Earnings Labs

Greenfire Resources Ltd. (GFR)

Q1 2025 Earnings Call· Wed, May 7, 2025

$6.24

+0.08%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Greenfire Resources First Quarter Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Robert Loebach, Vice President of Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Robert.

Robert Loebach

Management

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Greenfire's conference call for our Q1 2025 results. Please note that today's call includes forward-looking statements and references non-GAAP and other financial measures. We encourage you to review the associated risks detailed in our latest MD&A. Unless specified otherwise, all monetary figures discussed today are in Canadian dollars. The capital expenditures and production figures presented today are based on our working interest, net to Greenfire, unless noted otherwise. Joining us on today's call are key members of Greenfire's leadership team, including Adam Waterous, Executive Chairman; Colin Germaniuk, President; Tony Kraljic, Chief Financial Officer; and Jonathan Kanderka, Chief Operating Officer. Upon the conclusion of our prepared remarks, I will open the floor to questions from participants. I will now hand over the call to Adam.

Adam Waterous

Management

Thank you, Robert, and welcome, everyone, to Greenfire's Q1 2025 Conference Call. Prior to opening up the call to questions, we just have a few brief comments on the business. Let's touch on the bad news first. Punch line is that the current production of Greenfire's expansion asset has been poor, is primarily attributable to 3 factors: first, Greenfire's 2023 and 2024 refill program has accelerated the base decline profile at the expansion asset; second, while 4 boilers at our expansion asset has been offline due to [ wear ] from sulfur production at the central processing facility, we believe the root cause of the excess sulfur production is due to operating reservoir at a high pressure and temperature during late life recovery; third, and related to the second challenge, Greenfire sulfur emissions are currently exceeding the Alberta Energy Regulators maximum limit. Upon learning of the exceedance, Greenfire immediately reported the breach to the AER and has been in active dialogue with the AER at ever since. Greenfire takes its regulatory obligations very seriously and has ordered sulfur removal facilities at the expansion asset within installation and commissioning target for Q4 2025. Given these challenges, it would be premature to provide 2025 capital or production guidance at this time. So that is a snapshot of the current challenges, which, of course, we are laser focused on addressing. Now let's turn to some brighter news, which is the high-quality work we have progressed on Greenfire's future development plan. I will now turn it over to Colin to touch on this.

Colin Germaniuk

Management

Thanks, Adam. Before I touch on our future development plans, I want to highlight that an integral part of Greenfire strategy since I joined has been a cultural overhaul, which is gaining momentum. At Greenfire, we are focused on attracting top-performing individuals with a constant focus on our IEI mantra that has integrity, energy and intelligence and in that order of importance. We have introduced initiatives to enhance safety first mindset and elevate performance across all levels of the organization. Following the recent organizational restructuring, we have added professionals of proven track records in SAGD to support Greenfire's development. Now I'd like to provide a small preview on our future development plans, which we're very excited about. We're going to be focusing on drilling new long-cycle well pairs undeveloped reservoir at the expansion asset. Our near-term priority is to drill wells just northeast of the Greenfire central processing facility. The region contains well-delineated reservoir directly offsetting existing production, and we plan to start drilling as soon as Q4 2025. As we look to the medium term, our next priority will be to develop reservoir that is just Southeast of the Greenfire CPF and contains the largest amount of undeveloped 2P reserves in the company. Our governing approach with this multiyear development plan is to ensure that capital decision is aligned with our goal of maximizing net asset value per share and deliver strong returns for Greenfire shareholders. We will provide the details of the new development plan once it's finalized. We'll now open it up for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jason Wangler from Imperial Capital.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Just -- I understand, obviously, what you're talking about as far as kind of going forward with the development program. Can you just talk about this year, kind of obviously, there's the production drop. Are we kind of at a level you think we're stabilizing? Or where do you think the production kind of goes until you start to ramp back up on the drilling side?

Colin Germaniuk

Management

Yes, it's a good question. Through the first quarter and into April, we've seen some declines. Our base production is a high recovery factor. We drilled some refills over the last couple of years. So we have pretty steep decline in Q1. We do expect those declines to shallow out a bit, but we do expect production to decline a little bit throughout the year, but we can't really provide any specific numbers or guidance until we finalize our plans.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Okay. And maybe just on the financial side. I mean -- I saw on the slide you guys kind of mentioned the bonds specifically mainly something that you think you guys are looking at, talking about, I guess, the entire capital structure. Can you talk about what you're thinking about how you optimize that part of the business as you kind of also are working on the production side as well?

Adam Waterous

Management

This is Adam Waterous. I'll take that. So we think that generally speaking, the business, the amount of bonds is not appropriate for the size of the business today. And so we look at those as being the transitory. We haven't made a decision on what we're going to do. But we don't think that those bonds are an appropriate part of the long-term capital structure of the business.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Loebach.

Robert Loebach

Management

Thank you, operator. On behalf of Greenfire, we appreciate you joining us on our Q1 2025 results conference call. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.