Welcome everyone to Noble Capital Markets Basic Industries Virtual Equity Conference and thank you for joining us today. I am Mark Reichman, a Senior Research Analyst at Noble. I am pleased to introduce Mr. Robert Loebach, Vice President, Corporate Development and Capital Markets of Greenfire Resources, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the TSX under the ticker GFR.
The company is an oil sands producer focused on the development of its Expansion and Demo Assets in Western Canada. It is the operator of both assets and has a 75% working interest in Expansion and a 100% interest in Demo. Robert?
Thank you, Mark, and thank you, Noble Capital Markets team, for putting on this conference. Let's get right into the Greenfire story. Greenfire is a growth-oriented oil sands producer focused on the development of its Tier- 1 SAGD assets in Western Canada. The company utilizes steam-assisted gravity drainage to produce from its oil sands resource in the Athabasca region.
The company has current production of approximately 20,000 bpd and is targeting 70% production growth to its facility's debottleneck capacity of 34,000 bpd using standard industry techniques for production optimization. The company's dually listed on the New York and the Toronto Stock Exchange, with a current market cap of about CAD 700 million.
The company's only debt outstanding is our Senior Secured Notes due 2028, which were originally issued at $300 million US and have had CAD 61 million of those notes swept as part of an excess cash flow sweeping mechanism, whereby 75% of excess cash is swept for debt repayment.
This sweep was completed in July of this year. Adjusting for that sweep, the company had Q2 cash of approximately CAD 69 million and an undrawn revolving credit facility of CAD 50 million.
As it relates to free cash flow generation capital potential relative to core SAGD peers, the company has material tax pools of CAD 1.8 billion dollars, enjoys lower prepayout royalties at the Expansion Asset, and has no gross overriding royalties on the Hangingstone facilities, altogether, which is anticipated to result in higher free cash flow generation per barrel as the company fills its facilities over time.
The company operates two SAGD production facilities in a concentrated region in the Athabasca sands area. The Demo Asset has a capacity of 7,500 bpd and is 100% owned by Greenfire, while the Expansion Asset has a capacity of 35,000 bpd and is 75% owned by Greenfire. The remaining 25% is owned by the Chinese CNOOC.
Both of these facilities are underpinned by Tier-1 SAGD reservoirs, which provide structural capital and operating cost advantages relative to most SAGD assets that our peers operate. The company's strategy is to fill these SAGD plants by implementing proven SAGD optimization techniques to maximize the value of these currently underdeveloped SAGD assets. Everything that Greenfire owns and operates was originally constructed by the Japanese, a subsidiary of JAPEX called JACOS.
The strategy is to execute proven development techniques that they were too conservative to implement. That's drilling of infill and redevelopment infill producer wells, implementing surface facility optimizations, and non-condensable gas or NCG co-injection and reservoir management. These production optimization techniques are standard in the SAGD industry, and Greenfire will be implementing those over time.
The company has current production of about 20,000 bpd, and by continuing to implement these production optimization techniques, the company expects to be able to fill the plant's capacity to 34,000 bpd over the next two years.
This production growth strategy is underpinned by 183 million bbl of proven reserves, which equates to a 28-year reserve life at current production rates, with an NPV of $2 billion at the reserve auditor price deck, or approximately $24 per share, net of debt.
For 2024, the company plans to grow production 13%-19% relative to 2023 levels, to 20,000 bpd-21,000 bpd and on an annual basis.
This is on capital investment of CAD 80-90 million in 2024, which is predominantly related to drilling redevelopment infill wells, with the remaining capital expenditure to be focused on surface facility optimizations, which is predominantly water and vapor handling.
The SAGD business has a cost structure that's largely fixed, so all incremental barrels for production growth largely flow to the bottom line, which results in a higher operational leverage to production growth and commodity pricing.
Greenfire's strategy in the near term is to grow production and free cash flow through drilling, production optimizations, as well as through its exposure to Canadian heavy oil pricing. Greenfire's production is 100% weighted to WCS-linked benchmarks, which provides that exposure to a re-rating of a Canadian heavy oil barrel.
The Trans Mountain Pipeline commenced operations in May of this year, which provides about 600,000 bpd of incremental pipeline egress in Western Canada. Now, this provides Greenfire with material exposure to improvements in the WCS differential and Canadian heavy oil pricing.
And a Canadian broker benchmarks Greenfire as being the most exposed to this improvement, with over a 20% increase in free cash flow potential for each $3 per barrel tightening of WCS differentials relative to all other oil-weighted peers in Canada.
This positive positioning compares to Greenfire's 40% valuation discount relative to core SAGD peers, Athabasca and MEG. Today, I'm gonna walk you through greater details of the Greenfire story, including how the company has a Tier -1 SAGD reservoir, which differentiates it relative to other core peers.
We'll talk about the two producing facilities that have expandable pipeline infrastructure in place, Greenfire's capital-efficient growth plan that's been executed at other SAGD assets, how it will translate to free cash flow generation potential with material exposure to Canadian heavy oil pricing, with the company focused on production growth, debt reduction, and positioning for shareholder returns.
Greenfire has a Tier -1 SAGD reservoir. Now, a Tier-1 reservoir has no thief zones, no top gas, no bottom water or lean zones that steal your steam and pressure. Reservoirs that have thief zones require what are called downhole pumps to produce production to surface. If you took the wellhead off of a reservoir that's not Tier-1, you would have no pressure at surface, and you would require a pump to produce.
If you take the well off of Greenfire's wells, you'd get a gusher that shoots 100 meters in the air. These thief zones require downhole pumps relative to Greenfire that just opens the valve and production flows to surface naturally. Management believes that we have two of the five Tier-1 SAGD reservoirs in Alberta.
One SAGD reservoir is able to run hotter relative to wells that have thief zones, which allows the company to melt the bitumen faster and produce at higher rates. Now, since we produce without downhole pumps, which typically costs about CAD 1 million a pump, our wells aren't subject to pump replacement economics when these pumps fail approximately every two years.
Therefore, not only are production rates higher, but total estimated ultimate recoveries are typically also higher, given the wells can run to the end of life without these downhole pumps.
When we quantify the structural cost advantage of a Tier-1 SAGD reservoir and calculate the electricity savings from not having to run downhole pumps, as well as the capital cost savings from not having to install and replace these costly downhole pumps at approximately CAD 1 million per pump per well every two years, Greenfire estimates a CAD 30 million annual gross savings or CAD 23 million net to the company by having a Tier-1 SAGD reservoir that does not require downhole pumps to produce.
Taking a step back and looking at the SAGD business as a whole, the project risk profile is largely front-end loaded for the life of the asset to construct your operating facilities and pipeline infrastructure. Now, Greenfire has two already producing SAGD facilities in place at the Expansion and Demo Assets that have well-delineated reservoirs and approved developments.
So, this capital has already been invested by the Japanese, who spent CAD 2.5 billion on their working interest in the Expansion Asset alone to construct this facility. The Expansion Asset was constructed in 2016, and the Greenfire team in 2023 began drilling redevelopment infill wells to accelerate production. These 10 redevelopment infill wells came on with initial production rates about 1,500 bpd.
The team has proceeded to install NCG co-injection and surface facility optimizations to apply the SAGD playbook to this asset and which has shown initial increases in production rates. The Demo Asset has been in operation since 1999 . Now, what's particularly interesting about the Demo Asset is that declines have remained relatively low without drilling any infill or refill wells or without the use of downhole pumps.
Now, we believe that the lack, the track record over the long term of not requiring downhole pumps provides durability in the, and confidence in the structural cost advantage of Greenfire's Tier-1 SAGD reservoir at the Expansion and the Demo Assets. This is because the Demo Asset shares the same Tier-1 SAGD reservoir and subsurface river channel as the Expansion Asset.
The Greenfire team has drilled three extended reach redevelopment infill wells at over 2,000 meters of horizontal length in 2024 as we begin to apply the SAGD playbook to the Demo Asset as well.
The Demo Asset is constrained by water handling capacity as an older facility that has higher water cuts. The Greenfire team has restarted its disposal well at the Demo Asset and has drilled and is in the process of commissioning, subject to regulatory approval, a second disposal well, which will provide additional operational flexibility and capability to support higher production rates at the Demo Asset.
The Hangingstone Facilities have substantial expandable infrastructure in place, particularly pipeline infrastructure for diluted bitumen and diluent, which is capable of supporting the company's production growth plan to 34,000 bpd and beyond, without installing additional pipe.
For natural gas, the company sources its natural gas for steam generation via the NGTL System, and electricity is sourced from the other, Alberta grid. The expansion facility was originally not built to support NCG co-injection. The Greenfire team has installed NCG co-injection capability, including a compressor in the fourth quarter of 2023, which has supported higher reservoir pressure and initial production rates. '
The core aspect of the SAGD playbook is the drilling of incremental recovery wells. Typically, the industry has drilled what are called infill wells, whereby they produce the preheated wedge of oil between two SAGD well pairs using infill well, which is a new vertical and horizontal wellbore to produce that bitumen wedge.
The industry has now shifted to drilling what's called a refill well, whereby they reenter an existing producer, abandon the horizontal, and kick the well off to drill a refill producer into that preheated wedge, which saves the drilling of a vertical producer well, as well as wellhead and surface tie-in infrastructure. This enables the production of incremental bitumen with marginal capital expenditure and minimal geological risk.
The Japanese were conservative with their well lengths, so the Greenfire team recognized that since there are two pads that are immediately adjacent to each other, the team can drill an extended reach refill producer well across both pads, resulting in additional cost efficiencies, as from the savings of the drilling of additional well, lower future well counts, while maintaining high recoveries and economies of scale. The drilling of refill wells is standard in SAGD.
All of our peers are doing it and seeing positive production rates relative to drilling infill and primary SAGD well pairs. The industry has gotten better at drilling refill wells, and that is showing with the improvement in well productivity year- over- year as the industry gets better at well placement and the drilling of these wells.
While Greenfire realizes its pricing in the Edmonton and Hardisty market, the company is materially exposed to re-rating of heavy oil, as 100% of its production volumes are exposed to the WCS differential benchmark.
The company is through this exposure, with the Trans Mountain expansion now online, this incremental egress of about 600,000 bpd and access to global markets is anticipated to result in a re-rating of the Canadian heavy oil barrel, which can support more favorable WCS differentials and reduce the volatility in WCS differential pricing.
Now, recall, Greenfire has no take-or-pay commitments or commitments at all in the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline. Those are underpinned by the four largest oil sands producers in Western Canada.
Instead, Greenfire realizes pricing in Edmonton, which are markets that are anticipated to decongest as these volumes from the Trans Mountain Pipeline are forced to flow to the West Coast, which decongests the Edmonton market and provides additional pipeline capacity on the Legacy Enbridge and TC Energy systems to PADD 2 and PADD 3, which are key demand centers for Canadian heavy oil.
As it relates to sensitivities to core variables for our production and pricing, Greenfire is most exposed to improvements in production, as well as the WCS differential. Tying it all together from a strategic perspective, the company is focused on production growth and debt reduction by applying the SAGD playbook to its currently underdeveloped SAGD assets to fill its plants that are currently approximately half full.
Thereafter, the company's positioning for shareholder returns, once debt repayment gets down to $150 million, the ability to execute shareholder returns switches from 75% debt repayment and 25% shareholder returns to 75% shareholder returns and 25% debt repayment, enabling the company to pursue more impactful dividend and share buyback programs.
Longer term, the company's evaluating additional potential opportunities for production growth and will evaluate prospects that compete for the expected returns of its Tier 1 SAGD assets if they're accretive to its shareholders. Mark, I'll turn it over to you for questions.
Thank you, Robert. I was wondering if you could just maybe talk a little bit about the history of the management team, and their backgrounds.
Yeah, Robert Logan is the Head of the business as the President and CEO. He spent his whole life in the oil sands, originally at the Statoil Leismer Project, and eventually progressed, where he helped commission that facility, and eventually moved on to being project manager at Sunshine Oil Sands, where he was responsible for the commissioning of that project as well.
The Chief Financial Officer is Tony Kraljic. He was previously the CFO of Western Zagros, which was a company with operations in Kurdistan. The balance of the Greenfire leadership team consists of oil sands experts that have been working together in various capacities for over the last ten to twenty years, commissioning and constructing and optimizing most of the existing SAGD assets in Western Canada.
Now, how long will it take for the Hangingstone Facilities to reach bottleneck capacity, and what will be the impact to profitability?
The team anticipates filling the Hangingstone facilities in approximately two years, and that'll be involving the drilling of additional redevelopment infill wells. The team has currently about 15 targets there, as well as the construction of a new sustaining pad.
From a profitability standpoint, as the overwhelming majority of the costs in SAGD are fixed, the incremental production volumes largely flow to the bottom line, which should materially reduce our operating costs per barrel and raise our net backs and free cash flow generation substantially.
Now, do you hedge your commodity price exposure, and what is your break-even WTI price?
For 2024, Greenfire's hedged 11,500 bpd of WTI at a fixed price of $71 per barrel. Now, on an unhedged basis, Greenfire's break-even price, inclusive of capital expenditures at the midpoint for 2024, is $57 a barrel WTI.
But including this hedging program for 2024, the company's break-even WTI price is $36 a barrel, which we think provides the ability to navigate an extremely volatile commodity price environment, in addition to the company's higher cash levels and undrawn revolving credit facility.
You know, earlier, you talked about the valuation, and so what are the drivers of Greenfire's valuation discount relative to core peers? And how do you kind of expect to close the gap?
Greenfire currently trades at approximately 40% valuation discount relative to its core peers, Athabasca and MEG. We believe this is because it's a newer management team that is recently public, and we are working on name recognition with investors and delivering on our growth objectives to drive additional free cash flow generation and new investors into the story that are willing to ascribe a higher valuation.
I noticed recently, Waterous Energy Fund has agreed to purchase, I guess, close to 30 million common shares, or about 43% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Greenfire from existing shareholders. Can you maybe comment on that?
Because I think some of the companies that are the sellers, you know, are controlled by some of your board members, and so I was just kind of wondering what the implications are, you know, of that agreement.
Yeah, that's correct. Yesterday, the Waterous Energy Fund announced that it has acquired 43% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Greenfire for investment purposes. Now, these shares were acquired at CAD 10.93 per share, from three existing shareholders in a private transaction. Now, the Waterous Energy Fund is an established private equity firm based in Calgary.
They have a track record of identifying strong management teams with a focus on growth, consolidation, and compounding long-term intrinsic value per share. The transaction is anticipated to close in approximately three weeks, so I can't speak to too many details. But the Greenfire team, while we remain focused on our operations and production growth plan, the Waterous acquisition of Greenfire shares is a clear vote of confidence.
Yes
... in the company's growth strategy, ability to identify underdeveloped thermal oil assets, and talented team.
Absolutely. Robert, thank you for joining us today.
It was a pleasure, Mark. Thank you to yourself and the whole Noble Capital Markets team. Have a great conference, everyone.