Evolution Petroleum Corporation (AMEX:EPM) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Kelly Loyd: That’s correct. Yes, these opportunities . There’s several of them, not as many as we’d like, but there are at least where they were drilled deeper and bypassed the and so you go up hole and put a big single vertical back on it.

John Bair: And then the , if those were to come up, would you possibly tap into your credit facility if the dollars were more than what you had cash on hand? Or would you work it out of cash flow or kind of what’s your thoughts on that?

Ryan Stash: I mean it’s kind of more — really more of a working capital, right, decision. I think we wouldn’t drill the wellness we thought they were going to be cash flow positive, right? So obviously, cost upfront. But given that we’re now debt-free, and we have good cash flow. Certainly, we would hopefully do them out of cash flow. It just depends where we are in the cycle from a working capital standpoint. But what I would say, I’m not going to borrow long-term capital to drill the wells, right?

John Bair: I didn’t mean to imply long term, it was more if you need short-term bump, yes.

Kelly Loyd: I don’t want to — philosophically, I just — I really don’t want to borrow money to drill wells.

John Bair: Right, right. Got it. Last question. There was a recent article in the journal about kind of highlighting Denbury and the fact they had the CO2 pipelines. And we talked about it a little bit a few months back. And I was just wondering if there’s been any progress in the utilization of that pipeline system to gather industrial CO2 gases and so forth? And if so, would that — how might that benefit evolution if industrial producers of that were to utilize the pipeline, would that help you all out? Would that affect the contract that you have with the oil prices and the use of CO2?

Kelly Loyd: So that’s interesting. Yes, it does. I mean I’ve had people ask if they get the green pipeline certified and you have a tap on the green pipeline, are you going to be able to get carbon credits and all that? And honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. We have some smart people looking into it, but I think they’re sort of waiting for more guidance from the governmental types. But as far as we’re taking, I always get this word wrong, anthropomorphic rather — so new — like CO2 created from big machinery complexes and all that. Man-made CO2. If you take that and put that in the green pipeline, and we can get some of it allocated to Delhi versus the other fields, then I would assume it’s probably going to come at a cheaper cost than what we’re getting from Denbury’s Jackson. projects.

John Bair: Yes. I guess where I was kind of going with that in the bigger picture is would that help to lower the overall cost for your Delhi operations? In other words, would you be able to capitalize on that, would cause renegotiation of the contract or whatever that you’re in right now, given that you’re paying CO2 costs based on the price of oil barrels and so forth?

Kelly Loyd: Right. It’s — it potentially is the answer, but we’re not at that. So let’s — if there’s a way for and Denbury to come to a better contract that benefits both parties. I’m sure we’d both be up for. But at this point, I just — we’re not far enough along to speculate.

Operator: . Our next question comes from Jeff Robertson from Water Tower Research.

Jeffrey Robertson: You mentioned when you were discussing acquisitions, some of the impact of the pricing volatility. Can you provide any real color on what impacts the drop in natural gas prices over the last 6 months is having on buyer — or I’m sorry, seller expectations? And also, is it having any impact on the types of properties that you’re seeing in the market.