Morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Enerplus Q1 2023 Results 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 star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on May 5, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Drew Mair, Senior Manager, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. Before we get started, please take note of the advisories located at the end of our first quarter news release. Our financials have been prepared in accordance with the U.S. GAAP. Our production volumes are reported on a net after deduction of royalty basis. Our financial figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified. I'm here this morning with Ian Dundas, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Wade Hutchings, Senior VP and Chief Operating Officer, Shaina Morihira, VP Finance, and Garth Doll, VP Marketing. Following our discussion, we will open up the call for questions. With that, I will turn it over to Ian. Thank you, Drew. Good morning, all. As we come out of our first quarter, operating performance continues to be on track, and we remain well-positioned to efficiently execute our 2023 plan, which is expected to deliver robust free cash flow, attractive growth, and meaningful cash returns to our stockholders. 2023 capital spending and production guidance are unchanged. Production in the first quarter was resilient, averaging approximately 97,700 BOE per day. This was up 6% compared to the same period last year, despite having sold over 6,000 BOE day in the fourth quarter in connection with the sale of our Canadian operations. Operational momentum is building as we progress through the second quarter, where we have a very active completions program. Wade will provide more details on the operational plan when he speaks. We generated $260 million in adjusted funds flow in the quarter on capital spending of $139 million, resulting in free cash flow of approximately $120 million. We returned $67 million to our shareholders in the quarter, including repurchasing 3.5 million shares for $55 million. Since reactivating our share repurchase program in 2021, we have now reduced our shares outstanding by 16%. Our repurchase activity has and continues to be underpinned by our view that the intrinsic value of our business is not adequately reflected in our share price, and therefore the buyback continues to be accretive to shareholder value. Furthermore, the reduction in our share count is quite meaningfully enhancing our per share growth metrics. Adjusted net income per share and production per share increased by 8% and 19% respectively in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the first quarter of 2022. Previously indicated, we are committed to returning at least 60% of 2023 free cash flow to shareholders. Over the next three months, up through the end of July, we plan to repurchase the remaining 3.3 million shares under our NCIB authorization and then renew our repurchase authorization for another 10% of shares outstanding in August. In addition to our plans to return capital to our shareholders, we are also continuing to strengthen our balance sheet and our financial flexibility. We reduced net debt by 32% from December 31, 2022 to March 31, 2023, and ended the quarter with net debt of approximately $150 million. In summary, the outlook remains strong. We expect to deliver another year of solid execution and well performance from our Bakken development program. With our capital spending weighted approximately 60% to the first half of the year, we anticipate meaningful oil growth and a robust free cash flow profile in the second half of 2023. Beyond 2023, our deep high rate of return drilling inventory will continue to support attractive return on capital and growth project prospects for years to come. I'll leave it there and pass the call to Wade for an operational update. Thank you, Ian. Good morning, everyone. North Dakota production averaged just under 67,000 BOE per day in the quarter, which was 8% lower than Q4. As is typical for us, first quarter production declined sequentially due to the planned timing of our completions program in North Dakota. We brought our last 2022 pad online in mid-October. Our first pad this year started producing mid-February. As Ian mentioned, operationally, the year is off to a good start. Base production is tracking ahead of plan. Our drilling and completions program is running efficiently. We brought a four-well pad on production during the first quarter in the Murphy Creek area. Early time performance is meeting expectations. I would note that as we continue to drive improvements in gas capture and emissions management, particularly in areas where gas takeaway is constrained, we have been adapting our practices to ensure more molecules are captured and sold by curtailing initial production when needed. This pad falls into that category, with initial rates constrained to some degree. This approach of curtailing rates to manage emissions isn't new for us, but it is becoming increasingly important as we deliver on our emissions reduction plan. Overall, these early results support our positive view of the economic returns and development potential in the Murphy Creek area. Looking ahead, we have an active completions program underway, with the second and third quarters being our busiest periods, with the second quarter anticipated to be our highest period in terms of capital spending. We expect to bring approximately 20 net operated wells online in the second quarter in North Dakota, which should set up strong volumes in the second half of the year. In addition to a pad in FBIR, our second quarter on streams will include our first two pads in the Little Knife area, the first of which is a seven-well pad that is currently being tied in. We look forward to demonstrating the potential in Little Knife, where we are highly confident we have a significant amount of Tier 1 inventory. We also plan to bring our first set of refracs on during the second quarter, which will be a good data point to help us frame what this opportunity set could look like in our portfolio. Today, we don't include these in our decade-plus drilling inventory, but if successful, we see the potential for approximately 60 additional value accretive well refracs that could be added. For context, these refrac candidates are producing wells we acquired in 2021 in Dunn County, which were completed several years prior to that. These wells have relatively low recoveries. We think there is a potential to meaningfully increase that with a modern re-stimulation. Turning to cost structures. Broadly speaking, inflation year to date has tracked our expectations. We're seeing some early signs of the market tightness beginning to ease and stabilize. Although we're not expecting to see substantial cost deflation in 2023, we have seen OCTG prices soften as we have secured inventory so far this year. Declines are being driven by lower input costs, stronger supply, and a flattening rig count. This could be a tailwind to cost structures in 2024. Lastly, I'll touch on activity in our non-operated Marcellus position. Our first quarter Marcellus natural gas production was 180 million cu ft per day, which was approximately flat to the prior quarter. We continue to expect limited capital activity in our Marcellus position in 2023, with just 3% of our overall capital budget being directed to the Marcellus this year. As a result, we expect our Marcellus volumes to decline as we move throughout the year. In closing, I'll reiterate Ian's comments about our strong positioning. Our unwavering focus on safe, clean, and efficient operations, along with disciplined cost control, is supporting robust margins and significant free cash flow generation. I'll leave it there. We'll turn the call over to the operator and open it up for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question- and- answer session. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a one-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Your first question comes from the line of Greg Pardy from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Hi. Good morning. This is Robert Mann on for Greg Pardy, and thanks for taking my question. Just on the shareholders return front, we just wanted to get a sense of what the appetite for an SIB is here in the near term and what sort of market conditions would satisfy execution of one from the company's standpoint. Good morning, Robert. We are open-minded to an SIB. It's, for all intents and purposes, sitting on a shelf ready to go as a tool that we'll utilize if we see the need. Your question was whether we see need in the near term. I don't think that's likely. You know, as we put, I guess, a little more meat around the bone on how we see the next quarter going. We have 3.3 million shares available for repurchase under the NCIB, which, you know, our share count is only about 250 million, so it's a pretty meaningful percentage. We've committed to repurchasing that under current market conditions. What do current market conditions mean? It effectively means the share price, not, you know, being in this range, you know, plus or minus, maybe plus, actually. We see a fair amount of value of the stock at these levels, you know, based on our mid-cycle price views. You know, we think when we look at that amount of commitment later on the dividend and then think about that in the context of this minimum 60% commitment, and also think about it in the context of how we see our capital program unfolding over the course of the year, and that free cash flow profile, which is, you know, much bigger the back half of the year than the first half of the year. We think we're pretty comfortable. You know, I don't know if you will recall, last quarter, we said we were planning on, we weren't gonna smooth this 60% plus. We were going to accelerate some of that. You know, and that's sort of how the math lines up when you look at this 3.3 million share commitment. You know, moving forward, we'll have lots of room under the NCIB once we renew in August and the SIB sits there. Then, I guess, the broad framework, we'll think about affordability, at least 60% free cash flow. You know, we'll refresh that when we get debt-free. Then it's all about valuation. Again, we see lots of value in the stock at these levels. Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the detail. That's all I have. Thanks. Your next question comes from the line of Jeoffrey Lambujon from TPH. Your line is now open. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one is just gonna be on the broader return on capital strategy as well, just maybe looking at the different options that you have. Obviously, a lot of execution on the, on the buyback to date. If we think about a scenario in which, you know, we see better crude prices play out than the strip is indicating, and you see the share price react positively in conjunction with that in the space, how do you think about a variable potentially entering the mix longer term? Maybe as a second part to this question, can you talk a bit more about how you evaluate intrinsic value internally there, if it's primarily an NCIB exercise, it's a mid-cycle price that you might use internally? Just trying to get a better understanding of how we, you know, compare the different alternatives over time. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Jeoffrey, from TPH, I think. Our framework for evaluating valuation, you've highlighted it. It's a, it's a DCF exercise. It's, it's based on known low risk, our inventory, you know, our view of mid-cycle pricing, you know, that's compared against share price. You know, it's dynamic. Obviously, it's impacted not just by commodities, it's impacted by the success of the share buyback program, actually. You know, we see buying at these levels as accretive to that number. It's, it's dynamic and, you know, we'll stay on top of it, and we monitor that really quite carefully. You've asked, would we complement that with other return of capital tools, variables or specials or the like. Yeah, we're open-minded. We're open-minded to that. You know, when we think about fundamental valuation, we sort of understand the math of buying shares in the context of a capital allocation decision. You know, a variable construct's a bit different than that. You know, for us to switch from this mechanism, I guess we'd need to see a couple of things. We need to see valuation move to a place where we were less comfortable. You know, I don't imagine it would be a binary decision. I think you'd be sort of complementing it with more of a dividend. You know, we look in the market, and we see valuation that's underpinned by a base and a growing base dividend. We're committed to growing our base dividend. On the variable, it looks a little hit-and-miss to us at this moment. We don't see a signal relative to valuation and those dividends being capitalized well. Until we see that signal, we're probably not gonna shift, but we'll be responsive to the market and pay attention to what's going on, and we're not gonna do something that's gonna disadvantage our cost of capital. Great. Perfect. Appreciate the detail there. Then for my second question, I realize it's a little too early to talk about Little Knife, just with that seven-well pad being tied in as you highlighted. Any comments you're able to share just on your outlook for productivity there, maybe based on what you've seen from operations in the area, or any comments from your observations to date, just from your Murphy Creek activity that you referenced? Yeah, I think we can give you a little more color there. I'll hand it over to Wade. You know, it is early. It's, you know, Wade highlighted, and he'll talk a little bit more about that. This area is not unknown. There's a lot of data out there. We have a highly calibrated geomodel, and there is a lot of data from third parties. You know, we've talked about our confidence in the area, being strong. We haven't seen anything that diminishes that at all. I'll ask Wade to give you little more color on, you know, how we see the quarter unfolding, the pads we're talking about, and maybe actually he'll get into a little bit to the refracs as well. Good morning, Jeff. Thanks for the question. I actually wanna go back almost two years to when we acquired this acreage. You know, we really liked it at the time. We thought it looked a lot like Tier 1 acreage to us. Everything that has happened since then has been constructive to that view. We've done a lot deeper characterization of the area. We've also saw additional wells come online in our non-op program and just from other industry participants. All of that has really confirmed our view that this Little Knife area compares very favorably to our core position in Fort Berthold. That first pad that you referenced, it's called the Hydro pad. We've completed it, and we're actually in early flowback. You know, it's very early, but I would say we're encouraged by what that looks like so far and look forward to actually demonstrating the broad potential of the Little Knife area with that pad and the second pad that will also come online this quarter. In terms of, you know, what you should expect this quarter, you know, in terms of order, we also have another pad at the moment that's flowing back in Fort Berthold. After those two, we'll actually have our first set of refracs come online kind of, you know, couple of weeks from now. You know, in the last month of the quarter, we'll have that secnd Little Knife pad come online and then near the end of the quarter, even another set of refracs. You know, when we think about productivity of the area, you know, it will likely vary, but we really are excited about these wells that'll come online this quarter. In terms of the refracs, I just maybe give a little deeper context there. These are wells that, you know, they've been online for quite a long time. You know, were completed at a time when in completion intensities were quite a bit different. You know, it's certainly something that we're exploring here around the potential to recover a lot more oil from those wells with a modern re-stimulation. You did ask about that four-well pad that came online in the first quarter in Murphy Creek. That's our Kudrna Pad. You know, that area certainly is further away from the core of the play, but we're actually pleased with the results. They've met our expectations to date, matches some of the other offsets that we saw in that area from another operator or two. Great. Thank you. A lot to look forward there, it sounds like over the next couple of months here. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Travis Wood from National Bank Financial. Your line is now open. Good morning, guys. Sorry, I thought I withdrew. Jeff's, Jeff hit the question that I wanted to ask, but since I didn't withdraw, I'll maybe ask on inflation. We saw some commentary from other operators in North Dakota starting to get a little busier through the back half of the year. Maybe could you just remind us in terms of how you have some services secured and how you're thinking about inflation through 2023. I think you made a comment on maybe there's some tailwinds on pricing into 2024. Thank you. Sure. Happy to, Travis. This is Wade again. In terms of our 2023 program, all of the services and consumables needed for that program, with one exception, which I'll come to, have been secured for a long time. Even though, yeah, we see activity ebb and flow in the play and maybe it's picked up a bit, we're not concerned about our ability to execute this year's program. That's pretty much locked in. The only key piece that we chose purposely not to lock in was our casing and tubular costs and supplies. We've essentially been buying that on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Our view has been that steel prices were likely to at a minimum, stay flat, if not roll over this year. We wanted to take advantage of that dynamic, and so far that's worked out really well for us. The last two quarters' purchases, we've actually saw about a 10% reduction each quarter in the cost of the casing, and so that'll continue to be our strategy as long as we see that kind of dynamic in the market where we think future casing costs will be lower than today. In terms of our strategic procurement activity, as has been our pattern for several years, we're already working on 2024 and 2025 in terms of ensuring that we're securing the rigs and pressure pumping services and in certain places, consumables where we need them for those programs. We feel like we're fairly well-positioned there. You know, in terms of the broader ability to predict what costs will look like in 2024, it's a bit early to be firm about that. You know, it looks like on a broad basis, most of our key services and consumables have stabilized in price. That's probably about the simplest view we could give for next year. If we continue to see steel costs roll over, which are frankly the largest part of our drilling costs, that could give us a bit of a tailwind to see a little bit lower cost next year at a minimum. Okay, fantastic. That's great color. Always appreciate it. Thanks, Wade. That's all. Sure. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick O'Rourke from ATB Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Oh, hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question here. Sounds like a bit of an embarrassment of riches within the Bakken, Little Knife, Fort Berthold, and even Murphy Creek, everything that's going on. Maybe with respect to one of the assets in the portfolio that doesn't see a lot of attention here, you do have the three wells at Wattenberg that you're drilling this year. I'm just wondering if you could provide an update with the timing where we could expect to see some news, and then maybe more broadly, what the strategy with respect to value realization for this asset could look like in the future. Patrick. Yeah, we're not embarrassed. We're pretty proud. Yeah, you know, the DJ is, it's a great little asset. It's got strong economics. You know, little is sort of the key word for us. So we've declared that asset strategically non-core. You know, what does that mean? I mean, I guess that's code for we're open-minded to parting ways with it. We see a lot of value in that asset beyond just the producing 1,000 BOE/d level that it's at. In a market like this, which I'll characterize as volatile from an M&A perspective and sometimes difficult to transact, we made a decision that the best answer for that asset at this minute is to drill a few wells and unlock value that way at this moment in time. Relative to the timing on those wells and those sorts of things, I'll hand that off to Wade to talk about where we are in that program. This three-well pad that we've already begun execution on, returns look really solid. More than happy to bring those online this year. That'll be in the summer. Timing of new information really be in Q3. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Patrick. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue. All right. Well, thank you very much for your attention. Again, it's a busy reporting day for lots of folks. We'll let you get back to your day jobs and appreciate your support. Have a great, safe weekend. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.