PrairieSky Royalty Ltd

PrairieSky Royalty Ltd

36.69
CAD
+0.38
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1.08EPS
29.40P/E
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Oct 26Next Earn

Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptApril 21, 2026

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the PrairieSky Royalty Limited first quarter 2026 financial results conference call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.

To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Andrew Phillips, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Andrew Phillips

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, and thank you for dialling into the PSK Q1 2026 conference call.

On the call from PSK are Pam Kazeil, Dan Bertram, Michael Murphy, and myself, Andrew Phillips. Before we begin, there is certain forward-looking information and statements in our commentary today, I'd ask listeners and investors to review the forward-looking statements qualifier in our press release and MD&A, which can be found on our website.

Funds from operations totaled $94.9 million, an 11% increase from Q1 2025, resulting from higher production and stronger bonus consideration. Total production grew 4% from Q1 of 2025, with oil production showing 2% growth year-over-year.

Condensate and pentane production, reported as part of the NGL stream, remains at record highs for PrairieSky at approximately 35% of the NGL stream. Elevated bonus consideration was the result of 48 new leasing arrangements with 37 distinct oil and gas companies.

Given the lower rig count year-over-year, we are pleased with the 201 spuds on PrairieSky lands versus the 200 in prior years—prior year. With the increased pricing for oil and a continued weak Canadian dollar, we are observing early indications of higher planned activity levels post-breakup.

Based on strip pricing, we are anticipating a material reduction in debt levels by the end of 2026. A number of our recent leasing arrangements are for exploration rather than pure development, which is a positive trend.

Rising capital cycles can help unlock the vast optionality inherent in an 18.6 million acre land base. In addition to this, more operators in the Clearwater are exploring for oil up and downhole where they already have an existing producing horizon.

We expect this will unlock numerous new developments over the next 10 years. With the current development inventory on land, we can replace the approximate 9.5 million barrels of royalty production on our lands for 61 years.

New discoveries have the potential to unlock more inventory. I will now turn the call to Mike to further discuss activity on our lands.

Michael Murphy

Thanks, Andrew. The first quarter saw a record number of Duvernay wells spud at 26, including 20 in the West Shale Basin.

First West Shale completions from this program are currently underway, with new wells expected to be on production starting in mid-May and driving light oil growth through the back half of the year. Similar to 2025, we expect the Duvernay to be our fastest-growing play in 2026 based on budgeted activity levels.

Multilateral activity continues to grow on PrairieSky lands, with 66 spuds in Q1 '26 relative to 41 in the first quarter of last year. In the Clearwater, expanding waterflood development continues to promote a highly sustainable production base and positively impacting corporate decline rates.

With depth and quality of inventory in the play, we anticipate outsized Clearwater growth to continue for years to come. In the Mannville Stack, oil production was estimated at greater than 1,000 barrels a day in Q1, given the strong winter drilling activity.

Finally, our thermal volumes are positioned for near-term growth, with a new eight-well-pair pad at Lindbergh currently steaming, with oil volumes expected to ramp to a peak rate of approximately 260 barrels a day net to PrairieSky. I'll now turn it over to Pam to discuss the financials.

Pam Kazeil

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone.

PrairieSky's first quarter production increased by 4% compared to Q1 2025, reflecting 2% growth in oil royalty volumes and 6% growth in NGL production. Oil growth was led by the Clearwater play, where production rose approximately 20% year-over-year, and the Duvernay, where oil royalty volumes increased by approximately 75% from Q1 2025.

NGL growth was driven primarily by activity in the Duvernay and Montney plays. Higher production combined with strong benchmark pricing resulted in royalty revenues of $118.5 million for the quarter.

Other revenues totaled $15.3 million, supported by another strong quarter of leasing activity. Lease bonus consideration reached $12.3 million, more than double the level recorded in Q1 last year, with the majority of activity concentrated in the Duvernay play and the Mannville heavy oil play.

We continue to view leasing activity as a leading indicator of future development and anticipate that operators will be active across these plays throughout 2026 and beyond. Funds from operations were $94.9 million, or 41 cents per share, representing a strong start to the year.

PrairieSky declared dividends of $61.6 million during the quarter, corresponding to a payout ratio of 65%. Excess cash flow was allocated to acquisitions, totaling $4.2 million, share repurchases under our NCIB of $8.3 million, which canceled 269,000 shares, and debt reduction of $6 million.

We ended the quarter with net debt of $257.7 million. PrairieSky also declared its second quarter dividend of 26.5 cents per common share for shareholders of record on June 30th, 2026.

With that, I'll turn it back to the moderator to begin the Q&A.

Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again.

Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Jamie Kubik with CIBC.

Your line is open.

Jamie Kubik

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Just a quick question on oil volumes for the quarter.

Obviously, good volumes out of the key plays for PrairieSky. Can you talk about some of the plays that perhaps didn't perform as well in the quarter that led to the slight volume decline quarter-over-quarter?

Thanks.

Andrew Phillips

You bet, Jamie. The big one, when you look from Q1 of last year to Q1 of this year, was the 200-barrel net decline net to us from the Lindbergh thermal project, and that's more of a transitory item.

If you added that back, you'd kind of be in line with all of our quarters for the last 16 quarters. In addition, you had a little slower Q4 just on the more conventional assets and saw modest declines there, but we're still expecting the kind of mid-single-digit number on average throughout the year on the oil side.

Jamie Kubik

Thanks. Then, last one for me.

Can you just talk a little bit more on the bonus consideration that you saw in the quarter? Is that repeatable, and should we think about activity on that side of things with respect to what was leased?

Thanks.

Andrew Phillips

The bonus consideration was definitely a bright spot. There was one larger bonus there with respect to a smaller Duvernay lease, just given the pricing that's come up so substantially in that area.

We were able to command a higher price for that. I think, overall, the entire portfolio of assets saw pretty strong leasing right from southeast Saskatchewan, where there's really short cycle times and we're expecting a bit of an uptick in activity all the way through to Western Alberta.

It's definitely a positive sign to see more activity from producers and people increasing their inventory there. To answer your question on the repeatability, probably that would be a higher one.

I think that was the highest one we've had in 15 quarters or something like that. That was great, we're very pleased with that.

Activity on the leasing side does remain robust, but that was a higher-than-anticipated number for the following quarters, for the balance of the year.

Jamie Kubik

That's all for me. I'll turn it back.

Andrew Phillips

Thanks for your questions, Jamie.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone.

Again, that is *11 to ask a question. Our next question comes from Aaron Bilkoski with TD Cowen.

Your line is open.

Aaron Bilkoski

Thanks. I have another question about your lease issuance bonuses, but more around the structure of them.

If I remember, at some point in the past, you started offering some flexibility to your counterparties. You offered lower up-front bonuses in exchange for multi-year reoccurring cash payments.

I think the idea was to leave more cash with the producers to spend so you could generate royalty revenue from that faster. I guess my question is, are you still using this type of structure on the lease issuance bonuses?

Andrew Phillips

It's a good question, Aaron. I think for the right play, typically for the longer-term leases, we'll enter into agreements like that.

We've done that with some of the small-scale SAGD leasing in Saskatchewan, whereby they get up to a 7- to 9-year lease depending on where it is, and they have to have a minimum amount of activity and then pay a recurring bonus after three years and then another three years. We've also done some agreements like that in the Duvernay, we are expecting a meaningful Duvernay payment in the back half of the year.

Again, for most conventional leasing, a lot of the leases that we entered into in the previous quarter were shorter-term leases, people with near-term drilling activity planned and just one-time bonus payments. The great thing about the very short-term ones is if they don't get to it in the 1-year time, we'll typically be able to release those lands right away to either that operator or a competing operator in the area.

Aaron Bilkoski

Thanks, Andrew. On those shorter-term leases, are there capital or activity commitments associated with that, or you just put a short-term lease on it, and if they don't drill, you get it back?

Andrew Phillips

Exactly, the latter. I think there's a bit of a balance.

If you're going to hold on lands for longer period of time, we'd like to see some activity committed and/or back-end bonus payments if you want to retain the lands. With these shorter-term leases, it's effectively a drilling commitment.

If you have a 1-year lease, by the time you survey the well, get the well licensed, get it drilled, get it on production, you almost need that year just to do that. Typically we view a 1-year lease, and in some areas a 2-year lease, as a drilling commitment to a certain extent, but we do not ask for drilling commitments on those shorter-term leases.

Aaron Bilkoski

Perfect. Thank you.

Andrew Phillips

Thanks. Have a good day, Aaron.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time.

I would now like to turn it back to Andrew Phillips for closing remarks.

Andrew Phillips

Thank you to all our shareholders very much for your support, and hope everyone has a great rest of your week.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.

You may now disconnect.