Black Stone Minerals LP (BSM) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Blackstone Minerals 4th quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Moe, director of finance. Please go ahead.

您好，感謝您的支持。我叫 Regina，今天我將擔任您的會議主持人。現在，我歡迎大家參加黑石礦業 2024 年第四季和全年財報電話會議。 （操作員指令）。現在我想將會議交給財務總監馬克·莫 (Mark Moe)。請繼續。

Thank you. Good morning to everyone.

謝謝。大家早安。

Thank you for joining us either by phone or online for Blackstone Minerals 4th quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded and will be available on our website along with the earnings release which was issued last night.

感謝您透過電話或線上參加 Blackstone Minerals 2024 年第四季和全年財報電話會議。今天的電話會議正在錄音中，並將與昨晚發布的收益報告一起發佈在我們的網站上。

Before we start, I'd like to advise you that we will be making forward-looking statements during this call about our plans. Expectations and assumptions regarding our future performance. These statements involve risks that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements.

在我們開始之前，我想告訴大家，我們將在本次電話會議中就我們的計劃做出前瞻性的陳述。對我們未來表現的期望和假設。這些聲明涉及的風險可能導致我們的實際結果與我們的前瞻性聲明中表達或暗示的結果有重大差異。

For a discussion of these risks, you should refer to the cautionary information about forward-looking statements in our press release from yesterday and the risk factors section of our 202,410.

有關這些風險的討論，您應該參考我們昨天的新聞稿中有關前瞻性陳述的警示信息以及我們的 202,410 的風險因素部分。

We may refer to certain non-gap financial measures that we believe are useful in evaluating our performance, reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure, and other information about these non-gap metrics are described in our earnings press release from yesterday, which can be found on our website at www.blackstoneMinerals.com.

我們可能會參考某些我們認為有助於評估我們業績的非差距財務指標，將這些指標與最直接可比較的 GAAP 指標進行調節，有關這些非差距指標的其他信息在我們昨天的收益新聞稿中進行了描述，您可以在我們的網站 www.blackstoneMinerals.com 上找到。

Joining me on the call from the company are Tom Carter, Chairman, CEO, and President. Taylor DeWalsh, senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and treasurer, Carrie Clark, senior Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, Steve Putman, senior Vice President and general counsel, and Fowler Carter, senior Vice President, corporate Development. I'll now turn the call over to Tom.

與我一起參加電話會議的還有公司董事長、執行長兼總裁湯姆卡特 (Tom Carter)。資深副總裁、財務長兼財務長 Taylor DeWalsh、資深副總裁、商務長 Carrie Clark、資深副總裁兼總法律顧問 Steve Putman 以及企業發展資深副總裁 Fowler Carter。我現在將電話轉給湯姆。

Good morning to everyone on the call and thank you for joining us today to discuss our 4th quarter.

各位電話會議參與者早安，感謝你們今天加入我們討論我們的第四季。

And full year 24 results. Get, before getting into those details, I want to congratulate Tyler Carter on his recent promotion to SVP of corporate Development.

以及全年 24 項業績。在介紹這些細節之前，我想先祝賀泰勒卡特 (Tyler Carter) 最近晉升為企業發展高級副總裁。

Where he will continue to lead our acquisition program and work with all of the team on our ongoing long-term initiatives.

他將繼續領導我們的收購計劃，並與整個團隊合作進行我們正在進行的長期計劃。

2024 can be described in two halves. We started the year with additive oil production and revenue from our strong oil assets, but weak natural gas pricing hindered production in the second half of the year.

2024年可以分成兩個部分來描述。今年年初，我們憑藉強大的石油資產實現了石油產量和收入的增加，但天然氣價格疲軟阻礙了下半年的生產。

Despite the natural gas headwinds, our robust portfolio of both oil and gas assets enabled us to remain within our production guidance and hold our distributions at $0.375 cents the 4th quarter.

儘管面臨天然氣方面的不利因素，我們強大的石油和天然氣資產組合使我們能夠保持在生產指導範圍內，並將第四季度的分配保持在 0.375 美分。

We're encouraged by the stronger natural gas pricing fundamentals which coupled with our attractive oil assets put Blackstone in a solid position for 2025.

我們對更強勁的天然氣定價基本面感到鼓舞，再加上我們具有吸引力的石油資產，黑石集團將在 2025 年佔據穩固的地位。

In addition, we continue to focus on our targeted acquisition strategy which further builds on our long runway of high interest development opportunities.

此外，我們將繼續專注於有針對性的收購策略，進一步鞏固我們長期的高利息開發機會。

On the acquisition front, we added another $43 million in minerals and royalty acquisitions during the quarter, bringing our total acquisitions since September of 23 to around $130 million.

在收購方面，我們在本季又增加了 4,300 萬美元的礦產和特許權使用費收購，使我們自 9 月 23 日以來的總收購額達到約 1.3 億美元。

In 2025 we're confident that we will continue to identify and execute on creative opportunities which enhance our existing asset position.

到 2025 年，我們有信心繼續發現和執行創造性機會，以增強我們現有的資產地位。

Increase development opportunities and ultimately add long term value to the shareholders.

增加發展機會並最終為股東增加長期價值。

Overall, it was a solid quarter and a solid year despite a volatile pricing environment. We're pleased to hold our distribution flat during the year with excess coverage. Our clean balance sheet and ample liquidity position enable us to continue to execute on our commercial strategy, including targeted grassroots acquisitions and working with operators to achieve full field development across our assets.

總體而言，儘管價格環境波動，但本季和全年業績依然穩健。我們很高興在年內保持分銷平穩，並實現超額覆蓋。我們清晰的資產負債表和充足的流動性狀況使我們能夠繼續執行我們的商業策略，包括有針對性的基層收購以及與營運商合作實現我們資產的全面開發。

Constructive natural gas outlook buoyed by growth in LNG demand and robust oil production from multiple basins provides a solid outlook for 25 and long profitable runway for the company to ultimately drive strong long term shareholder returns.

受液化天然氣需求成長和多個盆地石油產量強勁推動，天然氣前景看好，為公司 25 年的長期獲利前景提供了堅實的基礎，最終將為股東帶來強勁的長期回報。

With that, I'll turn it over to Taylor to walk through the financial details of the quarter.

接下來，我將把時間交給泰勒來介紹本季的財務細節。

Thank you, Tom, and good morning everyone. As Tom pointed out, we had a solid quarter despite continued commodity price volatility.

謝謝你，湯姆，大家早安。正如湯姆所指出的，儘管大宗商品價格持續波動，但我們本季的業績依然穩健。

Mineral and royalty production was 34.8,000 BOE per day in the fourth quarter, and total production volumes were 36.1,000 BOE per day, both of which are down from last quarter. For 2024, mineral and royalty production was 36.6000 BOE per day, while total production volumes averaged 38.5,000 BOE per day.

第四季礦產及特許權使用費產量為每天34.8千桶油當量，總產量為每天36.1千桶油當量，均較上一季下降。到 2024 年，礦產和特許權使用費產量為每天 36.6000 桶油當量，而總產量平均為每天 38.5,000 桶油當量。

Net income was $46.3 million for the fourth quarter.

第四季淨收入為4630萬美元。

With adjusting to being 90.1 million.

調整後為9010萬。

59% of oil and gas revenue in the quarter came from oil and condensate production.

本季59%的石油和天然氣收入來自石油和凝析油生產。

For the full year 2024, net income was $271.3 million with adjusted EBITDA totalling $380.9 million. We maintained our distribution at $0.375 per unit for the quarter or $1.50 on an annualized basis.

2024 年全年淨收入為 2.713 億美元，調整後 EBITDA 總計 3.809 億美元。我們將本季的分配維持在每單位 0.375 美元，或按年率計算為 1.50 美元。

Distributable cash flow for the quarter was per unit for $81.9 million which represents 1.03 times coverage for the quarter.

本季每單位可分配現金流量為 8,190 萬美元，相當於本季覆蓋率的 1.03 倍。

In conjunction with the earnings release, we released our 2025 guidance yesterday. As we look forward to the full year 2025, we expect an increase in production from 2024 levels. In addition to activity across our broad acreage position.

結合收益發布，我們昨天發布了 2025 年指引。展望 2025 年全年，我們預計產量將比 2024 年的水準增加。除了我們廣闊土地範圍內的活動之外。

This production increase is driven by a unique high interest development activity we highlighted in our press release last night.

產量的增長是由我們昨晚在新聞稿中強調的一項獨特的高興趣開發活動所推動的。

In East Texas, we continue to work with multiple operators to promote development on our Shelby Trough acreage. Currently, Exco is operating one rig and Aethon is operating 3 rigs on the company's acreage.

在德克薩斯州東部，我們繼續與多家營運商合作，促進謝爾比槽地土地的開發。目前，Exco 在該公司的油田上營運一台鑽井平台，Aethon 營運三台鑽井平台。

Aethon has already turned to sales 11 gross wells in 2025, with another 17 expected for the remainder of the year.

Aethon 已在 2025 年銷售了 11 口總井，預計今年剩餘時間內還將銷售 17 口總井。

In addition, The accelerated development agreements in the Louisiana Haynesville are well underway, with first production on two highest wells during the 4th quarter of 2024 and another 11 gross wells expected to begin producing during 2025.

此外，路易斯安那州海恩斯維爾的加速開發協議正在順利進行中，兩口最高油井將於 2024 年第四季首次投產，另外 11 口油井預計將於 2025 年開始投產。

Under these agreements, the operators will provide near-term certainty and accelerated development on BSM's highest areas in exchange for a slightly reduced royalty burden.

根據這些協議，營運商將在 BSM 最高區域提供近期確定性和加速開發，以換取略微減少的特許權使用費負擔。

In our permanent position, we are tracking activity across our acreage, including a large development in Culberson County.

在我們的永久崗位上，我們正​​在追蹤我們土地上的活動，包括卡爾伯森縣的一個大型開發案。

This development includes 37 gross wells on Blackstone's acreage. Currently, 13 wells have been flood, and we expect 8 of the 37 wells to first production in 2025.

該開發案包括 Blackstone 土地上的 37 口油井。目前，已有 13 口井投入註水，我們預計 37 口井中的 8 口將於 2025 年首次投產。

These developments across different basins represent unique highest assets within our portfolio and further demonstrate our strong diverse asset base covering growth opportunities in both oil and gas places.

這些橫跨不同盆地的開發案代表了我們投資組合中獨特的最高資產，並進一步證明了我們強大的多元化資產基礎，涵蓋了石油和天然氣領域的成長機會。

We expect lease bonus, operating expense and production costs for 2025 to be in line with 2024. G and A is expected to increase slightly in 2025 as a result of hiring and promotions during the last year, as well as some additional hiring expected in 25.

我們預計 2025 年的租賃獎金、營運費用和生產成本將與 2024 年持平。由於去年的招聘和晉升，以及 25 年預計的一些額外招聘，預計 2025 年 G 和 A 將略有增加。

Again, we had a solid quarter and year despite volatility in natural gas prices. With a strong start to 2025, we are confident in our long-term strategy and our ability to generate long-term value for our shareholders.

儘管天然氣價格波動，但我們本季和全年仍表現穩健。隨著 2025 年的強勁開局，我們對我們的長期策略和為股東創造長期價值的能力充滿信心。

With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

現在，我想開始提問。

John Annis, Texas Capital.

約翰‧安尼斯，德州首府。

Hi, good morning guys, and thanks for taking my questions. For my first one, I wanted to focus in on the acquisitions you made in Q4, understanding you guys may prefer not to disclose specific locations at this time.

大家早安，謝謝你們回答我的問題。首先，我想重點談談你們在第四季的收購，我理解你們目前可能不願意透露具體地點。

Could you help frame whether recent acquisitions continue to be focused on the Gulf Coast region? And whether it's oil and gas, and then perhaps more broadly, would you characterize or how would you characterize the current EBITDA spread for mineral opportunities for both oil and gas?

您能否協助判斷最近的收購是否繼續集中在墨西哥灣沿岸地區？無論是石油還是天然氣，或者更廣泛地說，您會如何描述或如何描述石油和天然氣礦產機會的當前 EBITDA 差價？

Hi, this is Tom. I'll take a shot at that. Our acquisition program is Generally focused in the Gulf Coast region around expanding our relatively large Shelby trough footprint where we have had a from many prior acquisitions, a very solid footprint and in the natural gas environment, LNG growth opportunity.

你好，我是湯姆。我會嘗試一下。我們的收購計劃通常集中在墨西哥灣沿岸地區，旨在擴大我們相對較大的謝爾比槽地足跡，我們透過先前的多次收購在該地區建立了非常穩固的足跡，並在天然氣環境中獲得了液化天然氣增長機會。

Sets that we see in the future, we are conservatively growing this footprint.

對於我們在未來看到的場景，我們正在保守地擴大這一足跡。

In that area to take advantage of long term, add to our long-term inventory. I don't, and I don't remember the second half of the question if you could repeat that we are, we're not actively looking at acquisitions in other basins at this time.

在那個領域要充分利用長期優勢，增加我們的長期庫存。我不記得，而且我不記得問題的後半部分，如果您可以重複一下，我們目前並沒有積極考慮在其他盆地進行收購。

Got it. That makes sense.

知道了。這很有道理。

For my follow up shifting over to the accelerated drilling agreements entered into during 2024 in the Louisiana Haynesville, how should we think about the duration of these agreements?

對於我後續轉向 2024 年在路易斯安那州海恩斯維爾達成的加速鑽探協議，我們該如何考慮這些協議的期限？

Are they multiyear type agreements? And then with the constructive outlook for natural gas, especially to call on growth from the Haynesville, how does that backdrop impact your calculus of executing additional ADAs?

它們是多年期協議嗎？那麼，鑑於天然氣的建設性前景，特別是呼籲海恩斯維爾的成長，這種背景如何影響您執行額外 ADA 的計算？

I guess another way of asking it do you let activity naturally accelerate across your position while retaining a higher royalty, or does the certainty of activity that ADAs bring still remain attractive?

我想換一種問法，您是否讓活動自然地加速您的職位，同時保留更高的版稅，或者 ADA 帶來的活動確定性是否仍然具有吸引力？

Hi, this is Carrie. So on the ADA there's, they are not generally, these multi-year, like the contract that expiration we have with AIGON these are much more targeted opportunities that we've gone.

你好，我是 Carrie。因此，就 ADA 而言，它們通常不是多年的，就像我們與 AIGON 簽訂的到期合約一樣，這些是我們獲得的更有針對性的機會。

Out and identified both based on, how much opportunity is there for me first an interest perspective as far as, where we might have interest already concentrated in a smaller area and then of course the resource.

首先從興趣角度，我可以根據自身興趣確定有多少機會，我們的興趣可能集中在較小的領域，然後當然是資源。

And the location of it, so in the aggregate these accelerated agreements add up quite a bit, but they are typically.

以及它的位置，所以總的來說，這些加速協議加起來相當多，但它們通常是。

Much more limited than a contract like a joint a multi-year joint exploration agreement.

比聯合多年期勘探協議等合約的限制要大得多。

And then I think I answered question too in that response, but just to be clear, we do, we are intentional in seeking out those opportunities to try to.

然後我想我也在這個回答中回答了這個問題，但只是為了清楚起見，我們確實有意尋找這些機會去嘗試。

We call them accelerated. It's accelerated development, but it's really goes to the point of our whole strategy. One of the tenets of our strategy to try to maintain some more predictability on the production side and consistency on volume, since we can't do anything about commodity price and as a mineral owner since we're not the one out there drilling the wells.

我們稱之為加速。這是加速發展，但它確實觸及了我們整個策略的重點。我們的策略原則之一是試圖在生產方面保持更多的可預測性和產量的一致性，因為我們無法對商品價格做任何事情，而且作為礦產所有者，我們不是在那裡鑽井的人。

That's how this is one of the tools that we have to influence the activity without being in charge of actually drilling the wells.

這就是我們必須使用的工具之一，它可以影響活動，而無需實際負責鑽井。

one follow up, John, I just say is that while the agreements that we've entered into thus far are certainly targeted, as Carrie mentioned, we do still see other opportunities to potentially continue this type of a program into additional years, so there are additional opportunities that we continue to look at.

約翰，我想說的是，雖然我們迄今為止達成的協議肯定是有針對性的，但正如卡麗提到的那樣，我們仍然看到其他機會，有可能將這種類型的計劃延續到未來的幾年，所以我們會繼續關注其他機會。

Thanks guys.

謝謝大家。

Tim Rezvan, KeyBank Capital Markets

Tim Rezvan，KeyBank 資本市場

Good morning, folks, and thanks for taking my question. As a start, I just wanted to, Say that we appreciated the operational detail in the release. It was helpful sort of update.

大家早安，謝謝你們回答我的問題。首先，我只想說，我們很欣賞該版本中的操作細節。這是一種很有幫助的更新。

As we think about this increasing line of sight and activity in the Haynesville, do you think that the activity like now as in the first half of 2025 is reflecting this increase, or do you think this will be more of a back half in 2026 impact? Just trying to understand what the long cycle times because this increase seems to be setting up for a pretty good kind of multi-year period of growth.

當我們考慮海恩斯維爾日益增長的視線和活動時，您是否認為現在和 2025 年上半年的活動反映了這種增長，或者您認為這將更多地影響 2026 年下半年？只是想了解長週期時間，因為這種成長似乎為多年的良好成長期奠定了基礎。

Just curious if you can have any kind of context on when this would be reflected and should we get a little more constructive on 2026 from this news.

我只是好奇，您是否可以提供有關何時會反映這一點的任何背景信息，以及我們是否應該從這個消息中對 2026 年產生更有建設性的看法。

Tim, this is Tom. I'll take a shot at that and maybe give you a little more information than normal.

提姆，這是湯姆。我會嘗試一下，也許會給你比平常更多的資訊。

In our Haynesville area, especially in the Shelby Trough.

在我們的海恩斯維爾地區，尤其是謝爾比海槽。

We are hopeful for a very long cycle of Modest to better than modest annual growth in activity in and around our properties, specifically, the acquisition area that we're working on encompasses in excess of 450,000 acres in various counties in East Texas and there's Aon is the most active in that area, but they only control about 40% of the acreage in that area and we are Moving towards owning minerals and or leases.

我們希望我們的物業及其周邊地區的活動能夠長期保持適度甚至高於適度的年度增長，具體來說，我們正在進行的收購區域涵蓋德克薩斯州東部各個縣的 450,000 多英畝土地，怡安是該地區最活躍的，但他們僅控制著該地區約 40% 的土地面積，我們正在朝著擁有礦產和/或租約的方向發展。

In that area totalling almost half of the total acreage in the area and we see a, very long runway with very large amounts of additional activity out there for many years to come with and we are also trying to meaningfully expand our operator subset out there to have multiple operators operating in that area. Of course.

該地區的土地總面積幾乎佔該地區總面積的一半，我們看到了一條非常長的跑道，並且在未來許多年裡會有大量的額外活動，我們也在嘗試有意義地擴大我們的運營商子集，以便有多個運營商在該地區運營。當然。

All of this is considered, it's no surprise to anybody. It's considerably natural gas price sensitive and natural gas prices have been hard to predict forever.

考慮到所有這些，這對任何人來說都不足為奇。它對天然氣價格相當敏感，而且天然氣價格一直很難預測。

We feel like the current environment. It is as not completely predictable but certainly relatively predictable and so we're optimistic that there's a fair amount of growth to come out here from expanding the areas that are being developed and expanding the number of operators.

我們感覺就像當前的環境。雖然這並非完全可預測，但肯定是相對可預測的，因此我們樂觀地認為，透過擴大正在開發的區域和增加營運商的數量，這裡將實現相當大的成長。

Okay, that's helpful context. I appreciate that and then in your prepared comments, you mentioned $43 million of that $110 was spent in the fourth quarter on acquisitions.

好的，這是很有幫助的背景資訊。我對此表示感謝，然後在您準備好的評論中，您提到這 1.1 億美元中的 4300 萬美元是在第四季度用於收購的。

I understand you don't want to show your cards too much on the outlook, but can you provide some context on kind of what is still out there in terms of the opportunities set?

我明白您不想在前景上透露太多信息，但您能否提供一些背景信息，說明目前還存在哪些機會？

And then just trying to think like how comfortable you would be putting debt on the balance sheet. It looks like you could theoretically make another $300 million acquisitions and be less than 1 times leverage. So you know what's your kind of inclination to buy more and what's available, any comments on that would be helpful. Thank You.

然後試著想想，把債務放在資產負債表上你會覺得多舒服。看起來理論上你可以再進行 3 億美元的收購，而且槓桿率不到 1 倍。因此，您知道自己的購買傾向以及有哪些可用的東西，任何有關這方面的評論都會有所幫助。謝謝。

Well, There is significant additional identified inventory available to be purchased. There, there's this.

嗯，有大量額外已確定的庫存可供購買。那兒，那兒有這個。

There's as much left to go as it has been acquired previously, if not more, and we are taking a conservative but studied look at that.

剩下的部分與之前獲得的一樣多，甚至更多，我們正在對此採取保守但謹慎的看法。

We do not want to I doubt that you would see us becoming $300 Million or $400 million levered, but there are many different avenues that we could take to further Expand our position out there, but we're going at it conservatively, trying to watch and monitor what's going on in the natural gas market, and that's going to have as much to say about how long and fast we go after this as anything else.

我們不想，我懷疑你會看到我們負債 3 億美元或 4 億美元，但是我們可以採取許多不同的途徑來進一步擴大我們的地位，但我們會保守地進行，試圖觀察和監控天然氣市場的情況，這將對我們在此之後的行動時間和速度產生同樣大的影響。

Okay, thank you for the context.

好的，謝謝你提供的背景資訊。

And that will conclude our question and answer session. I'll hand the call back over to Tom Carter for any closing comments.

我們的問答環節到此結束。我會將電話轉回給湯姆卡特，讓他發表最後的評論。

Okay, well, thanks very much for your interest and questions today and joining the call and we look forward to chatting with you further in the future.

好的，非常感謝您今天的關注和提問以及加入電話會議，我們期待將來與您進一步交談。

This will conclude our call today.

今天的通話到此結束。

Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

感謝大家的加入。您現在可以斷開連線。