Good morning everyone and welcome to BKV Corporation's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. And at this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Michael Hall, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining BKV Corporation's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. With me today are Chris Kalnin, Chief Executive Officer, Eric Jacobsen, President of Upstream, and David Tameron, Chief Financial Officer. Before we provide our prepared remarks, I would like to remind all participants that our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Actual results could differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements. In addition, we may refer to non-GAAP measures. For a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties, including those associated with the closing of the Bedrock acquisition, which remains subject to customary closing conditions and integration of those assets into our existing portfolio, which could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, as well as the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, please see the company's public filings, including the Form 8-Ks filed today. We have also posted an updated investor presentation on our website. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Chris Kalnin.

Thank you, Michael, and thank you everyone for joining us to discuss our second quarter results. I would like to start this call by taking a moment to reflect on the recent flooding in the Texas Hill Country. Our hearts are with everyone in Kerr County, across the Hill Country, and around the world who are feeling the devastating effects of the flooding. We are holding you all in our thoughts and prayers. We're proud to be part of the Texas community, and we're actively responding and doing our part as well. We have made a $50,000 contribution to the Kerr County Relief Fund and are matching all donations made by BKV employees, two to one, for every dollar they give to agencies that are actively responding and assisting those impacted by the floods. Turning to our results. The second quarter was marked by significant macro and regulatory events that have overall strengthened the business environment for BKV across our natural gas, carbon capture, and power businesses. In particular, the macro backdrop for natural gas remains bullish. While this summer has been marked by typical seasonality for natural gas, the expected ramp in Gulf Coast natural gas demand is well underway, with new LNG facilities coming online and ramping into 2025 and throughout the full year of 2026. The ERCOT power market has continued to show long-term strength, as a recently released EIA study projects ERCOT to be the fastest growing electricity sales market in the US, with over 20% growth projected between 2024 and 2026. This load growth is being driven by residential, commercial, industrial, and importantly, AI and data center electricity demand. In the near term, we will be actively monitoring Texas power markets throughout the remainder of the summer and early fall, as these months are the…

Thanks, Chris. The second quarter was indeed exceptional for our operations as we continued to demonstrate the strength of our assets and our operational excellence. Our upstream business continued to outperform expectations for the second quarter while we maintained capital discipline. Our upstream teams have accelerated activity versus our budget, drilling and completing longer and more technically demanding wells in fewer days. Importantly, our production outperformance has been about more than just pulling activity forward. We have also meaningfully outperformed our sanction type curves across the 15 TILs this quarter and TILs from previous quarters as our continuous improvements in completion and subsurface optimizations have borne fruit. As a result, in the second quarter, our upstream segment continued its history of beating projections, delivering net production of 811 million cubic feet equivalent per day, exceeding the high end of our guidance range of 805 million cubic feet equivalent per day. Additionally, our teams have delivered all of this at lower than expected capital investment as we continuously find new ways to increase efficiencies and push our unit costs lower than planned. What's particularly impressive is that we've achieved these results while keeping development CapEx at $63 million, the low end of our guidance range. Our Barnett development costs continue to trend lower with an approximate 11% reduction in dollar per lateral foot well cost compared to our last continuous development activity, reducing from a $632 per lateral foot average in 2023-2024 to approximately $560 per lateral foot through 2025. To highlight a few details behind our $560 per lateral foot cost performance, our Upstream team achieved several notable company records this quarter, all while maintaining our top-notch safety track record. We drilled the longest well in company history, reaching a total measured depth of over 20,000 feet. Year to date,…

Thank you, Eric. Our Power business delivered strong results in the second quarter. And as Chris mentioned, we're making excellent progress in our discussions with several hyperscalers and data center operators. The Temple Complex, which sits at the center of major data center build outs at ERCOT, uniquely positions BKV to provide energy solutions for those looking to address their power needs today. During the second quarter, our Temple plants delivered a combined average capacity factor of 59% and total generation was over 1,900 gigawatt hours. Power prices averaged $4,634 per megawatt hour with average natural gas cost of $2.98 per MMBtu, resulting in an average spark spread of $25.15 BKV's implied proportionate share of power JV adjusted EBITDA was $18 million and gross Power JV adjusted EBITDA of $36 million was above the high end of our guided range for the second quarter in a row as favorable weather conditions and advantaged pricing drove outperformance late in the quarter. As we look to the remainder of 2025, we expect gross third quarter Power JV adjusted EBITDA of $55 million to $75 million and are maintaining our annual guidance of $130 million to $170 million This guidance range factors in normal seasonal downtime currently scheduled for the Temple plants in the '5 as well as our current hedge position. As a reminder, fourth quarter '24 included major maintenance downtime that impacted our results. Now shifting to BKV's corporate financial performance. Our strong results were led by our upstream business as those assets and our operating team continue to drive exceptional outcomes. Net income in the second quarter came in at $105 million or $1.23 per diluted share, which was $0.39 per share on an adjusted basis with combined adjusted EBITDAX attributable to BKV of $88 million Strong production combined with…

Thanks, David. BKV delivers on what we say we will do. And as you can see, we have continued this trend. In upstream, we outperformed on our natural gas production and capital efficiency expectations, driving us to raise full year production guidance within the originally guided capital expenditure range. We further expanded our position in the Barnett with our acquisition of Bedrock, bringing in an accretive asset to expand our Barnett portfolio. In carbon capture, we extended our leadership position with the East Texas project and the continued momentum with emitters and our joint venture partner, CIP. Additionally, we signed a seminal deal with Gunvor for the purchase, marketing, and sale of carbon sequestered gas, demonstrating premium pricing potential for the unique combination of our gas and carbon capture assets. In power, we remain active in PPA discussions with hyperscalers and data center operators looking for energy solutions in Texas as we have the unique combination of gas, power, and carbon capture in place today and available to be delivered to the market at a premium. We look forward to future announcements in this regard. Finally, I would like to take a moment to thank our incredible employees for their hard work and dedication. I would also like to thank our shareholders and Banpu for your continued belief in the BKV vision. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for a participant using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Scott Gruber with Citigroup. Please proceed.

Yes. Good morning and congrats on the deal.

Thanks, Scott.

Can you guys hear me? Oh, thanks. Great.

Yep. We can hear you.

Obviously, one of the key benefits of purchasing adjacent acreage is improving your ability to lengthen laterals and continue to drive better economics into play. I guess the question in the Barnett is with the producing wells in existence, how much running room do you have to increase laterals? So maybe just some color on kind of long laterals as a percentage of the program today and how that improves with the acquisition?

Good morning, Scott. This is Eric and thanks very much for the question. Yes, you're absolutely correct. The lengthening of laterals and the accretion of inventory is certainly one of many advantages of the Bedrock deal that we're very excited about. In addition to it fitting complementary with low decline base, with adding infrastructure scale and contiguous acreage to our portfolio, selling more low nitrogen gas to data centers and to Gulf Coast demand centers, for example. We're also excited about the inventory accretion, as you mentioned. I think we announced 50 kind of equivalent Tier one lateral adds plus another 20 Tier two, so a total of 70 up to 70 equivalent 10,000 foot lateral adds. Of that 50 Tier one, roughly close to half of those are extending existing laterals from our current acreage as you mentioned. And then on top of that, I'll reference the 80 refracs that have been additive as a result. So all told, kind of 70 equivalent 10,000 foot laterals, 80 refracs, it adds another couple of years of inventory and even better capital efficient inventory with the lengthening of laterals and the accretion of those high quality sticks from bedrock acreage.

I appreciate the color. And you guys have made a lot of progress on cost per foot. I think you guys brought in a high spec rig to help with that. And you mentioned a U shaped well as well. So just as you think about the cost per foot, maybe just some color on how much you think you can continue to drive that with longer laterals, U shaped wells, just some color on thoughts around cost per foot heading into '26.

Yes, sure. Thanks for that follow-up there, Scott. Yes, we're very pleased as you referenced to have reduced our cost per foot lateral by 11% compared to our previous kind of continuous 2023, 2024 programs in the first half of this year. I would say that Barnett was the first to receive shale technology and now two decades later we're able to implement the best of shale technology and we're seeing that. We're certainly not in the late innings of that. We have more room to run. The resulting cost improvements have been from definitely extending lateral lengths from optimal subsurface placement, from enhancing and improving frac designs, from setting records and learning lessons every day on lateral feet per day, on completion pumping hours, on records on rig mobs, etcetera. And those the nice thing about those Scott is those are structural changes and we expect those to remain as we continue to add additional structural changes from the lengthening of laterals as a result of bedrock for one as you mentioned, from advancing completion designs, we're trialing and evaluating new completion designs right now, more on that in quarters to come. And there's certainly our use of data and analytics trending towards AI. We have the largest data set of anybody in the Barnett and quite possibly one of the largest data sets of anybody in the shale basins in The U. S. And we are using that on the upstream PDP production side as well as our D and C platform to advance our structural cost reduction. So more to come there on a number of fronts. We did reference the seven wells we've drilled with 90 degree azimuthal bends including one U-turn well. I would say those high angle and U-turn wells represent about 5% of our inventory going forward. So we can certainly drill them and we've proven the competency and capability of drilling those. But our preference is to drill 10,000 foot and much longer straight laterals with slight jogs or bends and that's the 95% kind of platform of our inventory going forward.

Got it. Appreciate all the color. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

You bet. Thanks Scott.

Our next question is from Chris Baker with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

Yes, good morning. Just want to stick on the upstream. First question is for Eric. Just curious given the success you guys continue to see there. How does that kind of shake out in terms of maintenance CapEx at this point and maybe just how you see Bedrock fitting into the picture there?

Yes, sure. Great question and good morning to you, Chris. So I think to Bedrock piece first, as we mentioned before, it just it does fit hand in glove with our acreage position and our low decline kind of base portfolio. So at a roughly 7% base decline that Bedrock brings to us, it fits in perfectly with our cash flowing PDP wedge and perfectly, Chris, with a lower reinvestment rate and a lower maintenance CapEx rate. We've said with our current 800 million cubic feet a day or so re guide raised to 800, our maintenance CapEx is in the 170 to 180 range. That probably increases by around 20 million to 25 million with Bedrock because it's such low decline and because the asset is so nicely accretive to our acreage position with the extended laterals and continued efficiencies in the capital program. So all told fits in very nicely. It's a hand in glove sort of match for us and our maintenance CapEx is still extremely low with addition of Bedrock.

That's great. Thanks. And as a follow-up, maybe Chris, can you talk a little bit about to the extent you can, just the turbine spots you mentioned earlier, delivery window, scale the units, any additional color there would be great. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks. So on the turbines, as we mentioned, this gives us tremendous optionality as we talk with hyperscalers and data center companies. Idea there is that as you think about SB6 and other regulations in the market, think increasingly folks are going to be concerned if you're taking power off the grid and behind the meter type setups, you need to be able to displace that power with additional generation. So the thought there is that we would, you know, we can point with certainty to timeframes that we could do that and we would link those deals clearly with a PPA so that any incremental capacity we'd be building against would be, very low risk funded by these PPAs. So that's the thought there. We continue those discussions, stay tuned for future announcements, but we think it's incredibly positive and it puts us in a tremendous position with the hyperscalers and data center companies.

Great, thank you both.

Our next question is from Betty Jiang with Barclays. Please proceed.

Good morning. I want to first ask about the CIP partnership now that you're moving forward. What are the initial focus areas of the partnership? Any changes in the project sourcing process and any new development that you could highlight so far?

Yeah, I'll start with the partnership. Baer, feel free to chime in on some of the projects. But in terms of the partnership, it's tremendous. As we mentioned in the last earnings call, CIP is a global infrastructure investor. They've got really a global view on carbon capture. Think about things like the carbon offset markets, clearly very active in Europe and they have BKV is their exclusive platform invest in carbon capture here in The U. S. So it's incredibly synergistic in terms of their plans right now in the joint venture. We have two projects, as we mentioned, Barnett 0 and our Eagle Ford project. Clearly, projects mature to the right stage, we bring them into the joint venture. And then as we've mentioned, it's a 51%, 49% joint venture where BKB holds the majority and consolidates. And then there's some reversionary interest over certain return hurdles. So that's the structure that's continuing. You can see that from our financials that they're investing into the joint venture and that will ramp over time. They've committed up to $500 million and so we're excited to be able to deploy that alongside our capital. Eric, maybe give some color on sort of the sourcing and additional projects that we're thinking about there.

Sure. Yes, good morning, Betty. I'll just build on Chris' comments there with the projects. We are on track as mentioned for the Eagle Ford project that's in the JV along with Barnett 0 to start that up in 1Q of next year. We're progressing outside of the JV at the moment, the other announced projects, two gas plants in the Western Haynesville with Comstock, Bethel and Marquet, as well as the recently announced East Texas project we have with our major midstream partner. As those progress towards qualified status and eventually FID, those will be contemplated in the JV. And then further, as Chris alluded to, one of many benefits that CIP brings is relationships with emitters and other project contacts. So they brought a lot of projects to the table. Those are in the sort of advanced appraisal stage to pre FID and so more on those to come as they mature.

Great. Thank you for that. And then my follow-up is on the carbon sequester gas deal with Gunvor. I know the volume initially is still fairly small, but does that start with a test of concept around how you're thinking about gas premium related to or premium price related to these type type of transaction and how large do you see this partnership that could potentially expand over time?

Yes, good questions, Betty. I'm glad you picked up on that. In terms of the volume, the initial up to 10,000 MMBtus a day is really structured to be equivalent to a NASB contract. I think that's the most kind of fluid contract structure. I think we've done that from a market structuring perspective. We're really excited about the partnership with Gunvor. They're committed to the deal. They believe in the product. They're really excited about being able to market this. Clearly, we're establishing a market. So as you know, you're in a period of price discovery and you're also in a period of building the market. In terms of how much this relationship could scale, I think we've shared in the past that we've got over 100 Bcf a day of gas in The U. S, right, that's moving around. And so a portion of that is going to be this type of product. When you think about marine fuel where LNG is being used increasingly and the need to lower CI scores around LNG usage for marine fuels, this type of product is ideal for that. When you think about around the clock carbon neutral power that data centers want, again, this product sits there. And then when you think about industrial folks that need to export to Europe for CBAM and need their CI scores to come down, this product serves as an ideal product for that. And then finally, about ethanol producers as you think about them producing or any sort of hydrogen where you have to lower your score. So anytime you're focused on lowering your CI score and avoiding compliance costs, this product fits perfectly in mix. And that's why clearly Gunvor sees that and is excited about it. And we think the size of the market is pretty substantial, albeit it will be a subset of the broader gas markets here in The U. S.

Very interesting, Dee. Thank you.

Our next question is from John Nardini with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. On the power side, in the release, you mentioned working with counterparties to improve capacity factors and realize spark spreads. You mentioned this a bit in the prepared remarks, but wondering if you could just talk through what a potential deal might look like through the PPAs behind the meter solutions or other commercial agreements to help drive those improvements?

Yeah, good question, John. So in terms of the power business, right, as you saw, we've got tremendous headroom in the Temple Energy Complex. Today we have a capacity of 1,500 megawatts. We're using our capacity factors we shared is in that 55%. So clearly we've got some running room. Typically a baseload plant like that can run as high as 90% capacity factor. So we think there's pretty substantive headroom and a lot of that is through the evening hours and into the night where generally in the ERCOT market you're offbeat. When you think about sort of partnering or working with hyperscalers or data centers, you're going to be looking at more around the clock type usage, right? And so I think some of that you're going to contemplate as potentially a behind the meter structure where you can deliver power directly. I think we cite Temple as an ideal area to build an additional infrastructure. It's central to country, it's got great access to gas, water, power, and land. And so it puts it in a really ideal position. So you can imagine that as we are in these discussions that a portion of power is buying the meter, there's an ability to also tap into the grid because you need that reliability. And then you're setting up a contract structure which is flexible. So you typically, you will see contract structures out there, everything from more fixed price to sort of a tolling type arrangement. And we'll continue to analyze that in the market, what's the ideal setup. What's unique about BKV and our ability is we produce both gas and power. And so our flexibility on the contract side is incredibly dynamic. We can go at all the whole spectrum from fixed price all the way to tolling arrangements. And so we think it's incredibly competitive. We're obviously going to be excited to continue those discussions and look forward to future announcements in those regard.

Okay, that's great. I appreciate those comments. Sticking to the power side, you posted relatively strong results for this segment this quarter. Just considering we're mostly past the peak of our pricing period this summer, how do you see those the Temple plants performing for the remainder of the year, specifically relative to the same period in prior years?

Yes, good morning, John. It's Dave Tameron. Yes, if you look at what the third quarter has done to date, it has been a little light off to a slow start, but there's still remember, we still got half of the summer left as far as August and September. And this morning, right, we put out the 130 to 170 number, we're very confident in that number. We wouldn't have put out that number if we weren't confident in that. And if we think about what that implies for 4Q, one thing I think that everybody needs to be aware of is '4 had major maintenance that was planned. So if you look at 4Q 2025 versus 4Q 2024, keep that in mind for 4Q 2025, you can see implied by our guidance at the midpoint, we're at about $20 million That's just what the math is, and we're very confident in those numbers. So we're still near term, a little bit of weather, we're fighting right now, but still time left in the summer. And then longer term, keep in mind, right, longer term, the supply dynamics, the demand dynamics at ERCOT are still very, very bullish for us. That's one of the reasons we made. And Chris outlined during the road show and over last year of what we're looking at. If you look at '26, '27, very strong very strong demand, so we're still very bullish on the dynamics if we think about the long term. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. That's perfect. That's all I had. I'll hand it back.

Our next question comes from Jacob Roberts with TPH and Company. Please proceed.

Good morning.

Hey, Jake. Hi, Jake.

One of the on on Bedrock, I was curious, Chris, if you could kind of relay how competitive these processes are at the moment. And then for Eric, you've done a good job laying out why the asset made sense for BKV in terms of offset acreage, the midstream component, the decline rates. I'm wondering as you look at other deals, which one of those factors is going to be the most important in your guys' minds pursue more acreage?

Yes. Thanks, Jake. I'll start and then I'll hand it over to Eric there. So on the question of the process, one thing that's important to note is, BKV is clearly the dominant producer of the Barnett. So when it comes to the folks kind of looking to exit or to monetize their positions, puts us in a great position when it comes to those discussions. Now with regards to Bedrock specifically, they were very interested in being a shareholder of BKV as well. And so that was truly a bilateral discussion where we kind of engaged with them and they saw the benefits and we're excited about being a shareholder in BKV alongside of being able to kind of benefit from the synergies that Eric mentioned. That's going to be one dimension. You're going to have other processes in the play where they're going to be more bids and kind of more auction type structures. But I would imagine that the deal flow is going to be a combination of bilateral and auction processes depending on who the seller is and their motivation. The nice thing as I mentioned is that we are the natural kind of owner of these assets and so we would be one of the first calls that I would guess anyone would make on that. So and as you grow in the basin it improves your economics even more, right? So there's a sort of a bit of a flywheel effect as you continue to consolidate the basin. So I think that puts us in a great position. Again, having stock as a currency, we've mentioned that on the road show is going to make us even more attractive as an acquirer and I think that's been proven here as we've shared. But Eric, if you want to talk about kind of opportunity set going forward.

Sure. Yeah. Morning, Jake, and thanks for that question. I think as you're aware and is included in our investor deck, there are a number of other opportunities in the Barnett, Chris alluded to this too, that are quite attractive. From multiple perspectives, the same as Bedrock, low decline basin, sweet spot with inventory, more gas, the Gulf Coast demand standards, accretion on nearer term inventory like with Bedrock, infrastructure and contiguous acreage, etcetera. All of those matter, but I'd say, Jake, to your question of what's most important is us structuring a deal that where we can achieve accretive economics overall with our playbook applied in all four of those different areas. So that's what's most important to us. We're able to achieve that with Bedrock and we see a lot of runway left with our playbook and our proven track record in the Barnett to do that.

Great, that's really helpful. As a follow-up, Eric, just making sure on the Bedrock stuff that you picked up, are the liquids cuts relative to new drills and refracs pretty similar to what you guys laid out on slide 13 for the legacy portion?

Yes, they're fairly similar in the kind of liquid content. I think we have a it's actually a little higher 63% gas and thirty six percent thirty seven percent liquids. So it's a little higher on the liquid percentage. And then the liquid constituents are a little richer on the Bedrock acreage. So a little higher value in the liquid constituency split.

Great. Appreciate the time guys.

You bet. Thank you. Hey, it's Dave Tameron. Just before we take the next question, I just want everybody to be aware, we do not have any forward guidance. In our forward guidance, we do not include anything for Bedrock. Once we close that transaction, we'll come back and update guidance and we'll do that for the close. But just as of today, the guidance in the release does not include Bedrock.

Our next question is from Jeff Jay with Daniel Energy Partners. Please proceed.

Hey, good morning guys. Looking at the productivity gains you've made and how your wells are producing above type curve now, I just wonder if and I'm sorry if I missed it earlier, but what are the key drivers of that outperformance? And I guess my follow-up to that would be, given that how competitive your new drills were with the refrac program even in last year, does this sort of outperformance kind of change how you think about the mix of refracs and new sticks going forward?

Great. You bet, Jeff. Thanks for the question and good morning to you as well. Yes, I think so there's nothing like as far as your question on outperformance, there's nothing like repetition and consistent quality crews and the application of lessons. And we have a rigorous lessons learned and applied culture. And the result of all those in combination has led us to lower cost per foot and the outperformance to type curve you referenced. I think there's several components if you dive a next step deeper. One is our understanding the basin on the subsurface side and our ability to optimize subsurface with not only lateral lengths, but spacing, well placement relative to offset production, well placement relative to uphold challenges. And then certainly there's some completion element to it. We've optimized and right sized and engineered our completions depending on where we are in the acreage And the sum total of all that has led to that 17% outperformance versus type curve that you referenced. And then if you add in the fact that we are really executing to a high degree, the outperformance relative to plan is even greater than that because of the acceleration of our TILs. I think we referenced 3342% with new drills and refracs respectively. So it's a combination of type curve outperformance in the areas I mentioned and accelerating due to execution and that's what's led us to be above plan. With respect to kind of the split of new drills and refracs, yes, but both are actually outperforming as we mentioned on the compared to plan and we're excited about the advancements in both those completion advancements I mentioned and the well placement subsurface optimization has translated into our refrac program as well. So I would expect going forward they're both highly competitive, highly accretive. They both have a nice sweet spot in our operation cadence. So I would expect us to continue to have sort of 80% of our CapEx invested in new drills and 20% in refrac. And just to remind you all, we have five twenty or so refracs excluding or sorry, new drills excluding bedrock and 2,100 refracs excluding bedrock. So we have a long runway to go in both and we'll keep that kind of split up going forward.

Thanks very much.

You bet.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Chris for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you. And just want to close by saying appreciate everyone's time listening to our call. We just want to underscore that BKV is on a journey with our closed loop strategy that we think is unique, commands a premium and really is differentiated. We're excited about the future. We look forward to future announcements and underscoring our said dead culture. I want to thank everyone for their time. Have a great day.

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.