Randall K. Eresman
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets
Thank you, Ryder, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. During the first quarter of 2012, Encana continued to generate strong cash flow despite further downward pressure on natural gas prices, which, toward the end of the quarter, was approaching the lowest levels in the last 10 years. We generated cash flow for the quarter of over $1 billion, supported by our strong commodity price hedging program. Responding to the low natural gas price environment, I indicated during our year-end conference call in February that Encana would immediately take action to restrict or shut in about 250 million cubic feet per day of production after royalties. Our teams have determined where and how to best achieve the target, and we currently have in place voluntary capacity reductions, volumes that have been shut in or otherwise curtailed, which should enable us to meet that target. The duration of Encana's capacity reductions is subject to a number of factors, including a recovery in natural gas prices, and that remains uncertain at this time. In addition to physical capacity reductions, our reduced capital investments in drying natural gas programs is expected to lower 2012 natural gas production by about 250 million cubic feet per day from our 2011 levels after royalties. The combined total natural gas volume reduction would remove about 600 million cubic feet per day off the market when royalty volumes are also taken into account, meeting our commitments as outlined in our guidance. While we're slowing the pace of development of our dry natural gas assets, we are accelerating production from our oil and liquid-rich assets. Liquid production volumes during the first quarter grew to an average about 29,000 barrels per day. The impact of increased liquids extraction from deep cut facility expansions in Western Canada, as well as expected organic liquids production growth from our portfolio of oil and liquid-rich plays leaves us well positioned to achieve our guidance target of 28,000 barrels per day for the year. Today's news release provides details on some of the encouraging results we've seen from plays such as the Tuscaloosa marine shale, the Eaglebine, the Michigan, Collingwood, Utica and the Duvernay shale. Our plan is to drill approximately 40 to 45 assessment wells in the first half of the year across our portfolio of emerging oil and liquid-rich plays. Currently, we're about halfway through that drilling program, and we plan to have more comprehensive well results from each of these plays to share with you at our Investor Day in June. But I'll say that we are very encouraged by the results we've seen so far. Our teams have effectively applied the technical knowledge and operating efficiencies used in developing our historical natural gas assets in these highly prospective oil and liquids-rich plays. For example, transferring the knowledge we gained in the -- developing the Haynesville Shale, we recently drilled our fourth well in the Tuscaloosa marine shale to a total horizontal length of almost 9,000 feet. It took 3 years before we were able to accomplish that horizontal length in the Haynesville. We're well on our way to achieving our goal of continuing to drill longer horizontal wells while optimizing our supply chain activities and reducing our cost structures. In addition to the encouraging results we saw during the quarter from our emerging liquids plays, we also achieved very strong results from our more established Western Canadian liquids-rich plays at Kakwa, Redrock and Pipestone. We expect production from these areas to continue making a significant contribution to our organic liquids growth over the next several years. We're also very pleased with the progress we've made so far this year in advancing several joint ventures and partnership opportunities. Most notably in February, we announced the closing of our Cutbank Ridge Partnership agreement with Mitsubishi. Our relationship with Mitsubishi is progressing very well, and to date, we have drilled a total of 11 wells on the Cutbank Ridge Partnership lands. Mitsubishi's investment facilitates the development of Cutbank Ridge, a well-delineated asset where we have several decades of drilling inventory and accelerated recognition of the value inherent in this tremendous, well-defined resource opportunity. We think this transaction provides an excellent analog for what we expect to be able to achieve in several of our other established resource plays, which may also be linked to LNG supplies. We're currently exploring the potential for an additional transaction with respect to the sale of an approximately 10% interest in the Cutbank Ridge Partnership. A formal process is underway, and I expect to provide an update on this progress later in the year. Our partnership with Mitsubishi represents one example of how third-party capital can be effectively deployed to create value for our shareholders. The general 3 reasons behind our motivation to engage in joint ventures. First, to accelerate the value recognition of assets, which we have clearly defined, proven low-cost inventory -- sorry, where we have a clearly defined proven low-cost inventory as we did with Mitsubishi. Second, to help de-risk our early stage capital exposure in new unproven plays; and third, to maintain capital and operating efficiencies on our more mature assets. The 2 recent examples of this third scenario. We recently entered into a joint earning agreement with Exaro Energy, which provides funding of up to $380 million to continue developing -- drilling in the play. This transaction, in addition to the joint venture we announced last year with Northwest Natural Gas, produces Encana's capital requirements in the play while maintaining an efficient development drilling program. Having a dedicated 4-rig drilling program at Jonah will provide enough steady work for one completions crew without sacrificing the economics of scale we have achieved through our resource play hub development model. Similarly, the agreement we announced last week, which will see Toyota invest approximately $600 million in a portion of our coal bed methane resource play to earn a 32.5% gross overriding royalty, will help maintain capital and operating efficiencies on one of the lowest cost, lowest risk assets in our portfolio. In addition, it will also help to preserve our supply chain management initiatives and retain our intellectual capital. These agreements serve as a model for other investment opportunities available across our portfolio of assets. Delineating the potential of our emerging oil and liquids-rich lands is amongst our top priorities for 2012. In an effort to accelerate the development of certain early life oil and liquid-rich plays, we announced during the quarter that we are seeking joint venture opportunities on a group of emerging oil and liquid-rich plays located in the United States, which comprise approximately 1.2 million net acres, as well as joint venture opportunity in the Alberta Duvernay shale, which covers approximately 370,000 net acres. We believe that engaging in joint venture opportunities on these early life assets will be very effective in helping to reduce our capital exposure and accelerating the evaluation and potential commercialization of these assets, ultimately increasing our pace of liquids growth and de-risking the portfolio plays. While it's premature to speculate on the size or value of any of potential transaction, it is our intention in marketing an interest in these assets that Encana would continue to be the operator and retain majority ownership. We're targeting to complete a joint venture on these assets by year end. Diversifying our production profile by increasing the weighting of oil and natural gas liquids is driven by the very large differences between oil and gas prices and by our desire to invest in our highest return projects. While many of our assets in our dry gas portfolio are still economic at sub-$3 NYMEX prices, the results -- the returns of those projects may not be as attractive as those in our oil and liquids-rich opportunities, the cost structures of which are still being evaluated. Additionally, having a predominantly gas-weighted portfolio has exposed our cash flow generation to more risk than we would like. As such, achieving a more diversified commodity mix addresses some of the impact of currently depressed natural gas prices while increasing the resiliency of the company over the long term. Furthermore, when natural gas prices do improve, it is not our intention to flood the market with gas in response to a modest increase in price. We will need to see sustained prices in a range that provides competitive returns with our oil and liquids investments and which are more reflective of the marginal cost to supply, which we believe is in the range of $4 to $6 per 1,000 cubic feet. Once natural gas prices return to a more sustainable level, we believe that Encana's shareholders will benefit more from the impact of higher natural gas prices on our base level of production than from increasing natural gas production at an aggressive pace. We see significant opportunities for oil and natural gas liquids developments in our current portfolio of assets. Going forward, we believe Encana will essentially have 3 distinct and meaningful businesses focused on natural gas, NGLs and oil. While the market drivers for each commodity are very different, the technology and operational efficiencies required to develop each type of assets are the same. We have tremendous breadth and depth in all of these 3 businesses, and we are eager to showcase Encana's expertise and resource play development across our portfolio of promising new oil and liquids-rich plays. As we look ahead to 2013, management is committed to maintaining Encana's balance sheet strength and financial flexibility. We have fortified our balance sheet, building a cash position of approximately $2.4 billion as of the end of the first quarter. We're currently targeting to have approximately $3 billion in cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet by the end of the year. This target will continually be addressed through the year and is dependent on a number of factors, including commodity prices, the success of our 2012 oil and natural gas liquids program and the completion of additional joint ventures or asset divestitures. This cash reserve will help ensure that Encana's balance sheet is well positioned to weather the low natural gas price environment, should it persist through 2013. So looking at natural gas prices. We're cautiously optimistic that we could see the beginning of recovery towards the end of this year or into 2013. This view is based on a combination of factors. On the demand side, we've seen an increase in coal-to-gas switching. Over the last 5 to 6 months, the equivalent of 7 billion cubic feet per day of coal-fired generation has been displaced by natural gas. This current displacement could become permanent natural gas demand as 50 to 60 gigawatts of coal-fired generation are expected to be retired by 2025. This will be the equivalent of about 6 billion to 8 billion cubic feet per day. Additionally, this spring, we're seeing a decreased snowpack in the Western United States, which could lead to less available hydro-electrical power generation. We think this could result in additional natural gas demand of up to 1 billion cubic feet per day for the remainder of the year. On the supply side and in addition to the capacity reduction initiatives that Encana has undertaken, we're estimating that the industry-wide shut-ins in North America are currently in the range of about 0.8 billion to 1 billion cubic feet per day. While shutting in production helps to address the near-term storage overhang, a sustained price correction will be dependent on producers investing significantly less capital in dry gas assets. Since the beginning of the year, most of the major North American natural gas producers have announced significant funding cuts to the dry gas programs. Based on our expectations that the dry gas directed rig count will continue to fall over the next several months. We expect to see a decline of production in the later half 2012 and 2013. The uncertainty around the near-term supply-demand balance rests with the level of associated natural gas production from liquid-rich plays and the effect those volumes will have on offsetting declining dry gas production. We're working to improve our internal understanding of this and the impact it will have on North American natural gas supply levels. We’ll likely be in a position to provide more details at our Investor Day. In the long term, we believe that North American natural gas prices will be supported by exporting LNG to world markets. The LNG market is evolving rapidly as several proposed North American expert facilities continue to advance in regulatory approvals -- advance through their regulatory approvals. In addition to our direct involvement as a 30% owner of the proposed Kitimat LNG export terminal, we also believe that many of our assets are ideally suited to provide feedstock for other proposed LNG terminals in Western Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast. So despite the historically low natural gas prices we're currently enduring, I'd like to reinforce that we at Encana continue to believe that the long-term future for natural gas remains very promising. However, during the current period of extended low natural gas prices, we have taken steps to retain our financial flexibility, slow our pace of dry natural gas development and restrict production from some of our dry gas wells. At the same time, we continue to allocate more capital oil and liquids-rich opportunities and attract third-party capital to unlock the value for our enormous reserves and resource base. Until we see signs of a sustainable recovery in natural gas prices, we'll continue to focus our efforts on creating value from our very promising suite of oil and liquids-rich assets by applying the same technical knowledge and operating expertise that has earned Encana's reputation as an industry leader in the development of natural gas resource plays. We're very optimistic about the prospectivity of these early life liquids plays, and I look forward to updating you on the progress of our drilling programs as the year unfolds. Thank you very much for joining us today. Our team is now standing by to take your questions.