Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 5, 2021

Earnings release

Good morning, and welcome to the GeoPark Limited Conference Call following your results announcement for the Q2 ended June 30, 2021. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you do not have a copy of the press release, it is available at the Investor Support section on the company's corporate website at www.geopark.com. A replay of today's call may be accessed through this webcast in the Investor Support section of the GeoPark corporate website. Before we continue, please note that certain statements contained in the results press release and on this conference call are forward looking statements rather than historical facts and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described. With respect to such forward looking statements, the company seeks protections afforded by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These risks include a variety of factors, including competitive developments and risk factors listed from time to time in the company's SEC reports and public releases. Those lists are intended to identify certain principal factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward looking statements, but are not intended to represent a complete list of the company's business. All financial figures included herein were prepared in accordance with the IFRS and are stated in U. S. Dollars unless otherwise noted. Reserves figures correspond to the PRMS standards. And on the call today from GeoPark is James F. Park, Chief Executive Officer Augusto Zebruga, Chief Operating Officer Andres Ocampo, Chief Financial Officer Martin Tirado, Director of Operations and Stacy Steimel, Shareholder Value Director. And now I'll turn the call over to Mr. James Park. Mr. Park, you may begin. Thank you and welcome everyone. We are joining you this morning with our during the Q2 of this year. Firstly, we wish to thank the women and men at GeoPark for their efforts and professionalism in managing our business, including through any volatility such as the recent unrest in Colombia. Since our founding 19 years ago, this backbone and spirit are key drivers of our successful, steady and continuous track record of growth and value delivery. We also want to especially thank our shareholders for their important support and for the many constructive conversations we had with them prior to our Annual General Meeting. Your votes and messages were clear and we see this as further positive momentum for all the changes and continuous improvements that we have been pushing for and carrying out. 1 of GeoPark's fundamental principles is to work to get better every day, and our history reflects a continuous and sometimes challenging evolution. We embrace a changing future and see it as a source of infinite new opportunities, particularly in the hyper competitive world and exciting energy transition we are in today. Our company has built its reputation on operational performance and we have repeatedly shown following our 19 year track record that our team can consistently deliver in any oil price environment. This is based on 4 key and different skill sets covering the full value chain explore for and find new oil and gas reserves in fields 2, safely, cost effectively and efficiently produce our oil and gas 3, be compatible with and minimize any impact on the communities and surrounding natural environments where we work and 4, continuously locate, pursue and acquire new prospective assets at the right price to build an enduring short, medium and long term growth fairway. This technical know how has created our current exceptional low cost asset base with a powerful cash generation that allows us to self fund our business growth, manage the volatility inherent in our industry and simultaneously give back to our shareholders. For example, in the Q2 2021, our operation and financial performance delivered tangible value back to our shareholders through a significant cash flow generation with an operating netback of 70 $4,000,000 which represented more than 2x our capital expenditures Profitable operations, which allowed us to reduce our total debt by $105,000,000 extending maturities by more than 2 years and reducing our annual interest costs by $9,000,000 while keeping a strong balance sheet with $85,000,000 a new debt structure which now provides ample flexibility for further deleveraging, continuing to execute our share buyback and paying cash dividends, constantly working to reduce our cost structure and making us a lower cost and more efficient operator and an ongoing review of our organic asset portfolio. As always, the foundation for GeoPark's performance is our in house integrated value system we call speed. We continue to push forward our speed initiative, which predates and is more comprehensive than ESG and is helping us achieve our goal of having the cleanest and kindest hydrocarbons. This also includes our continuous and successful efforts to safeguard our team, communities and operations from a lingering COVID in the region. GeoPark was recently named 1 of the most honored companies in Latin America in the 2021 Institutional Investor Survey voted on by the international financial community, which highlighted our team and its crisis management of COVID and our ESG disclosure. The second half of twenty twenty one is underway and we are moving forward in all aspects of our business. We have 6 rigs at work. Our team continues to identify attractive new leads and prospects in our big land base and is fully We also are working with all of our partners such as on the CPO-five block to develop options and alternatives to accelerate our work program execution. We are drilling 20 to 23 more wells during the second half and are targeting production growth to approximately 39,000 to 42,000 barrels per day. And we have just kicked off a key project to connect to the national energy grid in Colombia by the end of next year, which will lower costs, operational risks and improve our carbon footprint. Our team has also initiated our annual capital allocation exercise to build our work program and budget for 2022, selecting the biggest shareholder value adding projects based on strategic, technical, economic and social and environmental parameters. We look forward to spending time with our asset management teams while conducting this critical exercise to ensure our capital discipline and flexibility value for our shareholders. Our huge organic land base and our rich inventory of new inorganic potential projects provides an abundant and exciting opportunity set, including highly attractive exploration prospects in our core Yanos 34 block, our CPO5 block, as well as our Yanos exploration acreage adjacent to Gannos 34 where we are partnering with Ecopetrol. During this process, we also determine the cash that will be allocated to give back to shareholders and or use to further delever our company. Today, the Board approved the doubling of our quarterly dividend to our shareholders. Thank you, and we would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Riccardo Rezende from JPMorgan. Riccardo, your line will be open now if you'd like to proceed with your question. Hello. Thanks for taking the question. Good morning, James, Andreas, Stacy, Hope, you guys are doing well and safe. A couple of questions on my side. So when you think about the second half production on the 39,000 to 40,000 barrels per day, how do you see the production resuming throughout the quarter? And I guess here what I'm trying to think is, how should we think about the active production in this year to think about 2022 production? And then the second question is on your portfolio management. So you have mentioned that you're looking at some alternatives for your assets in Argentina, but I haven't seen anything about Chile. So what are your plans for your Chilean blocks? Thank you. Hi, Ricardo. Good morning. Thanks very much for your question and hope you're doing well as well. And then Martin will go into the second half production that you are. We've mentioned the other day on the release that we initiated a process with respect to our Argentina assets and that process is going well. We are in whenever we have more information, we will continue to update investors through press releases. Our expectation is to be able to close or not to close, but at least to have something signed and tied up hopefully before the end of the year. But we will be updating you as more information is coming. With respect to your comment Chile, I think we've spoken in the past and we mentioned many times that some of the assets or the less performing assets outside Colombia that also have more limited upside are subject in our company are subject to potential. Usually the situation with Chile historically has been more difficult because Chile is a particular market. We basically are effectively the only private company in the country, oil company in the country. So that limits our option. But the team has been working on developing different options for us to assess some effectively define what the strategic alternatives for Chile are going to be. We don't have nothing definitive yet that we can communicate, but it is part of the portfolio that because of its limited upside today, it is likely to be subject to be going down that road rather to be a long term asset of the company. And then back to your question about production on the second half, I will let Martin respond that. Thanks, Andres. Good morning, Ricardo. So for the second half of the year, we're expecting total production to be between 39,000 42,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Our exit point would be between 40,000 to 43,000 barrels of oil equivalent, roughly 85% of that is our Colombia production and that increase in production is based on the activity that we already have going on. As Jim was mentioning, we have 3 rigs drilling in our channels 34 block. We're moving a rig in Plantanillo to drill 2 wells and we're also expecting a start of drilling operations in the CPO-five block by the end by the last quarter of this year. Our next question comes from Alejandro Demicherlis from NowSecurities. Alejandro, your line is now open if you'd like to proceed with your question. Yes. Good morning. Hope you're all well. Just one question for you to follow-up on the previous in terms of your strategy. How is that your thinking now about, say, the rest of Latin America? If these are with Argentina kind of being divested, with what you have done in Brazil, should we think as GeoPark going more inwards into Colombia? And as a follow-up from there, you also mentioned the inorganic portfolio or pipeline that you have. So maybe you can comment on that a little bit too. Sure. Thank you, Alejandro. Andres here. With respect to your question about the rest of LatAm and our approach and view of the rest of LatAm, really and as you know and we always say the same thing. We look at the region first with no borders. We start from the subsurface and look at the basins. And I think it is more asset quality nature and upside rather than where the asset is located. So currently with the portfolio that we have today organically, we have our hands really full with a massive portfolio of incredible opportunities to drill. And I would say 95% of that is within Colombia and even within Colombia probably around Janus 34. So that's Janus 34, CPO5 and all the rest of the exploration acreage around it. So with the asset portfolio that we have today, we have a huge inventory of things that we can go after consolidated in Colombia. So I think when you look at our organic portfolio, yes, that's a Colombian focused strategy. That doesn't mean that if we find and if we our team discovers or encounters such a beautiful and credible asset like CPO5 or even JANO34 that is happens to be located in Brazil, then I don't think the borders or the country location should limit us for an asset like that. So the way to look at it from our point of view is really the subsurface quality of the assets. And obviously, it would need to be located in countries where we are open for business, right? There are some countries that are off limits for us in Latin America, but that's the way I would put it. And in any case, given that incredible organic portfolio that we have, we have a lot of things to do and to deliver on the last couple of years of asset additions that we've done to the company. So we expect 2022 to be a very busy year in starting drilling and tapping some of those great prospects that we were able to incorporate to the company throughout that famous land grab that we did in 20 19. So sorry for the long answer, but I hope that's more or less clear on the way we are thinking about the Colombian focus versus whether we still look at the region or not. That's very clear. Thank you. And just to kind of pull into a bit of a framework here between kind of leverage, CapEx to develop those assets that you're talking about and return to shareholders? How should we think about what's the optimal leverage for GeoPark, particularly with what you're talking about, the increase in production in second half of the year, the free cash flow and then more growth into 2022? Sure. So if you look at our last couple of years, we've prioritized 100 percent of the CapEx to be fully funded within our own cash flows. That's top priority and that's the basic element that our work programs after which our work programs are defined. And then the second element for us to allocate capital to is basically a combination of debt reduction and shareholder value returns. We announced today that we doubled our dividends and we continue to execute on our buybacks. But also earlier this year, we did a liability management transaction to accomplish mainly 2 things. The first one was to reduce the total size of our debt by approximately 100 dollars more than that, reduce the cost of the debt, but also structure our debt in a way that we have the optionality to continue bringing down the total size of the debt anytime we'd have excess cash or we can have that type of optionality right now. So today our total debt is separated in 2 instruments, the remaining amounts on the 2024s and the $500,000,000 bond that matures in 20.27. So you should think that as the 2024s as something that will be gradually be repaid over the course of the next, I don't know, couple of years maybe, hopefully earlier than that. But that is the fraction of the debt that will basically go away over the course of the next years. And then keeping the $500,000,000 $20.27 that's more or less that more or less gives you where we are in terms of comfort zone. With the levels of EBITDA that we're estimating for this year, next year, that should put us somewhere below the one time net debt to EBITDA in terms of leverage. So that's I will call that more or less our comfort zone. We would always work on trying to reduce the total size of our debt. Okay. That's very clear. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Stefan Fakou from apologies from OXIS. Stefan, your line is open now if you'd like to ask your question. Yes, hi guys. A few questions for me. The first one, I saw that for the Q2 in a row, the OpEx for Colombia is just, I think, north of $7 a barrel. And I was wondering whether this has a run rate, a new run rate or you would expect that to go down? Second question, there is a big, I think, positive working capital movement this quarter that's impacted positively the cash flow. And I was wondering whether we should expect to reverse of that next quarter or whether, again, it's more a correction of historical situation? Can you give us an update on your best view with regards to when you would start drilling Ecuador? Thank you. Hi, Stefan. Good morning. Thank you for your question. With respect to your question about the OpEx in Colombia, this quarter there was a small increase because of we had Platanillo shut in for a period of time And basically, there was a reduction in the inventories and that generated something like $0.30, dollars 0.40 per barrel increase in the OpEx. But more or less, the run rate for the full year is more or less in the average of between for Colombia, between $7 to $7.5 per barrel consolidated. That is more or less the number that we're seeing. In any case, Martin and his team continuously have and are working on initiatives, different initiatives to push those numbers down like the connection to the grid that we're expecting for some other initiatives that the team is working. But for now, something between $7 to $7.5 per barrel is more or less a reasonable number for Colombia Consolidated. Your question about working capital, you are correct. Basically what we did is for the couple of months where we were facing basically disruptions in Colombia. We had paid down $115,000,000 of debt. At the same time, we were facing disruptions in our operations, in our core cash flow generating assets, flooding and some other things. On top of the payments. At the same time, we paid cash taxes for $40,000,000 So basically to protect the cash and to expand our minimum cash positions, we triggered an auction that we have in our sales contracts to anticipate collections. So that basically more or less $15,000,000 that you see increasing working 2,000,000 in working capital is coming from there. So over the course of the next few months, you should see that reverting as the operations have now normalized and as well. And then your comment about Ecuador, I would leave Martin to answer that. Thank you, Stefan. So in Ecuador, we're encouraged. As you know, the government has changed and they are pushing for activity. So we have 2 blocks there, the Estejo block. We were awaiting on the environmental study approval. We expect that to be ready by November and we have already awarded the seismic company. So we expect late this year, Q1 of next year to be acquiring that seismic in the block that we operate. And the other block, the Perico block, which is operated by our partner, It's on the same level in timing for the environmental study to be approved around November and then we will move ahead with drilling the well, the first well on that block. So we're encouraged by that and those are the time frames that we have in mind. So you're talking about what first well then Q1 2022, something along those lines, if everything goes well? Yes. Correct, Stefan. Okay. Thank you, guys. Very useful. Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Guardiola from BTG Pactual. Daniel, your line is now open if you'd like to proceed with your question. Hi, good morning guys. I have a couple of questions. My first question is related to your hedging strategy. Once again, we saw it address a significant amount of realized losses related to the hedging strategy in this Q. And I wanted to know if you could provide some color on what to expect for the second half of the year and if you're planning or not to modify And I'll let you know if you can provide us some color on the drilling campaign in this field. How much capital are you planning to allocate in CPO-five this year and next? And how do you feel that your relationship with the operator of this field has been evolving in the last couple of months? Thank you, Daniel. Good morning. The question with respect to hedging, unfortunately, the hedging results, the realized losses are always depending on the realized prices. It's hard to forecast and it always depends on realized prices. As we commented on previous calls, there's 2 effects that start to occur from or started to occur from July 1 on. 1 is the fact that the ceilings started to be higher than the first half. And then also the total percentage of hedged production was lower. So the first half of the year, we had nearly 80% of our production hedged with ceilings of $52, dollars 53 per barrel. So we just went through the worst part, I would say. So the biggest losses have already been recorded. For the second half of the year, it depends on what the realized prices are going to be. But if you estimate something like a $70 Brent flat, $65 Brent, $70 Brent flat, that could generate $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 of additional cash losses, realized losses over the course of the second half of the year. To give you an idea, we have more or less 57% on the 3rd quarter and 51% on the 4th quarter hedged more or less. And then the ceilings are $52 $62 on the 3rd quarter and the 4th quarter is $64 and that's for the hedged production, so which is roughly half of our production. So that more or less gives you the idea on what we are expecting on the second half of the year. And then with those price levels, we don't expect any losses in the Q2 because the ceilings we have there are above $75 per barrel for the portions that we have hedged. With respect to your comment about the hedging strategy, as I said, we are going through the most difficult part of the hedging, which is we have a lot of barrels hedged that were done when oil prices were low, where we were probably hedged below our expected target. And that's why it is today that we're suffering these losses. But this is a part of the cycle where more hedges should be added for the following quarters. So we are keeping our discipline. We're still targeting to have roughly 40%, 50% of our production hedged more or less up to 12 months ahead. And these times where oil prices are at the high levels, this is where we believe that those hedges should be implemented. We are doing it slowly, conservatively on a layer by layer basis, monitoring the market on a daily basis and every time we find a good window, we add a couple of 1,000 barrels more to those hedges. That's more or less the way we expect to continue executing on this strategy. We're not speculative. We're just trying to protect the return for our shareholders related to the investments that we're making. We have the luxury that we can make double, triple digit returns on our investments and that we don't need significant high prices to achieve those returns. And that's why we are expecting to continue that way. And then Martin I'll leave Martin to answer the more color on CPO5. Hello, Daniel. So on CPO-five, we will be drilling the 1st development well in the Co4 in the Q4 of 2022 2021, sorry. This well is about 0.5 kilometer from Indico-1. Indico 1, it's still producing more than 5,000,000 barrels. It has a cumulative of 4,500,000 barrels. So we continue to be very excited about this asset. Following the drilling of that well, we would drill 1 to 2 exploratory wells and the campaign will move continuously into 2022. So we expect activity to continue to ramp up and stabilize with 2 rigs drilling from the last quarter of this year forward. Currently, we're producing around 13,000 barrels of oil per day. And concerning the question about our relationship, we continue nurturing it. I will give you one example. We had a very tough managed to work together so the trucks were available to minimize the amount of oil that we will have to shut down. So we're working on that. And right now, as Jim mentioned, we're alternative so that we can accelerate the work program. Thank you, Martin. If I may, just a very brief follow-up. Can you share with us how much capital are you planning to allocate in CPO5 this year? Certainly. So year to date, we have $5,000,000 And by the end of the year, we expect to be in the order of $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 our working interest. Okay, great. Thank you, Martin. And Andres, I would like to just a very brief follow-up on the hedging strategy. I understand, I mean, you have a hedging strategy where you have basically put spreads and sealed those colors. But I wanted to know if you're considering to modify a little bit your strategy in order to lock in your future or a portion of your future production, your future cash flow generation? Is that something that you're considering right now? Or is out of the table? Thank you, Daniel. Nothing is out of the table. The different structures and the different options and we've executed different structures and different options in the past. And nothing is off the table. We are we consider everything. We work internally. We have internal experts and outside advisers that help us and we continuously look for what's the best for our company. So, so far the way we've approached these higher oil prices is to try to secure minimum floors and trying to keep some of the upside and we're limiting at these prices. Basically, if we were to fix the try to fix whatever is current prices today, that would mean that we would limit the upside to a much lower number. So far, we've had selected and preferred a wide spread around $20 or more of spread. But again, as I said, we're willing to consider any option and all different options that we may find better for what we're looking for. And just as a reminder, we recognize when we mark these products in the balance sheet are painful for everybody. But there were I think more than 200 bankruptcies and $12,000,000,000 worth of hedging losses I read somewhere in the U. S. Only. So we're not alone, but some of the companies that have succeeded and survived through that downturn was basically those that had appropriate hedging strategies in place. Our next question comes from Gustavo Sadka from Bradesco BBI. BBI. I have one quick question on production. Looking at your guidance, you would have to average something like 42,000 to 43,000 barrels per day in the second half of twenty twenty one. So my question is where production stands now and what are the milestones necessary to achieve this goal? Gustavo, good morning. So our production right now is in the order of 39,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. And as we mentioned at the beginning, the increase that we're going to have is coming from the activity that we have with the 3 rigs that will stay drilling in channels 34. Also increased production in the Platonizio block as we have 2 wells to be drilled, we have 100% working interest there. And finally, the CP05 block drilling of the Indigo 4 well as we were mentioning before with Daniel. Our final question comes from Miguel Ospina from Compass Group. And his question is use of proceeds from asset sale in Brazil. So I think Miguel is just asking about the use of proceeds from asset sale in Brazil. Okay, great. Well, thank you. We're expecting that those transactions are going two course. We're expecting to close hopefully before the end of the year if there are no further delays. The proceeds from those should be somewhere around they're real nominated, so should be somewhere between $25,000,000 $28,000,000 And our expectation is to include those in our cash position and follow or cash flow position and follow the normal priorities for capital allocations that we follow. Our assets first fund our base work program first and then second to pursue a combination of debt reduction and shareholder value return. That would be effectively they would follow the same priorities that follow the rest of our cash flow that is coming every day. We currently have no further questions. So I will hand back to the management team to conclude. Thank you everybody for your interest in GeoPark and your continued support of our company. As the world's borders begin to open again, we encourage you to please visit us at our operations in Latin America. Our shareholder value team has accelerated their interactions and is busier than ever with webinars, video conference and direct calls and is available around the clock, passes our management team to answer any questions or listen to your comments. So thank you and please stay healthy and strong. This concludes today's call. Thank you everyone for joining and you may now disconnect your line.