Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. (SOGSY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Saturn's second quarter 2026 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After management's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator for pressing star than zero. I will now turn the meeting over to Ms. Cindy Gray, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Cindy.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us to hear management's remarks about our Q2 2026 results, along with commentary on our increased 2026 guidance. Please note that our Q2 financial statements, MD&A, and press release are all filed on CDAR Plus and available on our website. Some of the statements on today's call may contain forward-looking information, references to non-IFRS and other financial measures, and as such, listeners are encouraged to review the disclaimers outlined in our most recent MD&A. Listeners are also cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, since a number of factors could cause the actual future results to differ materially from the targets and expectations expressed. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, unless expressly required by applicable securities law. For further information on our risk factors, please view the company's AIF, filed on CDAR Plus, and on our website. And I would also note all amounts discussed today are Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. On today's call, we'll hear from John Jeffery, Saturn's CEO, Justin Kaufman, our Chief Development Officer, and Scott Sanborn, our CFO, followed by a Q&A. I'll now hand the call over to John.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Q2 was a standout period that truly showcased Saturn's abilities. With production of over 41,000 BOE a day, we again exceeded guidance and market expectations for the eighth consecutive quarter. Saturn generated cash flow of over $123 million, with more than $82 million of free funds flow. We achieved this while accelerating capital, making accretive acquisitions, repaying debt, and returning capital to shareholders. Despite spring break-up conditions and weather-related downs, one of Saturn's greatest competitive advantages is the flexibility of our asset base and the agility of our capital. Oil prices strengthening throughout the second quarter, we elected to accelerate capital from the second half of 2026 into Q2. And thanks to the strength of our development team, we were able to mobilize rigs about five weeks earlier than originally planned. This brought forward activity into a stronger oil price environment to further optimize our economics. In addition to our development drilling program in Q2, we pursued value creation through opportunities through tuck-in acquisitions. This continued into July with the acquisitions of Burgess Creek and Triland Energy. Both acquisitions are highly complementary to our existing southeast Saskatchewan operations. They add material drilling inventory, increase infrastructure utilization, and further strengthen Saturn's scale in one of our highest return areas. The transactions were completed at less than two times cash flow and sub-PDP, exactly in line with our acquisition strategy and highlighting the value we can create through discipline consolidation. This exemplifies our blueprint strategy. acquiring assets that are contiguous to our existing operations with opportunities to optimize production, improve efficiencies, reduce operating costs, and deepen our long-term development inventory. Saturn plans to build on this success and will continue pursuing opportunities to further consolidate in all of our core areas. Also in July, Saturn priced a new dual-tronche U.S. Canadian dollar denominated senior unsecured note as well. and announced the planned redemption of our senior secured notes. This transaction represents an important evolution of our capital structure. Not only does this refinancing reduce our effective interest rate by over 200 basis points, it extends our maturity profile by 24 months out to 2031. We have significantly improved our financial flexibility by moving to an unsecured note structure with a more relaxed covenant framework and enhanced our control over capital allocation. Rather than a mandatory 10% amortization payment of each year, the new notes feature a semi-annual offer to repurchase at 2.5% of the principal. Concurrent with our Q2 results yesterday, we also issued increased guidance for 2026 and an updated outlook that reflects continued outperformance in the field, recent successful acquisitions, and enhanced financial flexibility due to that refinancing. Our updated 2026 guidance reflects meaningfully higher activity levels throughout the pandemic, resulting in stronger cash flow generation and greater organic growth over our original guidance. We anticipate net debt to perform an adjusted EBITDA at year-end 2026 to improve to approximately 1.4 times. This is even more compelling given that we expect leverage metrics to improve with the expanded capital program, accretive acquisitions, and accelerated growth. This outcome highlights both the quality of the assets we've acquired and the strength of our underlying business. Saturn continues to evolve, becoming a larger and more profitable company, poised to create significant long-term value. I want to congratulate our team for their efforts in delivering results for our shareholders and for the team's unwavering commitment to safety. Success is truly realized when all employees get at the end of every day. I'll hand it over to Justin to walk through our planned development program that underpins our increased 2026 cash flow and free cash flow.

And thanks again to everyone. Operationally, the quality of Saturn's assets and the consistency of our team's execution was clearly on display in Q2. As John mentioned, we exceeded the spring breakup earlier than anticipated to take advantage of strong commodity prices and kicked off drilling in late May. By June, we were able to deploy five rigs in Saskatchewan, which resulted in 17 gross wells being drilled and brought in production during the quarter. Although some weather impacts in June created temporary downtime and delayed portions of our capital program, our average Q2 volumes exceeded our guidance and analyst expectations once again, an achievement we are very proud of. Our open-hole multilateral drilling program was within our development portfolio. During the quarter, we drilled our first open-hole multilateral Torquay well above our 180-barrel a day tied our second Torquay open-hole multilateral well at 8.22 in July, which is currently cleaning up and is showing strong initial production signs. Sidon's continued success drilling open-hole multilaterals across four different formations in southeast Saskatchewan is improving our capital efficiencies while increasing confidence in both the quality and scalability of our drilling inventory. in this high oil price environment we see compelling returns across our as such we have expanded our 2026 capital program to include projects in west central and we have built on our existing southeast schedule continue to identify drilling targets where our teams deliver robust returns to potentially expand our inventory and optimize infrastructure utilization all while maintaining capital discipline as part of the updated guidance we are increasing saturn's 2026 Development Capital Program to approximately $365 million at midpoint. This revised budget remains focused on projects with short half-cycle paybacks, strong rates of return, and high liquids cutting. Approximately 85% of our capital budget is directed towards drilling, completion, and tying activity, which reflects the confidence in the underlying economics of our inventory capacity. In total this year, we expect to drill 156 gross wells, approximately 100 of which are in southeast Saskatchewan, 37 in west central Saskatchewan, and 19 in Alberta. We're also excited to continue applying our open-hole multilateral expertise to new plays. This includes drilling our first P2 Spearfish Sands open-hole multilateral well in southeast Saskatchewan to expand the pool boundaries, and drilling our first Lower Seanovan open-hole multilateral well. If successful, this Lower Seanovan test could potentially unlock a significant untapped resource play. As we move through the third and fourth quarters, Saturn's development activity is expected to ramp up significantly. With a combination of organic production growth and recent acquisitions, we anticipate exiting 2026 with production between 48,000 and 50,000 barrels a day. We need approximately 84% to higher value oil and liquids. This represents Saturn's strongest organic growth period on a per barrel basis in our history, which we are balancing with a disciplined approach to capital allocation. I'll now turn it over to Scott to discuss the Q2 results and our 2026 financial outlook in more detail.

Great. Thanks, Justin, and good morning, everyone. Saturday's Q2 financial results reflect another strong quarter, highlighted by record revenue of approximately $359 million, adjusted funds flow of $123 million, or $0.68 per share, and free funds flow, more than $82 million, or 46 cents per share. The combination of continued production outperformance and strong oil prices drove healthy margins, which we achieved while repaying debt, funding the Accelerated Capital Program, completing multiple acquisitions, and continuing to return capital to shareholders through our NCIB, or our share management program. On July 22nd, Saturn successfully concluded our NCIB, having repurchased over 12 million shares in open markets. from August of 2025 to July of this year. Since launching our Shared Buy Back program in 2024, we've returned nearly 66 million to shareholders and retired more than 24 million shares at an average price of $271, reducing our outstanding share count by roughly 12%. Later in August, we intend to renew the NSAB for another 12 months. While strong quarterly oil prices led to increased revenue and cash flow, we had an offsetting impact showing our realized hedging loss in the period. Our hedge program continues to perform its intended function of protecting downside risk and ensuring Saturn generates stable cash flows amidst the volatility across pricing cycles. We view hedging as insurance. It supports the long-term resilience of our business, ensures we can meet our obligations, and allows management to confidently make capital allocation decisions. As such, we continue to be opportunistic with our hedging program, maintaining downside protection while preserving meaningful exposure to prior oil. As John mentioned, we also priced a new issue of senior unsecured notes in July, comprised of a dual tranche issue of $575 million U.S. at 8.5% and $185 million CAD at 7.5%. There are numerous benefits to refinancing now, both from a financial and strategic perspective. Strategically, the new notes give Saturn much greater flexibility due to the unsecured nature, which the advantageous equity holder, relaxed covenants, extended tenure to 2031, and replaces the mandatory annual 10% amortization payment, an approximate 5% premium, with an annual 5% offer to purchase. At only a 1%. Essentially, we benefit from significantly lower blended interest rates, enhanced liquidity to continue executing. We believe these changes are key to Saturn's ongoing evolution and support the larger-scale business to become. Within the quarter, we increased our boring base on our credit facility to $500 million. As John indicated, Saturn has entered the second half of the year with a stronger asset-based, deeper inventory, private organic growth. For all the returns, we believe the company is exceptionally well-positioned. I'd like to thank everybody for your time this morning, and we'll hand the call back to the operator.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. We'll pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Amir Arif with ATB Cormar Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. A couple of quick questions more related to the guidance side. I know there was no exit production provided previously, but relative to where it would have been versus the 49 midpoint, can you just try to give us a sense of how much of that is acquisitions and how much of that is organic. I know the Burgess Creek was around $2,400, but just curious in terms of the third quarter acquisitions plus the tri-line acquisition, if you can just give a rough breakdown of how much of the growth is acquisitions versus organic by year end.

Hi. Good morning, Amir.

I'm going to pass over to Justin Cawthon, handle. Good morning, Amir.

Roughly about $5,000 of that would be from organic ads and about $4,000 at year end. from acquisitions and I appreciate that color and then finally start the second and just add to that I believe our midpoint of our exit was 38 to 39 or somewhere in that 30 to 39 range on the power guidance okay okay now that's helpful and then just I know it's a little early to think about 27 guidance but if you think of the higher production base of 49 and with a little more organic growth you might have a little higher decline rate but just I'm just curious, how much capital do you think you'll need as you head into 27 to sort of hold that level flat?

At that level, it'd be around 400.

Okay, still 400. Okay, sounds good. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Gill with Ventum Financial.

Your line is open. hey good morning guys um just one question for me uh about how much of the capital is going to be spent on the uh the lands prior the acquisitions that you've kind of done over q2 and q3 and then how much uh is going to be spent on the acquired lands uh hey adam it's justin here again uh we'll spend uh around 15 million dollars on the acquired lands uh the rest will be on siren legacy assets.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Payne with National Bank. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. I just want to kind of go back to the blueprint strategy where you've been very active on A&D, obviously acquiring a ton of assets here. But one of the pieces to that blueprint strategy is bringing synergies and efficiencies to the assets. Can you just talk about the magnitude of synergies and efficiencies that you see being relevant to these assets and how that might impact what was already a very low acquired multiple?

Yeah, that is a great part of our strategy, and that's why we like these assets so much because it fits so well with our other assets in the area. We can utilize our bigger infrastructure base, our operators, our labor pool that we already have down there, and more importantly, we can utilize our economies of scale. So we have mapped out on these acquisitions as we have a cost savings model that we're projected at about $2.50 to $3 a barrel between those two acquisitions. And that's basically the things we can see immediately. I think down the road, we'll be able to improve on that even more as we get our hands around these assets.

Your next question comes from the line of Parvin Mamedov with Econox Partners. Your line is open.

Hi, congrats on the release. Some of my questions were already answered, but one question that I have is, so for this year, when we talk about free cash flow guidance, you kind of get the benefit of acquisition production, of the acquired production, but not the cost. So I was wondering how much an acquisition cost you would acquire.

Yeah, on the total calendar year, 2026, total A&D cash costs will be in that $220 million range, so about $217 million.

And another question that I had is around hedging losses. What kind of hedging loss at ADWTI do you assume for the year? I would guess it should be around like $150 million.

Yeah, you're in the ballpark.

And then the policy is still roughly 50% of production hedged for 12 months.

Well, that's one of the great things about this new note is because we don't have the same covenant. So we don't have to have that quarterly 50% minimum. And this allows us to be a lot more flexible in our approach with this. So we are still targeting, now we're targeting a bit of a wider range, anywhere from 40% to 60%. And again, that's just internal. So if we like the pricing like we do right now, and we can see pricing kind of over that or north of that $80 range, that gets us a little more excited to hedge. However, as we were in this scenario there in the fourth quarter of last year, going into Christmastime, oil was in that low 60s. We were forced to layer on hedges at that time. So it's those type of hedges that we'd like to avoid, and now that we're able to with the flexibility of this new note. However, that gives us more room and flexibility to be a little more aggressive when times are high, like we've seen in the prior three months there. So, again, still targeting roughly the same, maybe a little bit lower, anywhere down to 40% or so on the low end. It could be as high as 50% to 60% on the high end. But because we don't have that stringent covenant, we can be a lot more flexible and choosy about when we layer them on.

Got it. That's helpful. From the hedges that are in place right now, It's roughly, I think, around 78, 79 WTI that you have hedged for the first half at the price that you would be willing to hedge.

On our existing average hedge price or the price that we'd be willing to hedge given strip pricing?

Well, from what I see, for the first half, you have roughly an average around that number, and I'm guessing that is the number that you're willing to hedge, or it has changed. I guess the bigger question is what is the price that you're willing to hedge for?

Yeah, I think for us, you're exactly right. You know, we came into the year guiding a $60 oil, so anytime we can get a chance to lock in prices, especially going into 2027 at around that $80 mark, kind of given the environment we're in, I think that's a really strong price, and I still think that's a really strong price. So, yeah, I think that's a great level for us, kind of $75 to $80 plus. Those are really good ranges. that results in just a ton of free cash flow and cash flow for the business. So if we can lock in those economics, we're happy to do that all day.

And last question for me. There's some small changes on operating side, WTI, royalties, I think.

I'll pass that to Scott. Yeah, what you're seeing generally is just the seasonality. So due to breakup, as volumes come down, the per BLE metrics will come up. As we expand our capital program and move forward, with that volume, that per barrel metric will go down. So generally speaking, your second quarter is always the high peak that we see throughout the year. In terms of royalties, that is true as well. What's adding to the slight increase there is just the increase in WTI prices. So as most royalty frameworks are on a sliding scale with production and price, as price goes up, so too does the royalty rate. But generally speaking, we're seeing royalty rates in line with our guidance that was previously issued. So, a little blip here for the spike in prices, but should come down as production increases.

Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Since there are no more questions, this concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.