Earnings Labs

Vermilion Energy Inc. (VET)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 10, 2015

$13.12

+4.04%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Sherin, and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time, I’d like to welcome everyone to the Vermilion Energy, Inc. Second Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Mr. Lorenzo Donadeo, CEO, you may begin your conference.

Lorenzo Donadeo

Analyst

Thank you, Sherin. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for joining us today to discuss our second quarter 2015 financial and operating results. I’m Lorenzo Donadeo, CEO of Vermilion. On the call today are Tony Marino, President and Chief Operating Officer; Curtis Hicks, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Dean Morrison, our Director of Investor Relations. Before we get started, I’d refer you to the advisory regarding forward-looking statements contained in today’s news release. These advisories described are forward-looking information, non-GAAP measures and oil and gas terms referred to today and outlined the risk factors and assumptions relative to this discussion. Earlier this morning, we announced our financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2015. These results continue to illustrate the benefit of Vermillion’s diversified asset base. During the second quarter, we generated fund flows from operations of CAD129.5 million or CAD1.18 per basic share, an increase of 7% versus the prior quarter. Quarter-over-quarter increase was attributable to higher oil prices, increased production in France, Australia and Canada and higher sales volumes in Australia. Partially offsetting these items was the prior quarter’s favorable adjustment related to a court judgment in Vermillion’s favor. Production for the second quarter averaged 51,831 BOEs per day, an increase of 3% compared to 50,386 BOEs per day in the first quarter of 2015. This increase was driven by strong drilling and workover results in France as well as additional Canadian production volumes. The increase in Canadian production resulted from successful drilling activities in the prior quarter and incremental volumes associated with the commissioning of the natural gas processing facility in Saskatchewan in first quarter. A plant maintenance shutdown at our largest gas processing facility in The Netherlands as well as continued midstream and facility restrictions in Canada negatively impacted our volumes…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Gordon Tait, BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Gordon Tait

Analyst

Good morning, Lorenzo.

Lorenzo Donadeo

Analyst

Good morning.

Gordon Tait

Analyst

Just a couple of questions. Just the drilling of the Australian sidetrack wells, these have been deferred. Would these wells that you might have planned to drill next year and would it be in the next year’s budget and production numbers or are they ones that you would have just hadn’t had a commitment on at all?

Lorenzo Donadeo

Analyst

Yeah. Tony, do you want to…

Tony Marino

Analyst

Sure. Yeah. Good question, Gord. So in the early half of 2014, we made a rig commitment to drill a total of 4 sidetracks in Australia. We had originally planned to put two of those in ‘15 and two of them in ‘16. When the price drop hit, we decided that we could potentially defer the two of those sidetracks out of 2015. Since then, we’ve seen a number of advantages in going ahead and doing the ones, the two in 2015. First of all, we avoid the penalty on the rig commitment that we made. We avoid paying and not taking certain services that are ancillary to the drilling. There is certainly a much better services environment today as we get some significant savings as a result of that. And then finally, by going ahead and putting those back in to the budget for 2015, we get them - we will make certain that they won’t ever be drilled in cyclone season, which has a big expected cost and is something we’ve had to do in the past, given the relatively small size of our programs there, but we can avoid in this case. So for all those reasons, we put those wells back in to the ‘15 budget. We would plan I think, we don’t have a final capital budget of course for 2016 at this point, but we would plan I think to drill the final two sidetracks of that four sidetrack rig commitment that we made last year in the middle part of 2016. So two this year [ph] is certain and most likely the remaining two for that rig commitment in 2016.

Gordon Tait

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And then just a couple of questions on your European assets, just based on the recent IP rates you’re getting from these - from your wells in the Netherlands, would you look to increase your CapEx budget there or are you limited there by the pace of that regulatory process?

Tony Marino

Analyst

Again, I haven’t set the capital budget for 2016, that’s something that we’re working on now and will review with our board later in the fall. I think that versus the program that we executed this year, we have the potential to have a modestly bigger program in ‘16 and I think that’s a real possibility just depending on our overall capital budget.

Gordon Tait

Analyst

Okay. And then I presume that the recent exploration blocks you added in Croatia, I presume that’s an extension of the Hungarian land base you’re looking at and I was just wondering do you have any early assessments of what you’re seeing there, have you got some results you can share with us?

Tony Marino

Analyst

Well, we don’t have any results yet, but it is an extension of the same kinds of lands that we’ve put in place in Hungary, in the Pannonian basin. We think Croatia is quite prospective. There hasn’t been very much investment there over the past few decades. We think that we can bring some new things to bear with respect to technology and the types of projects and prospects that we’d pursue. It is in the Northeastern part of the country, contiguous, because some of the blocks are contiguous with the Hungarian border. So we think it’s very prospective and it all fits favorable fiscal environment, in fact, one of the very best in our entire portfolio. So we’re very optimistic, but no results, the award has been announced by the Croatian government and we’re in the process of working on concluding the definitive contract.

Gordon Tait

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions at this time. I turn the call over to the presenters.

Lorenzo Donadeo

Analyst

Okay. Well, thank you, everyone for attending our conference call this morning and thank you operator for the time today. Thank you very much.