AGM 2023

May 5, 2023

Press Release

Good morning, everyone. My name is Hal Quisley, and I'm the Chair of the Board of ARC Resources Limited. On behalf of the management team and my fellow directors, welcome to Arc's 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. 2022 was a year of incredible activity for our company. Through what was certainly a complex environment, Arc delivered strong financial and operational results of an exceptional safety performance. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank the management team and all the employees of Arc for their continued focus of the safe execution of our business. Our meeting today is hosted on the Lumi virtual shareholder meeting platform, of the Board, instructions on how to ask questions and information regarding the voting procedure will appear on your screen. Before we commence the formal portion of the meeting, I would like to introduce you to the other directors and officers of Arc joining me online today. Starting with the directors, present today are Farhadarabi, Carol Banducci, David Collier, of Bill McAdam, Michael McAllister, Marty Proctor, Jackie Shepherd of Leontyne Van Lew and Atkins, I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge Susan Jones, who retired from the Arc Board in February this year. Of Susan's contributions over the past 2 years were invaluable, and we certainly wish her all the best in her future endeavors. Of the ARC officers joining us today are Terry Anderson, our President and CEO Chris Bibby, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Armen Jahangiri, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Lara Conrad, Senior Vice President and our Chief Development Officer Ryan Barrett, Senior Vice President, Marketing of Lisa Olson, Senior Vice President, People and Corporate Sean Calder, our Vice President, Field Operations of Kristen Cerny, Vice President, Finance Catherine Gomez, Vice President, Controller of Brian Groundwater, Vice President, Engineering and Geoscience TJ Haugen, Vice President, Operations Planning of John Stewart, Vice President, Capital Operations and our Corporate Secretary, Grant Zowalski. On behalf of this team and the Board, thank you once again for joining us today. The meeting will now come to order. I will act as Chair of the meeting. Following the formal portion of our meeting today, Carrie Anderson will make a few remarks on Arc's business. I will ask Grant Sewalski to act as secretary of the meeting and both Stephen Bandola and Erica Gourlay, representatives of Computershare Trust Company of the Board, we'll act as scrutineers. I can confirm that I have received a declaration from Computershare Trust Company as to the mailing of the meeting materials to our shareholders. The scrutineers' report has now been received, and I confirm that a quorum of shareholders is present at this meeting. I therefore declare that the meeting is regularly called and properly constitute for the transaction of business. We will today conduct the voting by electronic ballot on the Lumi platform, if you have previously voted, you do not need to vote again when prompted. By voting again, you will revoke any previous vote made prior to the voting cutoff. To my knowledge, each resolution considered today will be passed by the proxies deposited in advance of the meeting. Voting will be open for all resolutions at the same time, of which will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until the conclusion of discussion of each resolution prior to casting your vote. To vote simply click on for or withhold or against as applicable. You you will see confirmation immediately above the voting buttons once you have submitted your choice. There will be an opportunity to ask to questions on each resolution in turn. Once discussion on all items of business has concluded, of the Board, voting will be closed on all resolutions. The results will then be tallied by the scrutineers and will be provided at the end of the formal portion of the meeting. Of the Board, the detailed voting results will be disclosed by news release and will be posted on ARC's website following the meeting. And so the polls are now open for voting on all resolutions. Next, I would like to formally place before the shareholders of financial statements of ARC for the year ended December 31, 2022, and the auditors report thereon, which were previously distributed shareholders and also posted on ARC's website. Those have now been placed before the shareholders. Of the next item of business is the election of Directors of Arc. I will now entertain nominations for 10 positions as Directors of Arc. My name is Karen Boulder, and I nominate Hal Quisley, Barhead Arabi, Carol Banducci, of David Collier, William McAdam, Michael McAllister, Marty Proctor, Jacqueline Shepherd, of Leontyne Van Lewin Atkin and Terry Anderson as Directors of Arc. Thank you. As there are no further nominations, I now declare the nominations closed. The Board of Directors of Arc has agreed to conduct the election on an individual basis for each director in accordance with our major voting policy, majority voting policy. Grant, are there any questions? There are no questions. Of our Board, thank you. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors of ARC. My name is Taryn Boulder, and I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Chartered Accountants be appointed auditors of ARC. My name is Jenny Monroe, and I second the motion. Thank you. Grant, are there any questions on this motion? There are no questions on this motion. Of the Board, okay. The next item of business is a nonbinding vote on our approach to executive compensation. My name is Karen Boulder, and I move that the nonbinding advisory resolution concerning Arc's approach to executive compensation of the Board of ARC Resources Limited. My name is Jenny Munro, and I second the motion. Thank you. Grant, are there any questions on this motion? There are no questions at this time. Of our Board, thank you. As we have now concluded each item of formal business, we will pause for a brief moment to allow shareholders to complete the online ballot, if each shareholder could ensure they have submitted their votes shortly, that would be greatly appreciated. Of the balloting is now closed. Of the Board, I am advised by the scrutineers that all the directors received a majority of votes in favor of election, and I declare those nominated as duly elected directors of Arc. EWC has been appointed as the auditors of Arc and in excess of 96% of the votes cast are in favor of our say on pay vote. Of Grant, are there any remaining questions from the floor? There are no questions. Then, I would now entertain a motion that this meeting be terminated. I move that this meeting be terminated. I second the motion. Thank you. I therefore declare that this meeting is terminated, And I will now turn the meeting over to Terry Anderson for his remarks. Thanks, Hal, And thank you to everyone who is joining us online this morning. Before I get into my remarks, I'd like to echo Hal's comments in thanking Susan Jones for her service on our Board over the last couple of years, we've appreciated Susan's insight and wish her the best in her future endeavors. In terms of our company and its performance, I'll keep my comments relatively brief as we've finished our Q1 conference call just moments ago. When I reflect on the past year, I'm very proud of how our people and our company have performed. In 2022, we executed the largest capital program in Arc's 26 year history, investing $1,400,000,000 to deliver record annual average daily production of approximately 350,000 BOE per day and record free funds flow of of $2,300,000,000 Most importantly, we executed our operations and capital program safely, of our outstanding performance, we are now outperforming our safety targets for total recordable injury frequency and lost time incident frequency. Of our safety will always be our number one priority. In a year that was not without its challenges, we progressed all aspects of our business, redirecting capital to our Alberta assets, advancing our emissions reduction initiative, announcing one new LNG agreement and returning capital to shareholders through our growing base dividend and share buybacks. We established a goal in 2022 to exercise discipline and allocate free cash flow to first of our debt targets and then accelerate and increase the shareholder returns. And over the course of the year, we've delivered on that priority. We reached our debt target, increased our base dividend by 50% and repurchased more than 10% of all issued and outstanding shares of our normal course issuer bid. Altogether, in 2022, we distributed 71% or 1,600,000,000 of free funds flow to shareholders, our focus on shareholder returns has continued into this year with another 13% increase to our dividend just announced yesterday. Looking ahead, I'm very excited about the opportunities on the horizon for our company. We've just announced board approval to begin development of our flagship asset, Hitachi. Hitachi is one of our of highest return investment opportunities in our portfolio and with its quality and scale will enable the next phase of profitable growth for our company and for our shareholders in the decades to come. When you pair this with the strong performance we are seeing out of our base assets, I am confident in the path forward and achieving our goal of being the best in class responsible energy producer. In closing, I want to thank our shareholders for their continued support. This is an exciting time for our company and we look forward to sharing our progress with you. I would also like to thank our employees, officers and directors for their continued support and dedication in safely executing our business and creating long term value for our shareholders. Thank you very much. Thank you, Terry. Of, are there any questions? I see none for Terry. I think that will conclude our session for this morning. So Thank you, everyone, for joining with us, and thanks again to all our shareholders, my fellow directors and the leadership of ARC. Of that, that will conclude our session today. Goodbye.