Earnings Labs

Battalion Oil Corporation (BATL)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 6, 2015

$3.73

+0.73%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. And welcome to Halcón Resources Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. And now I would like to turn the call to the Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Mark Mize. Please begin. Mark J. Mize - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Okay. Good morning. Thank you. This conference call contains forward-looking statements. For a detailed description of our disclaimer, you can see our earnings release that we issued yesterday and we posted on our website. Production for the third quarter was in line with our guidance and averaged about 40,739 barrels of oil equivalent per day. We published production guidance for the fourth quarter in our earnings release yesterday, which indicates we expect to be in line with our full year 2015 guidance range despite the previously disclosed negative impacts associated with non-operated production in the Williston Basin that was either shut in or deferred. On the cost side, LOE plus workover expense was just over $7 per BOE in the third quarter, which was below our guidance range for the year and represents about a 6% improvement compared to the second quarter of this year. After adjusting for selected items, cash G&A was $4.58 per BOE in the third quarter, which was toward the low end of our guidance range for the year and slightly lower than the second quarter. Taxes other than income came in at $3.23 per BOE for the quarter, which was also below our guidance range for the year. And gathering, transportation and other, after adjusting for some selected items, was just over $2 per BOE, which is in line with guidance. An overall…

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Neal Dingmann from SunTrust. Your line is now open.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, guys. Say, well, just a couple of details, first just in the Bakken, you mentioned currently about well cost now even down as low as $6.8 million. I mean, is that something you think can trend forward or is that $7.2 million more a likely rate for early in the year? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: If things stay as they are, the definite trend is beneath $7 million.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Got it. All right. And then just my follow up, over in the El Halcón, you mentioned about two new records – pretty amazing – the three-string in 9.7 days as well as the record on the five stages per single well. Again, is that, either one of those – do you consider those potential repeatable or are those sort of one-offs for now? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I don't know about the less than 10 days, but the 14 days is a very achievable number, and as you know, that brings additional issues in terms of spend because you drill more wells with the same rig days in a year. So it puts pressure on your budget unless you start delaying things. But really, I pointed this out that the really interesting part about all that's been going on is that for Halcón about a third of our cost reductions have been in design changes and efficiency gains, rather than just negotiating with suppliers. And those cost reduction ideas will continue even in a higher price environment.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

So, your thought of – great point, Floyd. If things do run ahead like that, when you look at the budget, would you let rigs go occasionally? I mean, how do you think about it? I mean, obviously, the benefit of it that is, as you said, you'd be spending more money, how do you think about that for the plan next year? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we don't intend to spend more. And as I said, we're projecting about $325 million for this year; we may beat that. It'll be at least 25% less next year with the same rigs with a fairly flat production profile. If the conditions persist as they are or deteriorate, we'll certainly, as I said, we'll will be flexible to slow down the spend and contain that. And if things improve – and this is probably an important thing to understand about us – if things improve, we're not going to increase our spend. We're going to give it enough time to make sure it's a real new direction, as opposed to just a temporary move driven by speculation and whatnot.

Neal D. Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, Floyd. Appreciate the comments.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Don Crist from Johnson Rice. You're line is now open. Ronald E. Mills - Johnson Rice & Co. LLC: Hey, guys, it's Ron Mills. Question just - Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: No, no, speak to Don Crist. Ronald E. Mills - Johnson Rice & Co. LLC: Okay. Well, then, Don, can ask. Hey, but can you just give us an update on acquisition market, kind of I appetite on your side? I know you in the last call talked about continuing to look at opportunities and that in addition to what you've done on the debt side, there's also ways where there are some opportunities can be de-leveraging. Just curious what that market looks like, bid-ask spread and whether or not you think that frees up a little bit. I think people were expecting with this redetermination period that maybe does that slip into the early part of 2016 depending on how the redetermination period looks then? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, our entire history, Ron, has been full of continuing to look for ways to improve and add to the quality of whatever properties that we've owned. It's no different now. We're highly selective. We're very covetous of our liquidity, so we're very conservative in how we might use it but we're, as always, willing to use it. Again, though, we're highly selective. In terms of what slips into next year in the spring, Mark could make some comments about that, but we've had extensive conversations about what might happen with us in the spring. I can't speak for the industry. And we have a very strong asset base and a good – great group of banks. So, we're not…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Sean Sneeden from Oppenheimer. Your line is now open. Sean M. Sneeden - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (Broker): Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. Mark, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you're looking at further ways to deleverage the balance sheet. I guess with the third-lien exchange being done, is there an ability for you guys to do more unsecured for third-lien or are you looking at other mechanisms like unsecured for converts or maybe talk about how you're thinking about that process? Mark J. Mize - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: There is not additional third-lien capacity, so I can just address that one straight up. Obviously, any other plans or discussions that we're having internally that aren't public, we're not talking about, but we do feel like we have some options available to us and we're giving them consideration internally right now. Sean M. Sneeden - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. And would you describe those options as more kind of capital market based or is there is something we should be thinking about in terms of like an asset sale or anything on those lines? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: No. Mark J. Mize - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: There you go. Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: We have several levers we can pull. We're evaluating all of them constantly. We're in good shape at this moment. We're not in good shape forever, but we're in good shape at this moment. So we understand what's going on the market, and we're evaluating lots of different ideas and when one comes to the forefront, you'll hear about it after we did it.…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Dan Guffey from Stifel. Your line is now open. Dan Guffey, your line is now open. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Sorry about that. Hi guys, wondering if you can, I guess, give any guidance in terms of how many wells in El Halcón have been drilled with the upsized frac and then kind of talk about, if you have any data, if that supports an increase to your type curve? Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Charles should talk about how many wells. It's early days in this – we tend to not make any changes in type curves until we have plenty of hard evidence in our hands. We can tell you that we will for sure outperform our existing published type curves. Charles, anything to add to that? Charles E. Cusack - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. We have three that are flowing. They're in early stages right now flowing back and then two more we're currently completing. And then three more we're currently drilling that'll all be with the same design. So, we'll have a lot of data here in a few months. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. Great. And then you mentioned $6.8 million well cost on a three-string, is everything you're drilling now three-string up in Brazos? Is that where you're focusing? Charles E. Cusack - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes - Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Go ahead and answer but on Brazos – but go ahead. Charles E. Cusack - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: It's mostly – it's in Burleson and it's all three-string. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus &…

Operator

Operator

And this concludes the Q&A session. I will turn the call back to our Chairman and CEO, Floyd Wilson, for final remarks. Floyd C. Wilson - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, that's it everybody. Thanks for calling in. Feel free to contact us if we didn't cover something that you wanted to have covered. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program and you may all disconnect. Have a wonderful day everyone.