Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Gran Tierra Energy's Results Conference Call for the Q3 2022. My name is Kathy, and I'll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the initial remarks, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session for security analysts and in institutions. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcast and recorded today, Thursday, November 3, 2022, at 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time. Today's discussion may include certain forward-looking information as well as certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the earnings and operational update press release we issued yesterday for important disclaimers with regard to this information and reconciliations of any non-GAAP measures discussed on today's call.
Any production volumes are based on working interest sales before royalties. Finally, this earnings call is the property of Gran Tierra Energy, Inc. Any copying or rebroadcasting of this call is expressly forbidden without the written consent of Gran Tierra Energy. I'll now turn the conference call over to Gary Guidry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gran Tierra Energy. Mr. Guidry, please go ahead.
Thank you, Kathy. Good morning, and thanks for joining Gran Tierra's Q3 2022 results conference call. My name is Gary Guidry. I'm President and Chief Executive Officer, and with me today are Ryan Ellson, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Baker, our Director of Asset Management. On Tuesday, November 1, we issued a press release that included detailed information on our Q3 2022 results, which is available on our website. Paul and Ryan will make a few brief comments, and then we'll open the line for questions. I will now turn the call over to Ryan to discuss key financial highlights from our Q3 results.
Thank you, Gary. Good morning, everyone. Gran Tierra achieved a strong quarter by delivering $94 million of funds flow and $37 million of free funds flow, while drilling three exploration wells, the Bocachico well in Ecuador and the Gaitas and Rose wells in Colombia. Over the last 12 months, we generated net income of $168 million, adjusted EBITDA of $462 million, funds flow of $350 million, and free cash flow of $146 million. This free cash flow allowed us to execute our share buyback plan and strengthen our balance sheet via bond buybacks and the complete paydown of our former credit facility.
During the quarter, we strengthened our balance sheet while reducing the overall outstanding shares to 358 million shares, representing a reduction of about 2.9% in our total outstanding share count during the quarter. The company exited the quarter with $118 million of cash on the balance sheet and net debt of 462 million, with our new credit facility remaining completely undrawn. During Q3, the Brent oil price averaged $97.70 per barrel, up 33% from one year ago, but down 13% from the prior quarter. The company's quality and transportation discount widened to $13.37 per barrel in Q3, up from $13 per barrel in the prior quarter and $11.50 per barrel one year ago.
The increases in this discount were driven by the widening of the Colombian oil price differentials relative to Brent oil price. During Q3, we achieved net income of $39 million, up 10% from the Q3 of 2021. Q3 earnings of 11 cents per share were down from 14 cents per share in the prior quarter. Gran Tierra's total average production in Q3 was 30,291 BOPD, up 5% from the Q3 of 2021 and approximately flat with Q2 of 2022. During the quarter, the Suroriente Block in Colombia's Putumayo Basin experienced occasional disruptions due to localized blockades. The impact of these blockades lowered the company's total average production in Q3 by approximately 920 BOPD.
Gran Tierra generated Q3 oil sales of $168 million, up 24% from one year ago and down 18% from the prior quarter. Funds flow from operations was $94 million, up 36% from one year ago and down 10% from the prior quarter. The company's Q3 operating netback was $44.26 per barrel, up 28% from one year ago. Cash netback per barrel was $33.42 compared to $37.71 in the prior quarter, which was only an 11% decrease despite a 13% decrease in the Brent pricing. Compared to one year ago, cash netback per barrel increased 31% from $25.50.
In terms of CapEx, during Q3 we incurred $57 million of capital expenditures which were lower than the prior quarter's level of $65 million, as the majority of Gran Tierra's capital development programs in both Acordionero and Costayaco were completed during the Q2 of 2022. During Q3, Gran Tierra drilled three exploration wells, the Bocachico well in Ecuador and the Gaitas-1 and Rose-1 wells in Colombia. Subsequent to the quarter end, we drilled the Charapa Norte well in Ecuador, and testing will commence shortly.
As part of our ongoing commitment to reduce Gran Tierra's net debt, during Q3, we bought back approximately $20.1 million face value of Gran Tierra's 6.25% senior notes due February 2025 for an approximate cost of $17.3 million, representing a discount of about 14% to the face value of our 2025 bonds. Purchasing these bonds will generate interest savings of $3 million over the remaining term to the maturity of the 2025 bonds. During the quarter, we repurchased 10.7 million shares, representing about 2.9% of our shares outstanding for a total price of $14.4 million, which was at an average cost of $1.34 per share.
With current production of approximately 32,000 BOPD, we look forward to finishing 2022 on a strong note and are excited about our plans for our 2023 development and exploration capital programs. As many of you are aware, there have been numerous proposals for changes in the tax regime in Colombia. Given the uncertainty on what the ultimate changes will be, we don't have any comments on the proposed changes other than Colombia's long history of providing a stable environment for long-term investment, and we expect that to continue in the future. I'll now turn the call over to Paul to discuss some of the operational highlights from our Q3 results.
Thank you, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. Gran Tierra continues to drive efficiencies at its major fields. As Ryan mentioned, our production for the quarter was 30,391 barrels of oil per day. So far, during Q4 to date, our production is averaging 32,291 barrels of oil per day. Our waterflood projects in our core fields continue to yield stable and expected results with low natural declines. During Q3, we commenced our enhanced oil recovery polymer injection project in the Acordionero field. This pilot injection test is a milestone. After several years of laboratory work and modeling, indicated the Acordionero reservoir's suitability for polymer injection. We are also excited about the initial exploration results that the company has achieved in both Colombia and Ecuador. Bocachico-1 was the first well that we drilled in Ecuador.
After the previously disclosed initial production testing of the deepest zone, the T sand, the company moved up hole and tested the U sand, which was water-bearing. We now plan to go back to the T sand to stimulate it and place it on a long-term test before moving up hole to test the basal Tena formation. Gran Tierra's second Ecuador well, Charapa Norte-1, has finished drilling and is being cased to the total depth of the well. A core was cut in the Hollin sand, which had oil shows throughout the 60 feet of core with 40 feet of potential oil pay identified. We plan to production test Charapa Norte-1 during November 2022. In Colombia, we drilled the Rose-1 well in the Putumayo Basin.
The company production tested the N sand over a 72-hour period, and during this period, the well flowed naturally without a pump at an average stabilized rate of 242 barrels of oil per day of 15-degree API gravity and two barrels of water per day with a gas-oil ratio of 10 standard cubic feet per barrel. In the Middle Magdalena Basin, based on the encouraging results of the Gaitas-1 exploration well, we moved a drilling rig to the Gaitas pad, and on October 27, we spud the Gaitas-2 exploration well. We expect Gaitas-2 to target multiple reservoir zones in a location that is structurally higher than the Gaitas-1 well in our planned effort to test the La Luna formation and the deeper Umir sands further away from possible oil water contacts.
I'll now turn the call back to the operator, and we'll be happy to answer any questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now conduct the question and answer session for our securities analysts. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by one one on your touch-tone phone. So that's star one one. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. Your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Please ensure you lift the handset if you're using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Oriana Covault from Balanz. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Crystal clear.
Perfect. Thanks for taking my question. This is Oriana Covault with Balanz. I had three questions. If we may go one by one, that would be great. First starting on the lifting costs. We noticed that lifting costs year to date continue to be well above the high end of your full year guidance. Just wanted to understand what drove this increase in Q3, and if you're sticking to this range and how you plan to reach such reduction by Q4.
Yeah. I think part of the lifting costs is obviously there's a significant amount of inflation globally. You know, in Q4, you know, Paul had mentioned that, you know, we're over 32,000 barrels a day. A substantial amount of our lifting costs are fixed. As we ramp up production during the quarter, that per unit cost will decrease.
Understood. Perhaps sticking to that guidance for production Q4, just to understand better the impact that you saw during the quarter due to operational disruptions and contingencies in the Q3. If you could perhaps provide more detail on what drove this impact in production levels in Colombia, the nature of the issues, and how should we think of this going forward?
Yeah, the disruptions that we had during the quarter were predominantly in the Suroriente block, which was around 920-950 barrels a day impact. Those were blockades. The majority of the blockades were against the central government, not against Gran Tierra. Unfortunately, we just get caught in the middle of that. You know, we're working very closely with the government to mitigate those blockades going forward. And again, unfortunately, it's a difficult one to predict. We aren't anticipating blockades during the quarter. But again, it's a challenging one to predict.
Understood. Maybe just my last one. We saw in your corporate presentation that you're guiding for cash position for year-end of about $190 million roughly in the midpoint, with about $70 million coming from working capital and other cash items. If you could share more details on how do you plan to achieve this target?
Yeah, I think when you look at the quarter, you know, obviously it's a pretty constructive oil price environment right now. Our CapEx is dropping during the quarter, kind of compared to the past quarters, you know, a lot of the development programs behind us. We have a free cash flow build just on our operations. Also we expect our 2021 tax refund, you know, in the range of $20-$25 million to come in during the quarter as well.
Okay. Thank you. Our next
Thank you.
Our next question comes from, Werner Riding of Peel Hunt. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. There's no FY 2023 guidance yet, but I guess we're only weeks away from being in the final month of this year, and the outcome for 2022 is largely known. To the extent possible, could you perhaps give us a feel for future production expectations next year? Following on from that, I was just wondering in which year you see peak production being achieved from your current assets?
Yeah. The short answer is we meet with our board of directors annually to discuss our long-range plan, life of all of our assets and then a five-year outlook. Out of that rolls our budget for 2023. We'll be press releasing that in early to mid-December, which will give you all of the guidance that we expect. In terms of peak production, this year, as you know, we focused on several things. One was balance sheet. Our balance sheet is in great shape. The second thing we focused on is expanding our waterfloods in our big fields. Then the final that Paul mentioned is our pilot test on polymer.
If you combine all of those, we do have clear room to increase production, expanding waterfloods, expanding recovery. As Ryan mentioned, we have some exciting exploration wells success that we're going to appraise. We'll give you some guidance on 2023, but in terms of peak production, we've got lots of dry powder for the next couple of years.
Okay, thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Josef Schachter with Schachter Energy Research. Your line is now open.
Good morning, Gary, Ryan, and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. First to go to the balance sheet, probably for Ryan, as sort of asked earlier about the, you know, the $118 now and $180-$200 at year-end because of the comments you made before of how you get there. You probably don't need more than $100. Are you looking to take advantage during Q4 or Q1 of any disruptions in the market where you can buy bonds at a big discount like you did during the quarter? Are you looking at maybe being more aggressive on your NCIB? Or is there acquisition potential, you know, where you can get some additional assets that fit within your core areas?
Can you kinda walk me through how you see the cash being used? Or do you really wanna keep that much cash on the balance sheet going forward?
Yeah, no, great. Thanks, Josef. Great question. Yeah, I think when we look at the capital allocation, if you look at Q3, it was somewhat balanced. We had some development capital, some exploration capital, as well as the share repurchases and the bond repurchase as well. We would expect the share repurchase and bond repurchase to continue in Q4. You know, obviously always dependent on market conditions. You know, we always are looking at how we optimize our portfolio, and that could be buying assets, could be selling assets. It's really about creating the long-term value and always making sure that we have the best portfolio possible. But just on a static case, the focus would be continuing on appraising the exploration as well as the share repurchase and bond buybacks.
Okay. Just to clarify, you mentioned the NCIB was at 134 per share. Is that Canadian or US?
U.S.
That was us. Okay. Okay, good. That's it for me. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Matías Castagnino of BCP Securities. Your line is now open.
Yeah, hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh, okay. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to ask about Petro's remarks of allowing the exploration on existing contracts and not allow a new contract. I know that is not yet defined. Don't want to ask about your view on that. Just to question the first one, I understand if that happens, you will still have full access to your 2P reserves, right? 'Cause those are from existing contracts, and you're free to explore and develop them. The second question is that I have the sense that private players in Colombia were not granted a lot of new contracts in the recent past. So can you tell me how many of your existing contracts were granted in the past, let's say three-five years?
I think the short answer is President Petro has clearly said no new exploration contracts. Gran Tierra is in a very good position. We're focused in all three of the basins in Colombia. The Putumayo is the big one for us, but we also have lands and exploration in the Middle Magdalena and the Llanos Basin. We've also come through a couple of years here where we refocused our exploration efforts. We went through the regulatory process. We have an inventory of lands on lands that we currently have to drill over the next couple of years.
President Petro has not said anything about existing lands, and we've found that the regulators and the government are business as usual, cooperating in what we're doing. Having said that, we've also had some early success in Ecuador as well. It's the same basin as the Putumayo. We have some exciting things to do in Ecuador. The short answer to your question is we're continuing our focus on enhanced recovery in our big fields in Costayaco, Moqueta, Acordionero. We have lots of inventory to continue drilling over the next couple of years, just speaking for Gran Tierra.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Our next question comes on the line of Roman Rossi of Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I have a couple of questions. I will ask them sequentially, if I may. The first one is related to the new marketing agreement you have in place. Of course, you can have a positive or negative impact depending on the next month's price change. I just wanted to know if you are thinking about any type of hedging in order to mitigate the impact of these price changes.
Yeah. I think on that, no, we're not. I think we're hedging the current structure, but we are looking at how we put additional hedges in place just for general price protection, not so much the month variance. We're really on whether we price at M or M plus one over a longer period or long-term, as you mentioned, you'll end up getting the same price. You know, if you look at in October, we're gonna get the price. Assuming production volumes are flat, in October, we're gonna get the average Brent price of November, and in November, we're gonna get the average Brent price of December. It's really just that one-month variation, so we're not looking at hedging that.
We are looking at, and we're working in conjunction with putting together our capital program on price protection to make sure that, you know, we expect, you know, prices to continue to be volatile, but just make sure we have the downward protection, so we don't have to start and stop our capital program.
Perfect. Perfect. The second question is related to the exploration campaign. So far, quite positive results. Just wanted to check, what are you expecting for next year? The focus will be Putumayo and Ecuador. Maybe adding on the Ecuador, what's the pending commitment down there?
Yeah. Our total commitment in Ecuador is 14 wells. We're just in the process of converting one of those to a seismic program. Those 14 wells will include some appraising work. It's part of the process. We're quite comfortable with what we're doing in Ecuador and where we're going prospectivity-wise today. In terms of what we are planning for next year, we're planning for an additional 4 wells in Ecuador. That's our plan for the year. That could increase certainly with success that we're having.
We have several wells planned in the Putumayo as well as the Middle Magdalena Valley, and we'll disclose our firm plans in December, as I mentioned, after we've gone through our planning process with our board.
Thank you. Our next question comes from José- María Silva of BTG. Your line is now open.
Hello? Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah, crystal clear.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. The line cut here on my side for a little bit.
A couple of questions that I would like to ask, and I would like to go one by one. Since we were on Ecuador, we'll start there. When should we start to expect, let's say, first significant oil to start coming out of there? Do you have already all the infrastructure in place that once this starts yielding proper oil, you can export out of the country and start to deliver that oil? That's number one.
Yeah. On the production, you know, the test barrels that we already had from Bocachico, we already have those in a pipeline. So it's very quick for us to get our barrels to market. As you remember, you know, a lot of our barrels, actually all of our barrels in the Putumayo Basin, we're selling those into Ecuador right now. So we're very familiar with the trucking, the offloading, and just the regulatory processes in Ecuador. So that won't be a bottleneck at all. As far as, you know, production ramp up, you know, we're as we mentioned, we're just looking to isolate the upper T sands before moving up to the basal Tena which is the basal Tena is the N sand equivalent in the Putumayo.
We'll be testing that, and then we'll be testing Charapa Norte here in the month of November. Assuming we have positive test results, you know, things can ramp up fairly quickly. Gary mentioned we already have, you know, 4 wells in our plan for next year, and with success, that could increase as well. It really is gonna be the upcoming test results coupled with capital allocation for next year.
Okay. I know this is quite preliminary, but any level of production that we should expect for next year coming from Ecuador?
I think we're just gonna have to wait for the test results.
Okay. Perfect. Regarding the bond repurchases, you said you expect those to continue going into this quarter and next year. Do you have any limit in mind of how much they want to repurchase? Is there any limit at which you have to stop or else you would have, let's say, to tender the bonds and call them to all the holders?
Yeah. That's a good question. The limit is really just not tripping over the creeping tender rules. This is something that we work very closely with the people repurchasing the bonds. That is and there's not really a bright line test on what that entails, but we work very closely with legal counsel as well as the banks to assist them that not to trip that up. That really is the limiting factor. As far as the quantum, you know, to an extent there was no limitations on that.
You know, you know, we're trying to get the right balance of allocating, you know, the free cash flow to share buybacks, bond repurchases, as well as optimizing the NPV of our existing assets and, you know, putting money towards exploration as well, and especially based on the results that we've had thus far.
Okay. That's perfect. Regarding the production, can you guide us? You said already how much the quarter to date production has been on average. Do you have, and I'm sure you have on your budget, an exit production for 2022 that we should expect for the end of the year?
Yeah, the exit production is going to be in the 32,000-34,000 barrel a day range. We're just in the process of bringing on wells. That's our plan. We'll give you a sense of where we plan to take that in 2023 in mid-December.
Okay. Perfect. At the risk of cannibalizing the call, I will continue here a little bit. You on the beginning of the call, you said that you do not want to quantify yet the impact of the new tax structure. Like that's. I know that's a moving subject because like the taxes were originally to be a 10% tax surcharge, and then it changed to be a dynamic one. Can we have, let's say, an idea of the magnitude that this could be? It's like $10 million or $50 million? Like, just to have an idea how much of an impact this could have on free cash flow generation for next year in terms of the tax extra taxes that you will have to pay.
Can you give, let's say, some kind of range or are you still reluctant to share something like that?
Yeah. I think we would feel more comfortable giving a range once the legislation's been passed. As Gary mentioned, once we put our numbers out in December, you know, it'll either be finalized or we'll have much more clarity, and then we'll provide that at that point.
Okay, thank you. Our next question comes to the line of Garrett Fellows.
Can you turn up the volume?
Of J.H. Lane Partners.
I don't know.
Your line is now open.
Gary, you've got him.
Hi there. I'm just wondering if you guys could provide some more clarity around the use of the excess cash by the end of the year. I know you said for development exploration, bond and equity purchases, but you know, if you had $100 million of excess cash, you know, how much of that would go to development and exploration? How much to bonds and how much to share repurchases?
Yeah. I think it's, when we look at, we only have two months left in the year. When we look at really the excess cash, it's really wasn't really targeting excess cash by the end of the year. It really will be in conjunction with putting together our 2023 plan and budget. I think it's just allocating the capital at that point. We probably have more than our target at the end of the year, and then it'll dovetail into what our 2023 looks like.
I guess just in terms of, like, what you guys will come after more so than others will be, you know, 50/50 bonds and equity or how do you see that playing out?
Yeah, on the bonds and equity similar to what we had during the quarter. Q3 is fairly balanced between the bonds and the equity, and we'd expect that to be same in Q4 as well.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mario Mennefar of Barclays.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Your line is now open.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask a similar question, about the 25s and, if you're planning on doing any liability management. Thank you.
Yeah, you know, liability management is, I guess, always a function of market conditions. Right now we're carefully monitoring the market, but our base plan currently is just to continue to look at repurchasing the 2025s as well as the equity.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. We have an additional question from Josef Schachter of Schachter Energy Research. Your line is now open.
Thanks again for allowing me another question. Gary, this one's for you more on the political side. We're seeing, you know, first Colombia and Venezuela, this, you know, the leadership becoming more friendly, refinery issues there. United States seems to be opening up now, allowing Chevron to do work there and ENI and Repsol to move product into Europe because of the shortages. Do you see, you know, some of the basins you're working in moving into Venezuela?
Is something like, you know, if the door opens again, and the Colombian and Venezuelan government sign agreements, would you see that as an area for Gran Tierra to be working in, assuming the U.S. government removes any sanction or legal issues against, you know, people working in there, Americans, Canadians, whatever?
Yeah. I think the short answer is we always monitor what was going on in the regions that we operate. Venezuela is no different. The relationship between Colombia and Venezuela certainly will help from a humanitarian standpoint. There's quite a few refugees that are in Colombia and straining the system. I think overall that will be helpful if they can normalize relations between the two. In terms of business and business development for Gran Tierra, the short answer is we'll continue to monitor what's going on. The skill set that we have in Colombia, the team that we have in Colombia and Ecuador, we would fit right into Venezuela.
My view is that would be a very long-term transition if it happens at all.
Okay. Thanks for the extra color on that. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. Please continue.
Thank you, Kathy. I would like to once again thank everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you in the next quarter and update you on our ongoing progress. Thank you very much.
Yes, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect.