Belenkie. Mike, please go ahead.
Thank you, Brian, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. As you can see from our financial and operating results, we had a really strong quarter at Advantage. Here's the rundown of how it went. Financially and operationally, we did better than planned. Our adjusted funds flow hit CAD 121 million. That's CAD 0.73 a share, thanks to the strong performance of our newest assets and the relentless pursuit of cost reductions. We spent CAD 94 million during the quarter, which is expected to be our busiest quarter this year, and we still managed to reduce net debt by CAD 22 million, putting us at CAD 603 million net debt. This is ahead of schedule to achieve our CAD 450 million debt target by year-end. Operationally, we continued to execute really well. We achieved a production record of 83,773 BOEs per day, which is up 27% from Q1 last year.
Liquids production was up 106% to 13,273 barrels per day. Both our Montney assets and our Charter Lake assets continued to deliver better results than budget. We drilled 10 net wells this quarter in Wembley, Valhalla, Progress, and Gordondale, with nine of them brought on production pretty recently. Our latest tranche of four operated Charlie Lake wells has not quite surpassed 30 days of production history after cleanup, but performance remains well ahead of expectations. Operating costs dropped to CAD 4.76 a barrel, down 8% from Q4 2024, because our team has done a great job of integrating our new assets smoothly into our dominant infrastructure network. Q1 was strong, both on production and op costs, compared to our guidance range, but we are keeping our annual guidance steady. There is a few reasons for that.
NGTL pipeline maintenance is expected to intensify this summer, and we do not plan any more production growth for the remainder of the year. Our op costs will be impacted later this year by some new midstream gas processing deals that we inherited, pushing us back into our guidance range, though we do expect op costs to settle out in the lower half of that range. On the marketing front, we have hedged 43% of our natural gas and 43% of our oil for the rest of 2025. That helps keep our cash flow steadier no matter what the market throws at us and provides increased confidence in hitting our debt target. We are not sitting around counting on LNG Canada to come on stream in June. Gas prices in Q3 are very difficult to predict, with the date of that important event not yet locked down.
Looking ahead, our focus is straightforward: grow cash flow per share without risking our balance sheet. Not surprisingly, we've calibrated our drilling program to maximize cumulative cash flow. Given the amount of volatility in the markets right now, we will make adjustments to our program regularly to ensure that each discretionary investment is the best use of that capital based on real-time data. With the heaviest capital spend now behind us for the year, we're expecting to see free cash flow ramp up through the year, accelerating debt repayment and systematically stepping up share buybacks. As we approach our debt target during the H2 , we will set a new conservative debt target range and lean harder into the buybacks. It's about doing the right thing with every dollar at the right time.
At today's prices, we're expecting over CAD 500 million in free cash flow during our three-year plan, while growing production at the same time by 5% to 10% per year. That's only possible because of our high-quality Montney assets and a team that executes at the highest level. Premium Montney assets are getting scarce, so our previously announced special committee of independent directors will be watching carefully for opportunities that make sense for Advantage and our shareholders. We're in a good spot to benefit from Canada's constantly changing energy landscape, with our low-carbon natural gas and a 62% stake in Entropy Inc. Our strategy is simple: allocate capital smartly, invest in projects with strong returns, grow cash flow, and shrink our share count. That's how we build compounding value for you. To our employees, our board, and our shareholders, thank you for your continuing support and trust.
We remain committed to delivering strong performance and optimizing value for all of our shareholders. With that, I'll pass it back to Brian. We'll start taking questions.
Thank you, Kelsey. I think we'll start with questions from the webcast here and then pass it back to you for any questions on the phone lines. Our first question here is, will we get updates from the special committee during 2025, and will a formalized process be entered into this year?
Okay. Yep. Thank you, Brian. Yes, we've been receiving lots of questions on this lately. As most of you are aware, high-quality Montney assets like ours are becoming increasingly scarce, and it's our most important responsibility to shareholders to try and maximize corporate value. In the big picture, as a publicly traded company, we're always considering strategic options, and we do hold board strategy sessions at least once a year. In fact, rarely does a year go by without some important opportunity to evaluate. If our special committee were to become aware of an opportunity to do more for shareholders via a formalized process or otherwise, it'll be decided at that point whether it should be publicly announced. Since nothing is currently underway, it's pretty difficult for me to predict what that might look like.
In the meantime, this is the way it looks with a high-quality publicly traded company.
Thanks, Mike. A second question here on the webcast. Are you still working on other dispositions? If so, can you elaborate on the magnitude and the timing?
Sure. Yeah, this is probably a less important question, but we still hear it frequently. Just like any strategic discussion, we're always looking at optimizing our portfolio of assets, but it's better to not really set expectations for any of these types of deals since most of these types of deals are modest in size and have to be timed to match other priorities. Maybe more importantly, doing deals like these smaller asset rationalization deals, these are market-driven, so we won't set any expectations. We're always going to keep watching for opportunities to bring in better value, whether that's through a small sell down of infra or other asset rationalization. Okay?
Great. Kelsey, I think that's it on the webcast for the moment. We'll pass it back to you for any phone Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Amir Arif from ATB Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Congrats on a great quarter. One quick question, please. Just two different parts. On your CAD 450 million net debt target, just given the move in the commodities, the leverage ratio obviously looks different at 450 than it did six months ago. Just curious how comfortable you are with the 450 as your near-term target. When you do reach that level, what percentage of your free cash flow are you thinking of putting towards a structural buyback program?
Hey, Amir. This is Craig Blackwood here. Yeah, we're very comfortable on the 450. With regards to the commodity, that's a little bit of a perception thing. Our numbers are actually better than when we put out our budget originally. We keep updating our forecast every couple of weeks. Given the amount of hedging and everything else, we've been really just bouncing around that 450, even through all the noise of tariffs and the movement of commodities and coming off of oil prices. We've been extremely consistent. We are actually getting more comfortable all the time in our debt target. We feel that we're completely on track to attain that by year-end.
Sounds good. When you do get there, Craig, is there a certain percentage of free cash flow you are thinking of allocating towards buybacks?
Yeah. We're not going to be kind of mathematical on that. Clearly, a very significant amount of our free cash flow will go to buybacks. You have to look at multiples and valuation and other things at that point in time. I think it would be fair for people to see us execute exactly the same way that we've done over the last three years and really focusing our free cash flow on buybacks. We aren't going to be methodical, necessarily, in terms of saying, "This is what the percentage will be." We do plan to lay out when we start getting near the end of the year, we will lay out what our debt target and what our ranges will be going forward. You'll see that near the end of the year. Would you like to elaborate on that a bit, Mike?
Yeah. I think if you look to our past behavior as a predictor of the future, when we are within our debt target range, of course, I did mention we'll be setting a new debt target range as we approach our 450. When we're in that range, in the past, typically, we've been using about 100% of our cash flow for the share buyback. Getting within that range is number one. At that point, the conviction level gets quite high. Okay?
Appreciate the color. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for today. We thank you very much for participating, and ask that you please disconnect. Have a great day.