ARC Resources Ltd.

ARC Resources Ltd.

33.90
CAD
+0.26
(+0.77%)
16.85BMarket Cap
Nov 06Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 6, 2026

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ARC Resources Limited Q4 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode.

Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press *0 for the operator.

Also note that this call is being recorded on Friday, February 6, 2026. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Dale Louko.

Please go ahead, sir.

Dale Louko

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings conference call.

Joining me today are Terry Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer; Kris Bibby, Chief Financial Officer; and Ryan Berrett, Senior Vice President, Marketing. Before I turn it over to Terry and Kris to take you through our fourth quarter results and 2025 reserves, I'll remind everyone that this conference call includes forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures, with the associated risks outlined in the earnings release and our MD&A.

All dollar amounts discussed today are in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise stated. Finally, the press release, financial statements, and MD&A are available on our website as well as SEDAR.

Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the line to questions. With that, I'll turn it over to our President, CEO, Terry Anderson.

Terry, please go ahead.

Terry Anderson

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This morning, I'll speak to our fourth quarter results, 2025 reserves, and provide an update on our plans for 2026.

After that, I'll hand it over to Kris to discuss our financial results. Before I dive into the quarter, I want to take a moment to recognize our team's exceptional safety performance, with 2025 coming in as one of the strongest in our history.

As you've heard me say before, safety is our number one priority. Our people did an incredible job outperforming all of our key safety metrics, which is notable given the high levels of activity and degree of complexity we worked through this year.

On behalf of our leadership team, thank you to our employees and contractors for your ongoing commitment to safety. Fourth quarter results were exceptional.

We delivered operational and financial results above expectations. Production in the fourth quarter was a record 408,000 BOE per day, representing 7% growth year-over-year and 10% on a per share basis.

Condensate and oil production was very strong in the quarter at 119,000 barrels per day. Kakwa was supported by strong well performance and the acquisition in July.

In Q4, Kakwa production of 215,000 BOE per day was up 10,000 BOE per day quarter-over-quarter and included record high condensate production. With natural gas prices strengthening towards the end of the year, we restored production at Sunrise that was previously curtailed.

In combination with our low-cost transport to US markets, ARC realized a natural gas price of $3.77 per Mcf, which was nearly $1.50 per Mcf above AECO. In 2025, we curtailed nearly 400 million cubic feet a day of natural gas at Sunrise during periods where natural gas prices were low.

This highlights our disciplined approach of focusing on profitability over BOEs, allowing us to defer roughly $50 million of capital while preserving resource. As we look ahead, AECO prices are constructive.

We have commenced deliveries to the LNG Canada project through our agreement with Shell. This is an important project and one of several future LNG developments in Canada that will represent a meaningful increase in natural gas demand and bolster long-term profitability.

In addition, we are approximately one year away from shipping a portion of our natural gas to international markets through our LNG supply agreements, which will add exposure to global LNG prices. Moving on to Attachie, we completed our first year of operations since commissioning the asset in late 2024.

Production in the fourth quarter averaged 28,000 BOE per day and included approximately 13,000 barrels per day of condensate. At over 360 net sections, Attachie is a large, condensate-rich asset in its early stages of development.

Our main goal was to prove up and deliver predictable results in the Upper Montney and second, to assess the Lower Montney potential. Attachie well performance varied over the past year.

We've had some really strong wells and some weaker ones. While current production is 30,000 BOE per day with 14,000 barrels per day of condensate, early results from our most recent Upper Montney pads in late 2025 and early 2026 are not meeting our expectations.

Therefore, we've chosen to adjust our development schedule to allow our technical teams more time to analyze the results. This will allow us to determine the optimal development plan moving forward.

In terms of the Lower Montney, with our first trial pad just about to come on stream, it is still too early to assess the opportunity here. ARC will continue to take a disciplined approach towards allocating capital at Attachie to maximize asset learnings.

This will lay the foundation for future development activity, focusing on long-term profitability over BOEs. Attachie remains a high-quality development opportunity, and we remain confident in its long-term resource potential.

Today, we are working on just 10% of the 360 net sections we've accumulated in the area. It's an important asset for us, and we will take the time to ensure we get it right.

While we do, we'll lean on the strength of our base business, which provides decades of high-quality development opportunities. In terms of guidance, 2026 corporate production guidance remains unchanged at 405,000 to 420,000 BOE per day, and capital stays at $1.8 to $1.9 billion.

With the adjustments we are making at Attachie, capital activities and timing may shift across our asset base throughout the year. Our primary focus is to maximize our learnings from this asset and prove capital efficiency.

We will remain nimble. As our learnings evolve, too will our plan.

Finally, before I turn it over to Kris, I'd like to speak briefly to our reserves. There are a couple things I'd like to highlight this year.

First, reserves were a record across all three categories, increasing by 15% on a PDP basis and about 10% on a proved plus probable basis. Second, we reported a before-tax NPV of 2P reserves of $39 per share, which is based on roughly a quarter of our internally identified inventory.

This highlights both the value embedded in our business and the inventory runway to continue to grow reserves in the future. To sum up 2025, we advanced our strategic priorities by profitably growing our business on a per share basis.

Notable achievements include: first, we delivered record average annual production of 374,000 BOE per day, which increased our profitability and improved our per share metrics. Production and reserves per share increased by approximately 10%, while free cash flow per share doubled to $2.20 per share.

This allowed us to sustainably grow our dividend for the fifth consecutive year, increasing it by 11%. Second, we executed two strategic opportunities that will improve long-term profitability.

First, we consolidated Montney resource counter-cyclically, directly adjacent to our existing assets at Kakwa. Second, we added 36 sections of land at Attachie through a unique agreement with TDZE, further extending the asset duration.

With that, I'll turn it over to Kris.

Kris Bibby

Thanks, Terry, and good morning, everyone. Fourth quarter itself was ahead of expectations.

Production of 408,000 BOEs a day was 4% of forecast, while funds from operations of $874 million was 11% above. Fourth quarter production was a record despite the curtailment of natural gas production at Sunrise due to low Western Canadian gas prices.

Volume gains were mainly driven by Kakwa through organic production growth and the acquisition that closed in July. Full-year production was at the top end of guidance and was a record in terms of both natural gas and condensate production.

Free cash flow was $415 million for the quarter, which represents a 47% increase compared to the third quarter and is 40% above analyst expectations. Full-year 2025 free funds flow totaled $1.3 billion and was roughly double the free funds flow we generated in 2024.

In terms of capital returns, ARC returned 75% of free funds flow to shareholders during the year. We repurchased just under 20 million common shares for $514 million and declared dividends of $452 million.

The remainder was used to reduce debt and maintain our financial strength. ARC exited the year with roughly $2.9 billion of net debt, approximately 0.9 times 2025 cash flow, which was a decrease of approximately $200 million compared to the prior quarter.

Balance sheet strong, we plan to continue to return essentially all free funds flow to shareholders in 2026. ARC invested roughly $460 million in the fourth quarter for a total of $1.9 billion of capital expenditures for the year, which was within company guidance.

Full-year operating expenses per BOE was within company guidance, while transportation expense per BOE was at the low end of our guidance range. Looking ahead, our 2026 guidance remains unchanged despite the changes we are making at Attachie.

Our priorities are to sustain corporate production between 405,000 and 420,000 BOEs per day, investing between $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion. As Terry mentioned, asset-level allocations for production and capital may shift over the course of the year as we work through what our next steps at Attachie look like.

In our current price environment, we expect to generate approximately $1.2 billion of free funds flow this year, highlighting the profitability of our business under a low commodity price environment. Once again, we plan to return essentially all free cash flow to shareholders through a combination of a growing base dividend and share buybacks.

With that, I'll pass it back to Terry for closing remarks, and then we'll open it up for questions.

Terry Anderson

Thanks, Kris. As we enter our 30th year of business, I am confident in what lies ahead.

This year, annual average production is set to surpass the 400,000 BOE per day mark. At current strip prices, we expect to generate approximately 1.2 billion in free cash flow.

We are also about a year away from shipping first volumes of natural gas to international markets via the Gulf Coast, marking a significant milestone in ARC's natural gas diversification strategy. The competitive strengths we've developed over the past few decades will serve us well as we work through Attachie and continue to execute our strategy moving forward.

We have amassed a large inventory in a world-class asset in the Montney resource play and have a strong technical team to develop it. Owning our infrastructure and securing long-term takeaway capacity should allow us to consistently achieve above-average returns and maintain high margins as we grow our business.

We will remain committed to our core principles of risk management and capital discipline, which are central to delivering on our strategy and providing sustainable value to our shareholders. We appreciate the support from our shareholders in making prudent decisions today that support our long-term focus on profitability.

Thank you. With that, I'll open the line up for questions.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions, please press * followed by 1 on your touch-tone phone.

You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press * followed by 2.

If using a speakerphone, you will need to lift the handset first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press *1 now if you have questions.

First will be Michael Harvey at RBC Capital Markets.

Michael Harvey

Sure. Good morning.

A couple questions for me. First, if you were to reallocate some of the capital from Attachie this year to other properties, which I think was around 250 or so, maybe just give us a sense for where you would allocate that to and just kind of remind us how you're thinking about the other growth properties, just cuz Attachie's been a focus for a while.

Then second, you're at the low end of your debt target range. Would you consider taking on some incremental debt or just cutting CapEx to buy back more stock, just kind of trying to get a sense for how aggressive you could be with the buyback at these levels?

Thanks.

Terry Anderson

Thanks, Michael. It's Terry here.

As for where we reallocate that capital, the team's working on that right now. We think there's opportunities probably in Kakwa.

There we see other good potentials there, especially in relation to with what we acquired last year, and the team's have been looking at that already. We're still looking at if there's opportunity within Attachie that time depending on the results that we see going forward here on some of the wells that are coming on here.

There still will be opportunities to spend dollars in Attachie, too. Kakwa is probably one of the spots.

The team's still working on some of those details.

Kris Bibby

Michael, I'll jump in on the balance sheet. Balance sheet's where we want it.

What that means is, it's unlikely we would put permanent capital towards the buyback. What you have seen us do in the past is, we certainly have the flexibility to steal from the latter part of the year and use that free cash flow earlier on to do the buyback.

We've taken a pretty conservative approach here over the last while, we'll see how things go. Certainly can expect us to be in the market.

Michael Harvey

Got it. Thanks.

Appreciate the comments.

Terry Anderson

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Sam Burwell at Jefferies.

Sam Burwell

Hey, good morning, guys. Just curious if you could add any color on the nature of the underperformance and inconsistency from the latest Attachie wells.

Did these incorporate any new techniques that ultimately didn't pan out, and are there any learnings to date that you can share from this batch of wells or is it really still too early to call?

Terry Anderson

It's Terry here. There's nothing significant that we've changed on the completion design here.

It is really too early. Most recent Upper Montney pad has only been on production here 5-6 weeks.

We need time for this to truly clean up. That's what we're looking for is just time to truly evaluate it.

The whole point of that is to make sure that before we spend more capital, we've got the information from this pad. That's why we're making the change to slow down.

Typically we'd be drilling and completing next pads already while we're waiting for results. We're not doing that.

We're making sure that we're making the best decisions based on the information. Now we need to wait for that information first to make the best decisions going forward here on capital activity.

Sam Burwell

Understood. Then shifting over to Kakwa, looked very solid in 4Q, and I think the tuck-in acquisition makes a lot of sense.

Any way to quantify what the bolt-on does for inventory depth, and are there any levers you can pull to either run Kakwa at a higher production rate or extend the inventory life further?

Ryan Berrett

This is Ryan. I think, when you think about that, obviously, this is just consistent with our strategy of bolting on contiguous acreage where we can.

Teams are looking at that right now and evaluating, and that'll be incorporated into our development plan going forward.

Sam Burwell

Got it. Thank you, guys.

Terry Anderson

You're welcome.

Operator

Next question from Patrick O'Rourke at ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Patrick O'Rourke

Hey guys, good morning and thank you for taking my question. Just going back to Attachie and sort of the learnings you're doing here, 3-12 pad, sounds like you sort of want a little bit more time there.

Just wondering going forward in terms of the development, it's been a pretty tight development sort of scheme that you've used to date. Any thought to a program here that spreads the wells out a little bit more going forward?

Terry Anderson

Hey, Patrick. It's Terry.

The short answer is yes. I think that's the things that we are looking at here.

We want to get the learnings where we're at. Like I said earlier, we're on just the first 10% of 360 sections.

The whole point here is slow things down and start looking at the opportunities on the whole asset base. That might be an option that we would be looking at here in extending out farther from where we're at at the moment.

Yes, that is one of the things that we're looking at.

Patrick O'Rourke

Great. Then just thinking about the reserve report and reserve performance here, positive technical revisions.

Can you sort of give us any color I know you're lightly booked at Attachie how reserve evaluators approached that, and then at Kakwa, where you've had some outstanding performance, sort of what level of inventory is formally booked in the reserve report today?

Kris Bibby

Hey, Patrick, it's Chris here. We don't disclose asset-level reserve stuff.

What I can say is, there was minor adjustments made at the Attachie level and then, obviously, at Kakwa the main change was the booking of the acquisition that we closed in July was the main change. Good, strong corporate reserve performance across all categories, obviously.

Patrick O'Rourke

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Next question will be from Aaron Bilkoski at TD Cowen.

Please go ahead.

Aaron Bilkoski

Thanks. Terry, as you alluded to, the latest pad had only been on for 5 or 6 weeks.

Could you talk a little bit about what you saw or didn't see at that most recent pad or maybe the most recent pads that prompted you to pull the asset-specific guide?

Terry Anderson

It's extremely early, I guess, from the perspective that we haven't cleaned up the wells yet. I guess, from that perspective, we were expecting a little more hydrocarbon.

Right now we're seeing it, but we're not seeing to the degree that we want. We realize also we are so early on this.

It's too soon to actually make that call, but it's not too soon to say, well, we want to wait to see the results so that we can efficiently spend capital on the next pads. Really, there's not a lot there.

It's more of kind of just a gut feel looking at it right now than anything.

Kris Bibby

As far as the asset-level guide goes, the reason that we're removing it is because we're made a change on the operational side where we're now slowing down and interpreting the data, as Terry mentioned, before we move on. Anytime you do that, it impacts, obviously, your tills or your wells coming on.

Therefore, we're going to read and react and just wanted to get away from, frankly, month-to-month explanations.

Aaron Bilkoski

That's fair. Just another quick question.

Have you guys made any midstream commitments for Phase 2 that you may not realize?

Ryan Berrett

Everything's already on

Aaron Bilkoski

Or you may not fulfill. Sorry.

Ryan Berrett

Everything's already on our commitment schedule, and we have what we need to go forward eventually.

Aaron Bilkoski

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Next question will be from Kalei Akamine at Bank of America.

Please go ahead.

Kalei Akamine

Hey, good morning, guys. This one's also on Attachie.

Just kind of wondering if you can provide some color on where exactly the underperforming Upper Montney wells are located. To the extent that this reflects a geologic trend, is it water content?

If it is, how should we think about the aerial extent and the implications for the broader development footprint?

Terry Anderson

It's not water content. Looking for the production here at a 3-12, and that's what we're focused on and what's driving the decision today.

I keep coming back to we just need more time to see this production and to allow it to clean up. The 3-12 pad is the one that we're actually focused on.

We have good wells right on both sides, good pads and wells on both sides of 3-12, too. It's not like it's an aerial thing.

There's just some inconsistencies and variability that we're trying to figure out here.

Kalei Akamine

Understood. Second question is on Kakwa.

As Kakwa is positioned to carry more of the load this year, what can you share about the 2026 drilling program? Specifically, should we expect activity to remain focused on the most productive condensate yields in your acreage, and can you remind us what the ultimate productive capacity is at that asset?

Ryan Berrett

I'll take a stab at it here. Kakwa, there's no physical change that we are booking into Kakwa right now.

We're just highlighting that if we need, we might reallocate capital. You saw, Q4 performance well ahead of expectations, and that's obviously just carried over slightly into into the Q1 area.

That's what gave us the confidence to there's no adjustment to the corporate guide despite removing Attachie guidance. Pretty comfortable there.

In terms of areas of development, no material change from what we've done over the past couple of years. Really good, hard part of the field that's got good yields, but very consistent overall is is what we would say.

Terry Anderson

I'd just add, just to be clear, we've said we're evaluating where to reallocate this capital. We just need some time on that, too.

Kakwa is an option, for sure.

Kalei Akamine

Understood. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Next question will be from Luke Davis at Raymond James.

Please go ahead.

Luke Davis

Hey, guys, appreciate you taking my question. Just a couple for me.

First, just wondering if you can kind of frame out how much technical work went into the initial sectioning decision at Attachie. Just further to that, I guess what gives you such a high degree of confidence that you'll crack the nut here, particularly across the broader base?

Is this just the large land overlays or something technically that you can point us to today?

Terry Anderson

From a technical basis, we drilled a number of pads and a number of wells on that east side, and we had great results coming out of that. That, from a technical perspective, gave us the confidence to move forward.

We have nine horizontal wells across the east side of the river. We've got results from that that show condensate production, gas production from all of that.

You have ConocoPhillips to the north. We do have a lot of data across the land base to give us the confidence that the resource is there.

We're not questioning that. We're just trying to figure out the completion design or how to effectively stimulate it, because we have some great wells and we have some wells that are not so great.

It's like, okay, what's going on there? That's what we're trying to figure out.

Luke Davis

No, that's helpful. Appreciate it.

Last one for me. You also tweaked around messaging just around kind of growth potential across the portfolio.

Can you just give us a sense for how much depth is left specifically on the condensate-rich side and ex-Attachie, what the longer-term growth profile could look for?

Terry Anderson

We have lots of opportunity, obviously, in Kakwa with 15-plus years of development there. Then we just did this new little acquisition.

There's Parkland that has lots of liquids opportunity. Even the north part of Septimus, the Lower Montney in Dawson has some good liquids in it, too.

There's definitely some more liquids growth. Then, obviously, we have a lot of gas growth, also.

Luke Davis

Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

You're

Terry Anderson

welcome.

Operator

Next question from Josh Silverstein at UBS. Please go ahead.

Josh Silverstein

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

You still are spending around 250 million at Attachie this year. I don't know if you could break this out at all, but was looking to see is this all for Phase 1 drilling, how many pads you may be bringing on relative to what you did last year, and you have been doing a little bit of CapEx and prep work for Phase 2, I was wondering if there's still a little bit of that going on as well?

Kris Bibby

Hey, Josh, it's Kris here. We've still held the placeholder for 250 at Attachie.

As we've mentioned, we'll consider reallocating it if we choose to. It's just a little bit undetermined at this time.

The point of removing asset-level guidance was, we're gonna read and react, can't really comment on the pads going forward. As we said, overall corporate guide still 1.8 to 1.9, and we'll reallocate as we see fit throughout the year.

Josh Silverstein

Gotcha. Then you guys had been active in M&A over the past year adding into Kakwa.

I was curious just to get your updates on that front this year. Are there still some opportunities that may be out there and especially given that you guys are still in a very strong balance sheet position, is there an opportunity to grow inorganically?

Ryan Berrett

Josh, this is Ryan. I think it's something, obviously, we're always looking at and has to be very consistent with our M&A strategy of high-quality assets, large inventory, contiguous to asset base.

Can't comment on any specific processes at this time, but yeah, of course, we're open to it.

Operator

Any further questions, Josh?

Josh Silverstein

Nope. Sorry, that was it.

Operator

Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to please press *1 if you have any questions.

Thank you. Next will be Travis Wood at National Bank Capital Markets.

Please go ahead.

Travis Wood

Good morning, guys. Terry, you kind of touched on this, I think.

Attachie was unveiled nearly 15 years ago or so at an investor day, and you've ran the pilots, you've drilled many wells kind of across the broader land base. What exactly is showing up in the recent data versus the pilots and the pads kind of leading into Phase 1 that now kind of causes you guys pause?

What exactly changed over the last couple of years, and then what is it that you're looking for on the data side to get comfort again in terms of reiterating guidance at Attachie and push towards Phase 2?

Terry Anderson

I think the big thing that we've realized is actually the casing deformation that we didn't see on the other pads. That was one of the things that was different from the original number of wells and everything we've seen.

That means we're just trying to make sure that we can effectively stimulate the reservoir like we've seen on the first number of wells and pad. Really, I keep coming back to the resource is there.

We just need to tweak designs and to be able to effectively stimulate the reservoir to access that resource that's there. Sometimes these things take a little time to figure out.

This isn't the first time we've actually seen this. In Dawson and in Parkland, we've seen similar events where we couldn't effectively stimulate the full lateral length.

We figured those out. This one, we've gone so fast at it in such a confined area that we just need a little more time with it.

Travis Wood

Okay. I think going back even the wells in front of the pilot or some of the older legacy wells, even around 2015, will you test what you're doing in this more concentrated area on the west side and try to identify if the resource is open to these completion techniques to the northwest or how are you thinking about kind of de-risking the completion side?

Terry Anderson

Like I had mentioned, we're only on the first 10%, there's a lot of acreage. Some of the plans will evolve into going further out from our existing area that we've been drilling and assessing that a little bit more.

Their team's are looking at all of those details right now, but that is something that we are definitely going to pursue is moving over and testing more of the acreage beyond the 10% that we're on right now.

Travis Wood

Okay. Appreciate it, Terry.

Thank you.

Terry Anderson

You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we have no other questions registered.

I would like to turn the call back to Terry Anderson.

Terry Anderson

Great. Thank you.

I guess my final comment would be, I realize sometimes the right business decisions are not necessarily the most popular decisions from a market perspective, but we are here to manage risk while we create long-term value for our shareholders. We will make the right decision, and that's what we're doing here today: slowing things down, just making sure that we are focused on delivering long-term value to our shareholders.

We appreciate your patience. Thank you, everyone.

Have a good day.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today.

Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines.

Have a good weekend.