Epsilon Energy Ltd (EPSN) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day and welcome to the Epsilon Energy second quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

(Operator Instructions) At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your President and CEO, Jason Stabell. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Before we begin our prepared remarks, we would like to address the press release correction issued yesterday. The correction was limited to the presentation of adjusted net income and adjusted EPS in the summary table. The reconciliation later in the release reflected the correct treatment. After identifying the inconsistency, we promptly updated the release. There was no impact to our reported GAAP results, cash flows or the underlying economics of the business.

I will now turn the call over to Andrew Williamson, our CFO.

Thank you, operator, and on behalf of the management team, I would like to welcome all of you to today's conference call to review Epsilon's second quarter 2026 financial and operational results. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our comments may include forward-looking statements. It should be noted that a variety of factors could cause Epsilon's actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. Today's call may also contain certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Please refer to the earnings release that we issued yesterday for disclosures on forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jason Stabell, our Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone.

Joining me today are Andrew Williamson, our CFO, and Henry Clanton, our COO. We will be available for questions following our prepared remarks.

Our message this quarter remains consistent with what we communicated in May. We are focused on execution and I am pleased to report that our major operational initiatives have progressed on schedule and on budget. We have started to execute our development plan as expected and anticipate meaningful quarter over quarter production growth through the remainder of 2026.

Primarily driven by crude volumes in the Powder River Basin. As a result of the progress we have made across the portfolio, for the first time, we are providing production guidance for the second-half of 2026. The anticipated increase in volumes reflects the commencement of production from several high return oil projects that have either recently been brought online or are expected to begin contributing over the coming months.

We refer you to a presentation posted to our website this morning for additional details on our guidance. In the Powder River Basin, execution on our acquired operated assets has been particularly strong. Our two Niobrara Duck completions were completed during the quarter and brought online in July. Early production results have exceeded our type curve expectations.

In addition, drilling operations on our three-well parking pad were completed approximately one month ahead of plan. These high working interest parking wells are now on track to begin production during the fourth quarter and represent the biggest contributor to our anticipated growth profile. In the Permian Basin, our first three-mile Barnett well was placed on flowback during June and is currently performing in line with our pre-drill type curve. The successful execution of this well marks another important milestone in the development of the project and provides further confidence in the operator's transition to longer lateral development. Looking ahead, the operator has informed us that two additional Barnett wells are expected to be drilled during the second-half of 2026, with completion scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. In addition, the Woodford appraisal well in which Epsilon Elect did not to participate has now been drilled and is scheduled for completion later this month.

A successful result could meaningfully expand the future drilling inventory associated with our acreage position and provide additional development opportunities beyond the Barnett formation. In Pennsylvania, production from our Marcellus assets was impacted during the quarter by planned temporary curtailments associated with operating pressure adjustments on our gathering system, which will make room on the system for newly drilled wells scheduled to turn in line late in the fourth quarter of this year. From an organizational standpoint, we have largely completed the transition period associated with the peak acquisition. The integration of personnel, systems and field operations has progressed well, and I want to thank our employees for their efforts throughout this process.

The successful integration of the acquired assets has allowed our team to remain focused on execution while continuing to identify opportunities to improve operational performance and efficiencies.

Overall, we are accomplishing what we set out to do at the start of the year. Our development program is advancing as planned. Our balance sheet remains strong and we expect to deliver meaningful quarter-over-quarter production growth through the remainder of 2026 as reflected in the guidance provided today. Andrew and Henry will provide additional detail on our major operational initiatives, production outlook and financial position.

Andrew, I will turn it over to you.

Thanks, Jason. On the recent results, the second quarter was a trough for us this year on production as new development in the Powder River Basin and Permian started to contribute late in the quarter.

As Jason mentioned, we anticipate growth from here as Q2 activity is reflected in Q3 and escalates through year-end and into 2027 with continued activity across the portfolio. The biggest impact this year will come in the fourth quarter. With our first Parkman volumes in the Powder River Basin. The midpoint of full year 2026 guidance shows high 10s year-over-year growth in total production and almost 200% year-over-year growth in oil volumes.

On the capital side, also as shown in our guidance figures. We plan to spend meaningfully more in the third quarter than we have in past quarters with the high interest apartment development already mentioned together with drilling activity in the Permian and facilities build out in one of our core areas in Converse County, Wyoming in preparation for a ramp in development activity there early next year. Well over half of our full year capital spending will not contribute to results until the fourth quarter. With over a third showing up in results starting next year, including the facilities built out I mentioned.

We made several moves during the second quarter in preparation for these investments, including the non-core Marcellus overriding royalty interest sale and an interest sell down in this quarter's apartment development, which still leaves us with over 70% interest in the project. The previously disclosed potential sale of our Durango office building did not close, but we expect to reevaluate a potential sale later this year.

Over the first half of the year, we paid down our debt balance by $10 million. We expect to utilize the revolver to partially fund the investment ramp starting this quarter. That said, we are very comfortable we can execute our plans while staying within our target leverage level of 1.5 times EBITDA. Looking ahead to next year, we are planning to continue to invest for growth with development activity in excess of 2026 expected across all three of our primary areas.

The biggest component will be the Powder River Basin with additional operated development targeting the Parkman. We are also in discussions with some of the larger operators in the basin to pull forward some of our shale inventory there and partnerships allowing us to develop cost efficiently. The Permian and Marcellus assets are expected to exhibit growth next year as well, subject to the final plans of our operating partners. Now to Henry.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning to everyone.

Today, I would like to begin by highlighting some recent operations on our Powder River Basin assets. The company successfully stimulated both of the two-mile Nibira laterals in Campbell County, Wyoming we acquired from Peak. The frack win is planned with all design sand placed in the 100 stages completed. The wells were flowed back under a managed pressure procedure to technically guide the choke management decisions. Both wells continue to flow up casing on a reduced choke and are performing above expectation with peak daily rates achieved in excess of 900 barrels in oil a day from each well. Different from the timing provided in the prior earnings call, we were able to accelerate the drilling of our three well Parkman program in July.

This being our first drilling operation in the basin, I am pleased to report that all three wells were successfully drilled to their planned depths. The completions are scheduled for later this quarter. As we have done with the Nibrera wells, all production facility work that could be built out. Prior to placing wells on production has been completed. Initial production is expected in the fourth quarter.

In Converse County, the 1 million barrel INOD water supply and impoundment facility has been finalized with the contractor bids under evaluation. Construction is expected to begin in Q3. The original design of the impoundment ponds have been modified to allow for intake and recycling of produced water in the future. Which will reduce the total water sourcing and processing costs moving forward.

In follow-up to the production enhancement initiatives, the ops team has replaced 16 compression units to date, removing $65,000 a month of operating expenses moving forward. There are several more units to be downsized before the year end when total savings will exceed $100,000 a month. As expected, there have been no decreases to existing production as a result of the compressor downsizing program. Lots going on in our Permian Basin Barnett project in Nectar County. Drill out of the recent 3-mile Barnett lateral went as expected and the well has been placed on production.

This is the ninth well drilled on the acreage and the early flowback period has exceeded the normalized type curve expectations and is exhibiting excellent productivity consistent with the existing wells on the acreage. This week we have received well proposals from the operator for two offsets to this lateral. These wells have been moved up in the drilling schedule by the operator with plans to spud them later this month.

Finally. The Woodford appraisal test mentioned on the last earnings call has been drilled with completion scheduled for later this month as well. In the Marcellus, as reported last quarter, the operators completed the drilling of the scheduled five wells, 0.4 net. Completion operations are planned for the second-half of this year. First production from this development is scheduled in December and forecasted to add 6.5 million cubic foot a day net. Four of the new drills will gather through the Auburn system and are forecasted to increase throughput in the midstream system by approximately 80million to 90 million cubic feet a day upon initial completion.

Now I will turn it back to Jason.

Thanks, guys. Operator, we can now open the lines for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Anthony Perala Punch & Associates

Good morning, guys.

Good morning, Anthony.

Nice to see the first guidance you have been able to give.

For production for this year, speaks to the shifting the business from non-op to now having the operating piece.

What's the best way to think about the approach to guidance going forward into 2027 and beyond?

Yeah, thanks, Anthony. I think the next piece that we will come out with will be full year '27.

And we will do that targeting to do that in the first quarter.

Of next year before we post year-end '26 results.

So targeting it to be annually kind of at the beginning of every year.

That's right and refined throughout the year with quarters.

A couple of questions on the gas business in Pennsylvania. Any more details you could give on the maintenance activities there would be helpful. And then I am not sure if you have it available, but kind of how you delineate the falloff in production quarter over quarter. How much was attributable to the maintenance activities and how much was just your typical decline rates that we would have seen otherwise?

Yeah, thanks for that question. This is Jason.

If you look at our business in Appalachia, our operator has done a really good job in our view, and we have been in agreement with the approach that in the shoulder seasons or periods where we have prolonged pricing netbacks in Appalachia that are sub $2, we have had curtailments.

And the flip side of that, you will notice in the first quarter, we had a monster gas production cash flow quarter because we worked at the opposite, maximized production when we had realized prices of almost $5.5 versus the $1.80 in the second quarter. So we kind of look at it on an annual basis over time, we are trying to maximize production with the operator in high demand in basin seasons and then curtailing as appropriate when we think we are selling as at depressed prices that are not sustained.

As far as delineating, because the way that these volumes were curtailed was an increase in the operating pressure of our gathering line, it is hard to attribute an exact breakdown between what's natural depletion versus what's attributable to that pressure build. Back on the wells. The farther we are from where that pressure is applied, the more of an impact there is. Roughly, we think we have been in depletion mode in PA since the wells were brought online last year in the first quarter and will be in depletion mode until the fourth quarter of this year when we start to see those incremental volumes that we. Addressed earlier in the report today.

Okay, that's helpful. And any updates from the operator? It stayed consistent on bringing those wells on in Q4. I guess I would parish the other piece of the question. I have seen a lot about just the kind of Super El Nino and what that does for winter weather and it is biased, warmer based on prior analog gears when you have seen that type of weather pattern. Any thoughts around the operator potentially pushing the pills out of Q4?

Any thoughts on maybe looking to add more hedges given kind of forecast for a warmer winter here?

I will let Andrew address the hedging question. We think we have built appropriate in our guidance, we have kind of built appropriate margin of error to adjust for any slide that the operator has on those volumes.

And on the hedging?

Yeah, Anthony, we target.

In terms of volume coverage, as I have mentioned in previous calls, we target 50% PDP hedged over the next 18 months that also coincides with the hedge covenant on our credit facility. So what we have done on gas is use collars to put that production on. With oil, as I mentioned before, we took a big hedge book from peak in the deal in the fourth quarter of last year.

The majority of the incremental volumes we have on between now and the end of the year and into '27 as well were a big chunk of them are oil volumes. And so we have strategically started to add there starting in the fourth quarter of this year on crude. On the gas, I think we will just continue to keep coverage as we have had it at that 50% of PDP. So we will add again once we have some certainty on those incremental volumes coming on that we just talked about. In the Marcellus late this year. So to answer your question directly, no plans to put protection on in excess of kind of the mandate that we have on 50% coverage.

Okay, that's great. That's a very helpful color.

Then shifting over to the powder, nice realization on the working interest sell down. Just curious on what the market's like. For that when you were marketing it? And if you could get kind of a peek maybe into 2027, what those six wells, what your kind of net interest is right now and if you may look to cap that market again?

As a non-op player, we have been very aware of the AFE wellbore market. It is pretty active across, particularly in the Permian, but there is activity as well in the Rockies and in the Marcellus. So on that Parkman sell down, I mean, there were a couple of drivers on that, and Andrew can add some additional color. One, we felt like if we could get a nice premium to our AFE, it really juices our cash-on-cash returns. And as Henry mentioned.

These were our first three wells in the basin drilling operation-wise. So really, we felt okay taking our working interest down from a mid-90s into the low 70s here as a risk mitigant as well. Going forward, we have high working interest Parkman wells. We may consider sell-downs, but I think we feel pretty good about the well design and the performance.

Yeah, to add to that, Anthony, it is a tool to use to rightsize the capital program. So all of the things that we are planning on doing in the medium term, Powder, Parkman, Barnett development in the Permian and then continued activity in the Marcellus. Those are highly coveted in that market and so we know we can go there to rightsize that capital program and that's to stay within our leverage target that we discussed and still drive growth with that rightsize program, if that makes sense. So it is just a tool that we use. So no definitive plans there to sell down next year to answer your question directly, but it is a pretty quick cycle action if we want to go that route.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's great. And then it seems like things were brought forward about a month. I think initially it was December for first production. Now you are assuming 60 days that fall into 2026. Was it more a timing thing? Was it efficiency on the drill side? Just any details on that would be helpful.

Yeah, I may flip this one to Henry. Henry, you want to take that one?

Yeah, so related to the three-well apartment program in Wyoming, we had an opportunity to capture some rig availability. We had all of our permits in place. We had locations built that are personnel ready, and so we acted upon it.

That's great.

What's the market like for availability right now and looking into 2027?

Yeah, so in Wyoming -- sorry, this is Henry. Go ahead. In Wyoming, from a rig perspective, the rig count in the two counties that were active in Campbell and Converse remain in about the 13 rigs running range. Nine of those are focused on the shales, Nybera and Mowry. The other four are the sandstones. And so we are seeing stable activity in our area of the Powder River at this point.

And then last one, I think, Henry, you had mentioned in your prepared remarks.

Just that you are having active conversations with other operators to maybe pull forward some development in a cost-effective nature, I think is the phrase that you use. Any more detail around that would be helpful just to frame up what that program could look like over the next couple of years.

Yeah, Anthony, I will take that one. This is Jason. We intimated on the call last time that we have a large acreage position in the powder. There are opportunities for swaps and trades and partnerships, so we have had a number of inbounds about that.

I would say we are farther along in a couple of those discussions, but at this point, not in a position to really provide details, but I would expect over the next quarter, we are going to have something more definitive to provide to you guys, but essentially this would be.

Areas where we can either swap acreage to extend lateral lengths and/or participate alongside scaled operators and some of the other resource plays in the basin where they have existing infrastructure that's going to allow us to participate at an enhanced cost structure. So more to come on that, but.

I think that's been -- that's kind of gravy from what our base evaluation was on this powder asset because, as we have stressed our focus is going to be on the parkman. But there are some nice opportunities that are also going to be available to us in the shale, the Niobrara in particular going forward.

That's great. Look forward to more on that. That's it for me guys.

Thanks for taking questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Showing no further questions, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Jason Stabell for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator.

I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And as always, if you have additional questions or comments, please reach out to us. I appreciate your support. Have a great day.

The conference has now concluded.

Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines.