Good morning. My name is Sylvie, I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Whitecap Resources Q4 2022 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. I would like to turn the conference over to Whitecap's President and CEO, Mr. Grant Fagerheim. You may begin your conference.
Thanks, Sylvie. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. Here with me are four members of our senior management team: our Senior Vice President and CFO, Thanh Kang, our Senior Vice President of Production and Operations, Joel Armstrong, our Senior Vice President of Engineering, Darin Dunlop, as well as Dave Mombourquette, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Information Technology. Before we get started today, I would like to remind everybody that all statements made by the company during this call are subject to the same forward-looking disclaimer and advisory that we set forth in our news release issued yesterday afternoon. Whitecap had a very successful 2022 across all aspects of our business, resulting in record fund flow, free fund flow, and an extremely strong year-end independent reserves evaluation.
Strong operational and financial execution resulted in continuous outperformance on our base assets despite the various headwinds the industry has faced, such as supply chain issues and inflationary pressures. This past year was also the culmination of our consolidation strategy that started with the collapse in the crude oil prices in 2020. Our counter-cyclical acquisition strategy added significant per share value for our shareholders and resulted in a much stronger and more resilient business with scale. Our all-in CAD 1.7 billion acquisition of XTO that closed at the end of August last year was made possible through prudent management of our balance sheet and an extremely thorough technical evaluation of assets. The multi-decade unconventional inventory that we added in the Montney and the Duvernay complements our low-decline, high net back oil weighted assets and sets us up for long-term, sustainable, profitable growth.
This transformation of our company over the past couple of years has been remarkable, increasing our production base from 64,000 BOE per day in the fourth quarter of 2020 up to 166,000 BOE per day in the fourth quarter of 2022. Proved Developed Producing reserves over that time period have increased by 23% on a per share basis, while the total Proved reserves per share have increased by 49% with a before tax Proved net present value at 10% discount rate of CAD 19 per share based on our independent reserves evaluation. In addition to growing our asset base and future drilling inventory, we continue to focus on cash returns to shareholders.
After resetting our dividend early in 2020, we had an internal target to get our dividend back to 2014 levels. Through strategic acquisitions and free cash flow growth, we anticipate reaching our net debt target of CAD 1.3 billion over the next several months and increasing our dividend to CAD 0.73 per share on a per annum basis. Cash returns to shareholders have been and continue to be a core priority for us. We continue to be an oil-weighted upstream producer with 64% of our production being oil and natural gas liquids and 36% natural gas. Although 36% of our production is natural gas, it only represents 14% of our revenues. Therefore, the recent decrease in natural gas prices is not as impactful to cash flows as one might have expected.
We remain bullish on long-term North American natural gas prices with a continued build-out of LNG export capacity, the use of natural gas as a transition fuel for industries such as power generation and for Western Canadian prices. Specifically, it is encouraging to hear the commentary from Shell last week that the second phase of LNG Canada is progressing. We also have a very positive outlook for crude oil prices well into the future as a result of the massive under-investment that has created a near to medium-term supply-demand imbalance. With these comments, I'll now pass on to Joel Armstrong to comment on our operations. Thanks, Joel.
Thanks, Grant. Our company has experienced rapid growth over the past two years. We're proud to say that we've maintained our strong safety record with the fourth quarter in line with our trailing 12-month and two-year averages. We're always seeking out ways to improve our operations, and safety is an integral part of this. We're also pleased to report that in 2022, we decommissioned over 200 wellbores, had active surface reclamation activities on over 1,200 sites, and received 52 reclamation certificates. In aggregate, we spent CAD 20 million net on decommissioning activities this past year, and as discussed in September, we have CAD 37 million included in our 2023 budget for decommissioning activities.
Strong execution in the fourth quarter results in production of 166,392 BOE per day, which is above our guidance of 165,000 BOE per day, despite having 10,000 BOE shut in due to extreme cold weather in late December. Fourth quarter spending of CAD 179 million resulted in drilling 50 and 35.2 net wells.
Switching over current operations. We've had an active first quarter and recently hit our peak of 12 drilling rigs. Plan to run an average of 10 drilling rigs in the first quarter prior to break up, drilling 75 wells. We had forecasted inflation peaking in the first quarter of 2023 and remaining relatively stable as part of our 2023 budget, which is based on $ 80 per barrel WTI. We will continue to monitor our key cost inputs for both capital and operations in real time. I'll now pass it on to Darin to discuss our reserves evaluation.
Thanks, Joel. We are very pleased with the results of our year-end reserve evaluation as performed by our independent reserves engineer, McDaniels. Through our successful 2022 organic capital program, PDP F&D costs continued to decrease. Our 2022 PDP F&D cost of CAD 13.20 per BOE was down 19% from last year and 40% from 2020, and resulted in a very strong PDP F&D recycle ratio of 3.6x. Our capital efficiency in converting undeveloped reserves to producing reserves was better than forecast, a testament to the strength of our assets as well as our execution. Folding the XTO assets into our reserves resulted in a per-share growth of 19%, 49%, and 61% for PDP total proved and total proved plus probable reserves respectively.
Pro forma, our recent dispositions, now have over 6,500 identified locations on our asset base, of which only 36% have been booked in our reserve report. This inventory provides us with over 25 years of profitable and sustainable growth. Outperformance of our existing Southeast Saskatchewan Frobisher horizontals and Weyburn unit wells, combined with our Central Alberta Glauconite and Ellerslie wells, contributed to almost 11 million BOE in positive technical revisions to our PDP reserves, or approximately 3% of our closing balance. In the 1P and 2P cases, these positive technical revisions were offset by proactive negative adjustments in some of our legacy assets, including some of those which have been disposed already. These adjustments resulted in minor technical revisions of less than 0.5% and 1.5% of the closing BOE balances in both 1P and 2P cases, which is well within expectations.
I will now pass it on to Thanh to discuss our financial results.
Thanks, Darin. We had a record financial results in 2022, with funds flow of over CAD 2.3 billion or CAD 3.74 per share, generating free funds flow of over CAD 1.6 billion. CAD 480 million of total returns to shareholders were split approximately 50/50 between dividends and share repurchases. Net income for 2022 was CAD 1.7 billion or CAD 2.70 per share compared to net income of CAD 1.8 billion or CAD 2.95 per share in 2021. Net income decreased primarily due to a larger non-cash impairment reversal of CAD 1.9 billion in 2021 compared to CAD 661 million in 2022, offset by higher funds flow.
For the fourth quarter, we generated funds flow of CAD 594 million or CAD 0.97 per share and free funds flow of CAD 415 million. We paid CAD 67 million of dividends and reduced net debt by approximately CAD 300 million in the fourth quarter, resulting in year-end net debt of CAD 1.9 billion. Our year-end debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 0.7x , and EBITDA-to-interest ratio of 45x were well within our covenant of less than 4 times and greater than 3.5x , respectively. Subsequent to year-end, we closed three non-strategic dispositions, which resulted in CAD 426.4 million of assets and CAD 110.9 million of the associated decommissioning liabilities being reclassified as held for sale on the balance sheet.
The dispositions bring our current net debt to approximately CAD 1.5 billion, giving us CAD 1.6 billion of available debt capacity and a forecasted debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.7x at current strip prices. I will now pass it back to Grant for his closing remarks.
Thanks very much, Thanh. For 2023, our production guidance is unchanged at 160,000 to 162,000 BOE per day and capital between CAD 900 million to CAD 950 million. At $80 per barrel WTI and CAD 3 per GJ AECO, we forecast funds flow of approximately CAD 1.8 billion and free funds flow of CAD 900 million. We look forward to utilizing the significant free funds flow generated in 2023 to meet our near-term financial milestones. These milestones include, number one, achieving net debt of CAD 1.3 billion. Number two, further increasing our dividends to CAD 0.73 per share, a 26% increase from our current dividend of CAD 0.58 per share per annum.
Number three, returning a total of 75% of our free funds flow back to shareholders, which includes a base dividend of CAD 0.73 per share, supplemented with share repurchases. The remaining 25% of our free funds flow will be directed towards further strengthening our balance sheet with net debt estimated to be between CAD 1 billion to CAD 1.2 billion prior to the year-end 2023. Looking out for the next five-year period of time at a 3% to 8% per annum organic production growth, we can grow to over 200,000 BOE per day, generating over CAD 4.5 billion in free cash flow or CAD 7.35 per share at a CAD 75 WTI and CAD 3.50 AECO price per GJ.
This would use up only one-sixth of our identified drilling inventory that was spoken to earlier. Beyond 2023, we look to enhance our 200,000 BOE per day organic growth target with business development initiatives focused on increasing per share profitability and sustainability should the opportunities present themselves. This 2023 year has begun with a significant amount of oil and gas price volatility, we are excited about the upcoming year and look forward to continued progress towards our financial and operational goals while generating strong returns for our shareholders. I will now turn the call back to our operator, Sylvie, for any questions you might have. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as stated, if you do have a question, please press Star followed by one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to withdraw your question, simply press Star followed by two. We do ask that if you're using a speakerphone, to please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press Star one now if you have any questions. Your first question will be from Jack Austin at uncertain .
Hey, guys. Can you hear me?
You bet.
Congratulations on the great year. I love it. I just have one kind of question, and I know you guys have been very clear on the CAD 50 and then CAD 3.50 sustainability, but I'm just wondering. We have OPEC hanging over us, too. It's very unlikely that this does happen, but if it does happen, would you guys cut, like, capital expenditures? You have about CAD 925 million. Could you just give some more color on... I know it's a very small chance, but if it came down to, you know, CAD 50 and CAD 3.50 or below that. Thank you.
Joel, do you wanna go ahead?
Yeah, for sure, Grant. Thanks for that question there. I think the way that, you know, we look at the business down at, you know, that CAD 50 level, though, you know, we're certainly bullish on, you know, both, you know, oil and natural gas in the longer term here. You know, at that level, I would say that we wouldn't be looking to grow our business. We're looking at maintaining our level of production, the CAD 930 million would be much lower than that. It would be about CAD 700 million to maintain, you know, our production at about 161,000 BOEs per day. There's a lot of ability for us to withstand that volatility even at that low price and still fund our maintenance capital as well as our dividend program.
When we look at lower pricing scenarios, you know, the most important thing for us, which we focused over the last few years here, is maintaining low leverage. You know, getting to that CAD 1.3 billion is critically important for us. But we'll be somewhere between CAD 1 billion to CAD 1.2 billion by the end of this year here, which gives us even more financial flexibility in a lower pricing environment here. You know, to answer your question, for sure, we would be cutting capital. You know, our objective here on the dividend, even at the CAD 0.73 level, is to continue to maintain that, but more importantly, continue to grow it commensurate with our production growth rate of that 3% to 8%.
Okay. Thank you very much, guys. Love it. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions, please press Star followed by one on your touchtone phone. Your next question will be from Christopher Jones at Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, gentlemen. I just wanted to ask a question on slide 11, about looking or employing new well design to improve well performance. Maybe just talk a little bit about some of the specific changes, you have made on the completion side. Then maybe on the back end, what have you seen from a sort of a per well EUR or a decline profile and any associated cost creep associated there? Thanks.
Yeah. Perhaps Joel and/or Darin, want to take this question.
Yeah, Christopher, it's Joel here. I guess just speaking to completion design, more specifically in the Montney, every, you know, every well, every pad, goes through several iterations through, you know, the geo-geomechanical, geological engineering, spacing. Every single well is looked at differently. It's not really a carbon copy from one completion to the next. Overall design mechanics are always very similar, plug and perf, of course. Outside of that, you know, I think we've proven up our other plays, you know, Cardium, Glauconite, sort of completion design and, yeah, no real major changes on that. In terms of on the cost side, I think as we talked about earlier, we're starting to, you know, we're seeing our kind of our peak inflation in Q1.
You know, we've tweaked where we could, to try and maintain our cost structure best possible. Don't foresee any upward pressure right now at the current commodity pricing. As if there is a correction in commodity pricing, we'll expect to see the capital side relate to that.
I don't know if there's anything else I can offer on that. Darin, have you got anything?
No. Just to reiterate what Joel is saying. You know, we look at a lot of factors when designing our development program, and that changes obviously our frack design and well bore design, where we place wells in that. In that is include our outlook on pricing. You know, different spacings for different pricing regimes.
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question will be from Peter Linder, investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen. Got a question on your XTO acquisition. What plans do you have for this year? Have you started drilling on it yet since you acquired it? Basically, how much are you gonna spend on these lands in 2023? By the way, great results.
Peter, I'll start off, and then I'll ask Thanh to continue on. We certainly have began drilling on these lands. Just for clarity, we had when we bought the Montney, the Montney acreage that we bought from XTO, we had a 65% working interest on the Kakwa lands already through the previous acquisition that we'd done on with Kicking Horse. We've been on these for over a two-year period of time, actually with activity. Specific to our activity this year, maybe Thanh, we can talk about how we're looking to capitalize and the number of wells we're looking for 2023.
Yeah, for sure, Grant. This year, you know, as we mentioned, our capital budget is between CAD 900 million to CAD 950 million. 45% of that budget is gonna be allocated to our Northern Alberta business unit there, of which 24 wells will be in the Montney, and right now we're anticipating three wells in the Duvernay there. 36% is gonna be allocated to our Saskatchewan business unit, and then the remaining 17% in central Alberta, both keeping production relatively flat. You know, our anticipation in the Montney in particular is to grow that to about 38,000 BOEs per day. When you look at, you know, our target over the next 5 years to get to 200,000 BOEs per day, that has the Montney growing to about 65,000 BOEs per day there.
As Grant mentioned, you know, we have been drilling in the Montney already, being 65% working interest in Kakwa and XTO being 35% there, and we would have drilled 12 wells in 2022. Look to continue to, you know, to expand on that with the additional 24 wells in 2023.
Is it fair to say that you're pleased with the results so far?
Yeah, for sure. I think what we'll look to do, you know, with the results that we've seen last year as well as build on it through our first quarter capital programs here with more data points, we'll look for a more fulsome operational update as part of our first quarter results.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Peter.
Thank you. Next question will be from Anthony Linton at Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys, and congratulations on a strong year. Just one question, a couple questions for me. Just to start, there's a line in the release. Obviously, the focus for 2023 remains on operational execution. There's a line in the release talking about business development activities beyond 2023. Just wondering how that might look as you kinda think about it and you think about the opportunities today?
I'll take a stab at that firstly and ask any of our vice presidents to jump in. We wanted to ensure to our shareholders that this is a year for operational excellence. What we wanted to do is make sure that we have such a very strong inventory of opportunities within the organization. 2023 is a year to ensure that we refine our operational capabilities and making sure that we execute, have strong execution on this and advance. You heard Joel talking earlier about some of the well placement, some of the well design. This is a year for us to really focus on that activity as we move through 2023.
On the business development front, will be a quiet year for us. It'll be a much quieter year than we have since 2021 and 2022, as we look to really drive performance from or organic. That's why we say beyond 2023, if there's opportunities that can compete or add to our inventory of high quality inventory and long-term profitability and sustainability, we'll look to do that as we move forward. Really, 2023, we wanted to ensure from our perspective that shareholders understand that this is a year of internal, we'll call it organic growth or an opti-optimization from our existing assets.
Okay. That's, that's great to hear. Thanks. Maybe just coming back to the five-year growth plan, looking at that 3% to 8% production growth. I know you've talked about that in the past. How does the capital allocation across your business units kind of evolve over that timeframe?
Sure.
Thanh, do you wanna spread a card on that?
Yeah, it's Thanh here. I mean, if you look at our business today, it's, you know, there's three business units. We're looking at, you know, Central Alberta, Saskatchewan, and then Northern Alberta. Saskatchewan and Central Alberta, you know, are really our free cash flow generating business units. What we'll look to do within that portfolio is really keep it, you know, relatively flat, you know, 1% to 2% growth over the next five-year period of time. You know, the key growth area for us will definitely be coming from Northern Alberta, which is primarily the Dunvegan, Montney and the Charlie Lake area there. We're looking to grow that, you know, somewhere in that 15% per annum over the next five-year period of time.
The capital allocation that we're looking at in 2023, as I mentioned, 45% in Northern Alberta, 36% in Saskatchewan and 17% in Central Alberta. That should remain relatively stable over the next five years.
Just a small note on that, Anthony. Thanh referenced Dunvegan, meaning he meant the Duvernay.
Duvernay. Yeah, sorry about that.
Yeah.
Gotcha. Okay, awesome. That's great color. I'll turn it back. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from Patrick O'Rourke at ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to clarify something I heard in the opening salvo there and see how it sort of evolves here under a little bit of a scenario analysis. I believe that it was mentioned that you guys are gonna be running 10 rigs up until breakup. Just wondering how that looks in the second half of the year from a rig count perspective. Thanh mentioned sort of a maintenance capital level at CAD 700-ish million there to pull flat at 160-ish, 161,000 BOE per day. What sort of rig count would be required to sustain that going forward?
Joel, I'll turn it over to you if that works.
Yeah, I mean, Patrick. It's Joel here. You know, we're spending CAD 320 million in Q3 versus, you know, say CAD 264 Q1. We'll be at a similar rig count than what we are right now. I don't think we'll see 12, but, you know, in that 10, 11 rigs in Q3.
Okay. In the downside scenario, you know, I think it's unlikely from a commodity price perspective as well, but what sort of rig count would be required to hold the business flat?
You're talking a CAD 50 WTI scenario?
Yeah.
I mean, Patrick, we're kind of making up numbers here, but, you know, seven, eight rigs to kind of maintain our base level somewhere in there.
Yeah, you could. Darin here. Yeah, you could probably just take a ratio.
Yeah.
a reasonable estimate.
Yeah.
Okay. Kind of a second question, shifting gears here. I know that, you know, gas revenue as percentage of overall revenue is fairly low here. Are you guys looking at, you know, anything on the more sophisticated gas marketing front here? Some of your peers sell gas into, you know, the mid-continent, California, LNG deals. Anything that you're looking at from a business development front on that perspective that could potentially extract a little bit more value out of basin from your gas?
We are certainly looking at that at this particular time. First of all, to understand where we came from, we talked about in 2020, we were producing about 60 million a day, and now we're about 320 to 330 million a day of natural gas. This is a big change for us. What we're looking at is not just only the pricing centers in North America, but also offshore into LNG markets. We are looking to, you know, alter our, what we'll call our, where we take our products to. The key is transportation, to make sure that we can transport it to the market centers. We're reviewing each one of the market centers. That work is aggressively on ongoing.
We'll come back and as we move through this year, we'll have more of an update. As we move through the 2023 year, we'll have a greater update on that, Patrick.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. At this time, gentlemen, we have no further questions registered. Please proceed.
Thank you, Sylvie. Well, thanks to each of you for taking the time and interest to listen to our call today. We will look forward to updating you on our progress on numerous different items as we move through the next several months. Thanks very much. Enjoy your day. All the best.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we do ask that you please disconnect.