Vitesse Energy, Inc. (NYSE:VTS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Bob Gerrity: Yep, you nailed it, Donovan. Bringing Jimmy on was a win in every wafer of the test. Jimmy’s experience is unparalleled. And just having that knowledge and scar tissue to understand what works and what doesn’t work, it’s invaluable. You don’t learn it in a book. You just learn it by the hard knocks of experience. Jimmy was a perfect fit for Brian and I. He came in, and it was as if we were partners for a long time. You can call him the accelerator. And I think it is fair to give Jimmy a lot of credit for us being able to source additional deals. So, Jimmy, are you sweating yet or…

Jimmy Henderson: Okay, enough of that. I like, as much as I would like to take care of credit for the ability to do what we’ve done so far in the last few months, it is really a testament to the team that has been assembled here, and as well as things we’ve talked about Luminis. And that it’s really a culmination of all those things that has been developed over the years of existence for this company. And I really appreciate all the comments, but I’m just here to be able to take advantage of what’s already been built and keep it moving forward. But I really appreciate the thoughts.

Donovan Schafer: Okay. And, of course, you guys, if you have anything really negative to say, you can just call and tell me later offline. But so then my one last question is, just with the dividend and sort of stress testing that I have to imagine even presenting, be presenting it to the board, for example, to get their approval on raising the dividend, I would assume you do some kind of stress testing, but if you can just kind of confirm that and maybe what type of parameters, how you’ve got a lot of hedging in place for the next year. So do you say, assuming a $60 oil, how long can we years or months or what are kind of some of the parameters that you’ve done to stress test and backstop that?

Jimmy Henderson: Yes, Donovan, this is Jimmy. I take first cut and let you guys jump in? But yes, certainly, I mean, the strip itself kind of provides a pretty good fitness test. The way that it’s backward dated and we look at, can we maintain this coverage ratio for the dividend even with the — with that backwardation? And what would happen if we go further than that and knowing that there’s a lot of things you have to adjust in the model. In a lower for longer type scenario, costs tend to go down, et cetera. So, we do get confidence we’re able to maintain the level of dividend in most scenarios and then we can make adjustments to support as best we can for a period of time. So, yes, we definitely run multiple scenarios and probably, like most oil and gas companies, kind of a flat, flattish price that we are a little more confident in than a strip and then something lower even than that. Brian, you step down. You’ve done a lot more than I have.

Bob Gerrity: Yes. This is Bob. I’ll have a brief comment. And the dividend, and it is, is very obviously, it’s what we live for. It’s important to understand and we’ll, we’ve seen it. When the price of oil goes down, activity goes down. So when activity goes down, our CapEx goes down. So that, you can’t just fix, when you’re doing the stress test, you just can’t fix everything. You have to realize that if the price of oil goes down to $50 [ph], the activity level will go down accordingly. So the key measure for us is what Ben said earlier, is that our maintenance CapEx is around $90 million. So that is a real critical number for us. So above that is where we become additional capital allocators. Our rate of return of that maintenance CapEx is the highest we’ve got. So for us to spend more money than $90 million a year, it’s going to have to be very, very attractive. So, we think about all the time, Donovan. Brian, would you add?

Brian Cree: The only thing that I would really add there, Donovan, is again, that’s one of the reasons that test has always tried to keep that leverage low. Right. I mean, it just. It provides us some flexibility. Not that we want to use debt to pay the dividend, but if oil prices were to decline on a short term basis, we feel like that that extra capacity there to allow us to keep that fixed dividend, it’s something that we’re, that obviously is very important to us. We’ve talked about it a lot, and but look, if oil prices went down for a long period of time, we would have to adjust and look at everything. But clearly, that extra debt capacity is something that factors into our calculation.

Donovan Schafer: Okay, very helpful. Thank you, guys. I’ll pass it on.

Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers. Please proceed with your questions.

Noel Parks: Hi. Good morning. Just had a couple. I was interested when with the continued era of capital efficiency. There’s a lot to recommend the non-operated model, just how diversified you are across many operators and so forth. And I’m wondering, have you seen any signs of any new entrants, other non-ops looking to get active in the Bakken or your other basins?

Brian Cree: Yes, I mean, we constantly see, new family offices come in. There’s, been some transactions so far this year where there’s been new entrants into the Bakken, and there’s some other operators that are looking to sell their assets. That along with consolidation is something that’s exciting to us. I mean, it’s always good to see the consolidation in the basin, operators taking on the best of what each side has looked at. And so, from a pure non-op standpoint, there’s always, for smaller deals, we see a little more competition. But again, I think from what we’ve been able to accomplish so far this year, those larger deals, I don’t think we’ve really seen any new entrants from the non-op space.

Bob Gerrity: Hey, this is Bob. It’s hard to buy your way into the Bakken. It’s really tightly held and has been for seven or eight years. We could never reconstruct the 50 some odd thousand acres we have. We bought it at a very low cost per acre.

Noel Parks: Got it. Thanks. That’s a helpful consideration. And I’m just curious as far as. Well, you described that a number of deals just sort of came together last month. And in terms of interacting with potential sellers, do they tend to be more price sensitive, or are they more time sensitive? Just looking to get these interests sold and just looking for sort of whatever price will, meet their thresholds.