International Petroleum Corp

STO:IPCO

Earnings Call Analysis

IPC Optimistic on Third Quarter Achievements, Plans 2024 Buyback

The company reported strong third-quarter results with production exceeding 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, in line with full-year guidance. Operating costs remained controlled at just below $18 per barrel, and the company lowered capital expenditure guidance from $365 million to $330 million. Significant cash and undrawn credit facilities have bolstered liquidity to over $650 million, adding resilience despite global uncertainties. The Blackrod Phase 1 project is progressing on schedule and on budget. Hedging strategies show foresight, with gas and staking hedges yielding profits and locking in favorable Canadian oil production pricing. The Board approved a new share buyback program for 2023-2024, ensuring a continuation of shareholder returns. CEO succession is announced with Will Lundin poised to maintain the company's strategic direction.

Executive Overview of IPC's Performance and Strategy

IPC has demonstrated impressive performance in the third quarter, delivering production above 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, surpassing the full year guidance. With disciplined operational costs controlled below $18 per barrel and capital expenditures reduced from $365 million to $330 million, the company has maintained robust financial health. CEO Mike Nicholson and CFO Christophe Nerguararian have emphasized IPC's strong cash generation backed by solid commodity prices, resulting in operating cash flow nearing $120 million in Q3 and projecting full year cash flow between $340 million and $365 million. The Blackrod Phase 1 development is both on schedule and on budget, while shareholder returns are prioritized through share repurchase programs, with a commitment to renew through 2024.

Strategic Financial Management and Investment in Growth

IPC continues to adopt a proactive approach towards shareholder returns, committing to return at least 40% of free cash flow to shareholders, given a strong balance sheet with a net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio below 1x. The company is on track to complete its 2023 share repurchase program by early December, with plans for a similar initiative in 2024. This strategy, alongside the successful disposal of a non-core asset at a significant premium to its net asset value (NAV), underpins IPC's philosophy of creating value while actively managing its portfolio and capital allocation. The company's Blackrod project exemplifies IPC's commitment to growth, with a $850 million investment plan for the development of substantial oil reserves, reinforcing its strategy of robust investment in core assets that shape IPC's production and reserve base.

Robust Cash and Capital Structure Fostering Flexibility

CFO Christophe Nerguararian highlighted IPC's staunch capital structure, with a net cash position of $83 million and gross cash reserves over $540 million. The liquidity, combined with an undrawn credit facility, affords IPC significant financial firepower exceeding $650 million. This positions IPC advantageously to tackle potential market uncertainties, fund the heavy CapEx year in 2024, and sustain its strategic investments such as the Blackrod project. The company's cautious yet assertive approach to managing capital expenditures, hedging activities, and maintaining a strong balance sheet speaks to its resilience and prudent financial management.

Looking Ahead: Sustainable Growth and Leadership Transition

Heading towards the final quarter, IPC is on a path to meet or exceed its tightened guidance ranges, thanks to its operational efficiency and strategic financial planning. Sustainability remains a core focus, with IPC's ambitious target to halve its net emissions intensity by 2025. The upcoming leadership change, with Will Lundin set to succeed Mike Nicholson as CEO, positions IPC for continued growth and success. Nicholson's move to the Board, combined with a history of 19 years at the helm, ensures a seamless transition preserving IPC's culture of value creation within the oil and gas sector.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Okay. So a very good morning to everybody, and welcome to IPC's Third Quarter Results and Operations Update Presentation. My name is Mike Nicholson. I'm the CEO of IPC. Also joining me this morning and presenting is Christophe Nerguararian, the CFO; and Rebecca Gordon, who is our VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Planning.I'll be beginning in the usual fashion by walking through the operations report. Christophe will then run through the detailed financial numbers. And then at the end of both presentations, we'll of course, have the opportunity to take any questions that you have and you can send your questions in via the website or we can also take questions from the conference call.So to get started with the Q3 highlights. It's been another very solid quarterly performance from the company in terms of production. Our third quarter production numbers were above 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. So still in a good position to retain our full year guidance of in excess of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.On the cost side, third quarter operating costs were very much in line at just below $18 per barrel, and we are maintaining, again, the full year OpEx guidance of between $17.50 to $18 per barrel.In terms of our capital expenditure guidance, trimming that slightly from $365 million down to $330 million. And of course, the major growth project is our Blackrod Phase 1 development, and that's very much on schedule and on budget.Cash flow generation of the company, strong production, solid commodity prices during the third quarter led to very, very high cash flow generation. Third quarter OCF was just under $120 million, and we've updated and tightened the guidance range for our full year cash flow numbers to between $340 million and USD 365 million, assuming that oil prices, Brent remains between $80 to $90 per barrel during the fourth quarter.Free cash flow likewise was also very strong, $35 million in the third quarter and prior to the funding of our Blackrod in excess of $100 million So extremely solid cash flow generation and as with our OCF we are tightening our free cash flow guidance to between minus $15 million and plus $5 million assuming the same $80 to $90 per barrel oil price.The balance sheet has never been better. The net cash position of the company stands at $83 million. That's an increase from the second quarter. Gross cash resources stand in excess of $540 million and we've seen a turbo charge as a result of the $150 million bond tap that we completed during the third quarter. And we've also been able to increase and the RCF that we haven't ever used from CAD 150 million up to now CAD 165 million and that's completely undrawn and when you put all those liquidity lines together, that means that the company has in excess of USD 650 million of financial firepower. Pretty formidable.On the hedging side, we continue to benefit through October for about 50% of our net long gas production with our eco hedged at $4.10 per MCF. Also, in terms of our differential hedging for 2023, we've got some WCS ARV hedges which relate to the transportation component of the differential. We've hedged 12,000 barrels per day at minus $10 per barrel. And in the fourth quarter, those mark-to-market on those hedges is more than $4 a barrel. So we're going to see some nice hedging gains during the fourth quarter on that position.We have for the first time started to take advantage of the strong commodity price environment that we've seen recently. And we've hedged 25% of our Canadian production WTI exposure at some of the highest prices that we've seen for forward 24th prices in excess of $80 per barrel.We announced during our second quarter results that we had hedged 50% of our WCS differential exposure. We have topped that up to now 75% hedged at an average of $15 per barrel, and with some of the recent news of some delays in trans mounting we have seen differentials gap wider for next year to in excess of $17 per barrel so the timing on those hedges looks to be quite prudent.We have also increased the Canadian dollar, U.S. dollar hedges in relation to our Blackrod Phase 1 development project, pushing that up to now in excess of 70% given the strong U.S. dollar that we have seen in recent weeks.On the M&A side, I will come back to this, but we managed to conclude during the third quarter the disposal of a non-core property in France for $17 million, 0.6 million barrels of 2P Reserves and we managed to dispose of that at a 220% discount to NAV, so a very nice transaction there.And then finally, last but not least on our share buyback, share repurchase program, we're now 90% complete with this year's normal course share bid. We've repurchased 8.4 million shares and we fully intend to complete the entire program by early December. What's also extremely positive news this morning is I'm delighted to announce that we're going to press repeat on the normal course issuer bid. The Board has approved for us to renew the normal course issuer bid in early December 2023. And we plan and intend to complete another buyback NCIB program through 2024.So to go into a little bit more detail on production, as I mentioned in the highlights, our average daily production during the third quarter was just over 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.In Canada, very strong performance from all the major producing assets. If you look at some of the production investments, great results. I'll go into a bit more detail on our next slide from our 3 Suffield Ellerslie program that's exceeding expectation. You're also going to see really solid results from the early drilling at Onion Lake and Pad L which has been brought online ahead of schedule. And when we look at the international business, the French 4-well drilling program that was completed early in 2023 continues to perform ahead of forecast and our Bertam planned shutdown which was a 2-week shutdown was completed and slightly earlier than scheduled with an expanded work scope. So really phenomenal job by all of our countries of operations through the third quarter.And this next slide and just shows the results of each of the main production investments through the third quarter of 2023. If we start with the chart on the top right-hand side of this slide, you can see the 4-well program is part of our Ellerslie drilling program on the Suffield property, that was the Cor4 acquisition. You can see that we're producing still today and well ahead of our pre-drill guidance.In France, on the bottom right-hand side of this slide, you can see the continued outperformance of the 4-well drilling program, 3 wells in Villeperdue West and 1 sidetrack well in Merisier in France. And again, we are almost 50% higher today from that drilling programme relative to pre-drill expectations. So great results.And on the bottom left hand side of the slide, the most recent activity, which is bringing into production the pads, the first 2 wells from our Pad L, you can see that we're more than a month ahead of schedule of starting up production from that new well pads and we're running hot on the ramp up. So again, great results across all 3 of those programs during the quarter.So what does that mean in terms of the full year guidance? Well, with year-to-date production for the first 9 months running at 51,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day, we still feel extremely comfortable that we expect our full year numbers to be above the high-end of our original guidance in excess of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. And I certainly expect us to be somewhere in the 50,000 to 51,000 barrels a day range.Turning to operating cash flow now, so very strong first 9-month cash flow generation, just under USD 280 million, with average Brent prices for the first 9 months of $82 per barrel. And we have taken the opportunity to tighten the guidance for the full year on the right-hand side of this slide to now $340 million, assuming Q4 oil prices of $80 Brent and up to $365 million if oil prices are around $90 million -- $90 per barrel for the fourth quarter.On the capital expenditure side, it's a record investment year in our growth projects for IPC, progressing the Phase 1 development works at Blackrod, as we mentioned during our second quarter results, we signed a major facility EPC contract during the second quarter. We've already spent around $200 million so far in the first 9 months of 2023, and we're revising down slightly our CapEx budget for the full year, and down from $365 million down to $330 million, predominantly as a result of the phasing of our Blackrod capital expenditure.So we've got strong operating cash flow, record investment, but I think what's been really impressive is we've still been able to fully fund the investment this year in our growth projects out of the base business cash flow. First 9 month free cash flow has been USD 67 million, we've still got a big quarter of investment in the fourth quarter, but we expect to be broadly break-even, and if you look at the most recent guidance that we're just given today, we expect free cash flow to between somewhere minus $15 million, $80 all, or up to plus $5 million, assuming $90 Brent. So largely fully funding our highest ever investment year in the company and out of the base business cash flow generation.So to turn now to IPC's shareholder return framework, this is not new, and as long as our balance sheet's in good shape and our net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio is below 1x, we've made a commitment to return at least 40% of free cash flow to shareholders. We announced our intention at the beginning of this year to go well beyond that minimum commitment, and given the fact that the balance sheet was in such a strong position with $425 million of gross cash, we made the commitment to conclude the normal course issuer bid through 2023, and that's exactly what we've done. We've bought back 8.4 million shares since December of 2022, we're 90% complete with that program, and we bought back the average purchase price of the stock and was SEK 101 per share under the 2023 program.And if you look at the longer term track record of the company, I think this is something that we've been really proud of year-after-year to consistently be able to grow the business production, reserves, cash flow, and combine that with buybacks and reducing the share count, and I think that's a real winning combination for all of our shareholders.So far we've repurchased more than 60 million IPC shares, with an average price of only SEK 63 per share, and if you look at the pre-market opening share price of SEK 115 per share, that means that we've generated close to $280 million of value for all of our shareholders through those various buyback programs, and obviously very pleased to announce again that we plan to continue that anti-dilution staircase, and the board has approved for us to renew the 2023-'24 NCIB program, and we intend to fully complete that during 2024.That means that the share count should drop to close to 120 million shares by the year end, which will result in only 6% dilution and from when the company started, and of course with 5-fold increase in production, with a 16-fold increase in 2P Reserves, 20 years almost added to our reserve life, and a huge undeveloped contingent resource inventory of in excess of a billion barrels, 4x cash flow, and more than $3 billion of value created. If we can continue to reduce the share count and add to all of these metrics, then we can deliver exceptional above peer group returns for all of our shareholders in the years ahead.If we look at this next slide in our market cap liquidation, and what we're looking at here is just a 5-year and a 10-year free cash flow, and with $1.4 billion of free cash flow at $95 per barrel forecast over the next 5-years, it means that in just that first 5-years we can just under $95 oil price buyback every single IPC share that's outstanding. And if we look at the 10-year outlook with the major growth and position that the company finds itself in, oil all prices of less than $75 per barrel, we can actually buy back the entire share count 2-fold. So very, very strong cash flow generation metrics for the company.And likewise, if we look at IPC through the value lens, this is our third-party reserve auditors valuation at the beginning of this year, effectively using real oil prices of $80 per barrel, and our NPV 10% of our assets is just over USD 3.5 billion, and if we look at where the stock was trading yesterday at market close SEK 115 a share, that's a 62% discount to where we see the fair value of our 2P Reserves, and of course that doesn't assume that we develop any of our billion barrels of contingent resources, we don't do any value creative M&A, so it's why we're so keen to continue to hammer away at the share count and continue with our share buyback program.This next slide just touches upon the non-core disposal that we announced in Canada this morning, so these were some small production in the John Lake and Fishing Lake area in Alberta, production was just under 400 barrels of oil per day, so really only 0.7% of IPC's 2023 production, very favorable trading metric, Canadian in excess of $60,000 per flowing barrel, and also if we look at the reserves, relatively small, 0.6 million barrels of 2P Reserves or 0.12% of IPC's 2P Reserves, and with a consideration not insignificant of USD 17 million, that's 220% of our NPV 10% of this asset, or 1.4% of IPC's enterprise value.So if we can sell non-core assets at more than 2x and buyback our existing stock at $0.30, -- $0.40 in the dollar, and that's a really efficient way to allocate capital and this can effectively fund 20% of our 2023-2024 buyback program.So just to walk through each of the individual assets in a little bit more detail, our Blackrod Phase 1 development project, IPC holds 100% working interest in that project, we took the decision in February of this year to sanction the Phase 1 development, and that will see us invest USD 850 million to build a 30,000 barrels a day facility, tapping the first 220 million barrels of 2P reserves, with more than 1 billion barrels of undeveloped contingent resources in the surrounding area, and we're still very much on schedule and on budget to deliver first oil in this project in late 2026.This next slide just shows the high level schedule with planning and the commencement of fabrication in the workshop in 2023. Next year, we start to mobilize the site to move into the manufacturing and the construction phase, and as you can see we plan to start the commissioning of the facilities in late 2025, with a first all day towards late 2026. And I think it's always helpful just to see a picture tells a thousand words.And if we look at this next slide, and you can see some of the progress, last quarter we showed we didn't increase the bridge size and replace the bridge on the main access road, if you look at the picture on the bottom of this -- bottom middle of this slide, you can see now the road widening activities that are going on, and on the bottom right hand side of this slide you can see that we put the piles in place, and we've actually started the assembly of the construction camp in advance of the CPF construction which should commence next year. And then on the bottom left you can see the progress made in the workshop on the manufacture of one of the treater vessels.So the EPC contract as we said was signed back in the second quarter, that was a major project milestone, we've increased the hedges, 70% of our Canadian dollar exposure has now been locked in, and we plan to potentially even do some more in the fourth quarter, and cost and schedule is very much in line with expectation from the previous slide.Turning now to Onion Lake Thermal, and with the introduction of the production from the 2 new wells at Pad L, we've been pushing up against that facility nameplate capacity of 14,000 barrels per day, and again just a recap from the production investment slide, you can see on the bottom right hand side of the slide here just the fact that those 2 new wells came on more than a month ahead of schedule, and the ramp-up has been ahead of forecast, so off to a great start there with the new Pad L, and a great job done, and congrats to the Onion Lake Thermal team.Turning to the Suffield area assets, I think if you look at the bottom left hand side of this slide, you can see the large jump that we got to our oil production as a result of the Cor4 acquisition, we now call this Property Brooks, and going forward we've seen really good performance from the initial results of that drilling program.And if I jump to this next slide, and again it's a recap from earlier in the presentation, with that promising start that we've seen to the first 6 wells that we've planned to drill as part of the 2023 program, with production running ahead of pre-drill guidance, we've taken the decision to actually expand the drilling program now up to 8 wells. So adding an additional 2 wells to the 2023 program, and that should stand us in really good stead going forward with still in excess of 30 remaining targets on this exciting play that we brought into the IPC portfolio at the beginning of this year.And now turning to Malaysia, we really successfully delivered a huge work scope actually, it was planned to be a 2-week shutdown, and we had 35,000 man hours, more than 4 support vessels for this major shutdown and turnaround, and everyone came home safely, so it really was a tremendous job by the whole team in Malaysia to deliver that under budget and ahead of schedule.We did have 2 wells that failed during the third quarter, and so we've scheduled them for work over in Q4, typically we always forecast 1 to 2 wells to go down during the years, we've been fortunate that we haven't had to in recent time, and we've got a rig that will come to site in November, and we should have those 2 workover's completed by January of next year. And the team in Malaysia are still excited about the upside development potential in the Northeastern part of the field, and we'll see if there is any future drilling locations in that part of the field. If I was a betting man, I would say, there's maybe one more.Turning to France. It's been a really long life, stable, low decline asset. If we look at the production plot on the bottom right-hand side of the chart here, you can see that we've benefited from the investment program, the new wells that were brought into production, the 3 wells at Villeperdue West and Merisier Sidetrack, those very much in producing well in excess of our pre-drill expectations. So again, great job done there by team France.And then just on Sustainability and ESG, it was a really solid performance, a lot of activity, particularly with the Bertam turnaround, no safety incidents or environmental incidents year-to-date. We published our fourth sustainability report alongside our second quarter results and our climate strategy, very much on track to be reducing our net emissions intensity by 50% through the end of 2025.So that concludes the operations part. I'll pass across to Christophe now, and you can walk through the detailed financial numbers. So, Christophe.

[Christophe Nerguararian, executive]

Thank you very much, Mike. Very happy to be here this morning to present what clearly is a very strong quarter. The results have been carried by strong operational performance, and obviously, the strongest oil prices and the best netback we've seen for the whole year.So with the production in the third quarter in excess of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, we were happy to confirm that we maintain a positive outlook for the whole year with a guidance for this year, which should be in excess of 50,000. Clearly, strong Brent and WTI prices, but as well a fairly tight differential. I'll come back to that, which together with OpEx per barrel under control at $17.9, below $18 for this quarter, translated into a very strong EBITDA and operating cash flow.If you look at the 9 months operating cash flow and EBITDA, actually with this strong quarter, we're fairly close to the capital markets, the guidance for the first 9 months, if you extrapolated what it meant from the full year to 3 quarters.And with capital expenditure, which is a bit below our initial guidance, that translated into very strong free cash flow. The free cash flow for this quarter alone is as much as the free cash flow for the first 2 quarters and the same for the net results.Looking at the realized oil prices, as I was saying, you can see that clearly in this third quarter, prices were as high as they have been for the whole year. And we've been continuing to sell our Malaysian cargoes at $7 to $8 premium to the Brent dated Brent's benchmark. And in France, we've been selling our production in line with the dated Brent.Now, as you can tell, the WTI/WCS differential was fairly tight at $13 per barrel, and that translated into a very strong and good WCS level at $69. And you could compare that to the third quarter in 2022, where despite the Brent being $101 per barrel, the WCS was only $3 higher. So that differential is very important. As Mike mentioned, I'll come back to that. We've hedged a good chunk of our exposure for 2024 already.Looking at the gas, I mean, we locked in in Q4 2022 for the bulk of 2023. We had very good hedging levels when the gas prices were running very hot on the back of the Russian war. And we've benefited from those hedge levels throughout this year. This is coming to an end at the end of October. And so the market is between CAD 2.5 and CAD 3 per McF, so lower than the CAD 3.50 we used during our Capital Markets Day. But as you can see, the realized gas prices, we've managed to be at or above the market price by having a proactive marketing strategy.Looking at the operating cash flow and EBITDA, so I think it's interesting because if you compare Q3 this year to Q3 last year, you can see that we're catching up there. If you look at the 9 months, year-to-date operating cash flow EBITDA, we're lagging, obviously, compared to 2022 where the Brent on average was in excess of $100. But it's interesting to see that the third quarter is not that different with EBITDA and operating cash flow around $120 billion. And that goes a long way to explain again that IPC has a very high torque towards high oil prices. And when you have high oil prices and good WCS or tight WTI/WCS differential, clearly, the financial performance is very strong.In terms of operating costs, again, very happy to report that we expect the full year operating cost per barrel of oil equivalent to be within the fairly tight guidance range. We announced previously of between $17.5 to $18 per BOE. You can see an increased OpEx per barrel in the second half of this year. In the third quarter, that was mainly driven by the shut-in in Malaysia to perform some maintenance work at the FPSO Bertam. And in the fourth quarter, it's driven by a bit of a reduced production, again, from Malaysia, waiting for us to workover the 2 wells, which will come back on stream in the first quarter next year.Strong -- very strong netback during this quarter at above $25 and $26, respectively, for operating cash flow and EBITDA per barrel of oil equivalent. And interestingly enough, that compares to around $28 per BOE of netback, which we guided at our Capital Markets Day in a $100 case. And obviously, that's driven by the very tight WTI/WCS differential during this quarter.And even for the year-to-date performance, the netback on the operating cash flow at EBITDA per BOE was around $20. And that is just $1 shy of our base case for the Capital Markets Day.Looking at our net cash evolution here from an opening cash position of $175 million down to where we stand now at $83, I think, it's really interesting to realize that with an operating cash flow of $280 million year-to-date, that was enough to cover all of our CapEx, all of our G&A, all of our financial costs, and as well the acquisition of Cor4, which as Mike mentioned, is performing very, very well.In addition, as you can see here, and as Mike mentioned, we've completed 90% of our share buyback program, which we intend to complete by the end of November. And there's a reasonably large change in working capital here, which includes some decommissioning costs, some time differences in the way we pay some taxes, and as well, the discounts when it's relating to the bond tap.But very happy that we are sitting on actually $540 million of gross cash, $83 million of net cash, and that really puts the company in an extremely strong footing to embark on the heavy CapEx here next year in 2024.Interesting to look at what the net interest expenses are. Very, very small, at less than a 1 million this quarter, and actually it's been less than a 1 million per quarter. And that's interesting, because we've raised more bonds, issued more bonds at 7.25% coupon, and actually the yield of the last bond tap was higher than that. But because we're able to deposit all U.S. dollars, all Canadian dollars at -- on deposit rates in excess of 5%, sometimes in excess of 5.5%. We generate lots of financial interest income, which nets off the actual coupon cost. So long story short, a reasonably low net interest cost for debt.And on the G&A, that remains very much under control at less than a $1 per -- USD 1 per BOE. So if you looked at our financial results for the first 9 months, with $655 million of revenues, we've generated a cash margin of $291 million, gross and net profit of $211 million, $143 million for the year. So very strong performance again, I would say, for this year-to-date performance.Looking at the balance sheet, I mean, the 2 or 3 main points are the increase in the oil and gas properties. That's a direct result of the CapEx program, we've done so far this year, mostly investing into Blackrod Phase 1, but also, as Mike mentioned, some drilling in France earlier this year, and some other investment at Onion Lake Thermal, bringing on stream fuel wells. So that $200 million increase on oil and gas properties is the direct result of development CapEx.On the liability side of the balance sheet, you can see the increase in the bonds. Now we have USD 450 million of bonds outstanding. There's a small discount relating to the issue, discounts, which will unwind over the next 3 years. And the equity increase is the direct result of the positive net profit we keep on adding to that row on the balance sheet.The capital structure of the business is very strong. It's not changed fundamentally. We've just added more bonds. And I think I want to preempt 1 question, which I've heard before, which is, why do you expand a fully undrawn revolver credit facility in Canada? Why do you tap the bond market when you're already sitting on so much cash? Well, I think the answer is we don't need and we don't believe, we will need all that cash resources. But in 2020, nobody expected COVID to break out, obviously. So we don't know what we don't know in the future. What we know is we've embarked and we want to conclude successfully the investment in the Blackrod project.So the Blackrod project is on time and on budget. There's no hidden message by increasing the strength of our balance sheet here, to be very clear. But we know what we're committing to. And so we want to be covered in any case with a strong balance sheet. And sitting on lots of cash gives us that flexibility and very much align our balance sheet with our strategic pillars, which are to invest in Blackrod, to continuously look at M&A, even though we're not looking at anything material right now, and to continue if not accelerate share buyback or return of capital to shareholders if oil prices remain very strong.In terms of hedging, we had been quite active in 2023. I mentioned about the gas hedging, which has yielded very strong results, more than $10 million hedging profit this year. We also have this oil hedges for the transportation cost between Hardesty and Houston for heavy oil, which is in the money as we speak.And as Mike mentioned, I think one of the key drivers you've understood, if you've been following our story, that the WTI/WCS differential is important. And so given that we will have some important CapEx for Blackrod next year, we've decided to hedge 75% of our WTI/WCS exposure for the Canadian oil production next year. We managed to lock that in at minus USD 15 per BOE per barrel, which is a decent level and it's in the money because the market rate is minus $17 as we speak. And we've also decided, as we guided in the past, to hedge 25% of our Canadian oil production at the WTI level of $81. So effectively, for 25% of our Canadian oil production, we have locked in a WCS price of $66.81 minus $15. And for another 50% of our Canadian oil production, we've locked in the differential at minus $15.We also locked in some condensate prices. We need to buy condensate to blend it with our production in order to sell it at the WCS specification. And we've managed to lock in good prices for 3,000 barrels a day in Q4 this year and Q1 next year, which are the months when traditionally condensate trades higher. We managed to lock in the price of WTI minus $1.6 when it usually trades at the premium in the winter months. And 3,000 barrels a day stands for roughly 50% of the condensate we need to blend with our Suffield and Onion Lake crude oil production.We've been also proactive this year and added FX -- on FX hedging because we are spending most of our cost locally in Canada in Canadian dollar, in Malaysian ringgit in Malaysia. The U.S. dollar is very strong against those currencies, and so we've hedged between 2/3s and 75% of our local currency exposure for next year, with also 70% of the Blackrod CapEx overall until the end of 2025 hedged at also a fairly good level, I would say, at CAD 1.33 per U.S. dollar, which puts us in a very strong position to really manage the budget for Blackrod.And that concludes my part. I will leave Mike to walk us through the last slide.

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much, Christophe, and an amazing set of numbers. So I'm just opening up, I just lost my slide there.So yes -- so just to conclude the -- with the highlights, -- sorry it's just locked up. So a very, very solid third quarter performance by the company, and if we just recap on theproduction numbers, another quarter to the third in succession above our high in guidance of over 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, so of course, we do expect the full year numbers to exceed 50,000. That was in excess of our original high in guidance. The cost delivery remains really solid with third quarter OpEx below $18 per barrel, and our full year guidance unchanged at between $17.50 and $18 per barrel.Embarking upon our biggest ever investment year in the company's history with full year CapEx now expected to be around USD 330 million, and as Christophe touched upon, and I mentioned, share buybacks and returns have been one of our core strategic pillars. We're 90% done on the 2023 program. We plan to complete that by early December, and we're going to do the same again, or we intend to, with a renewal and completing that program through 2024.Cash flow numbers extremely solid, good production, tight differentials, solid commodity prices led to operating cash flow of just under $120 million, $35 million of free cash flow during the quarter, and we expect to be largely free cash flow break even with somewhere between minus $15 and plus $5 million for the full year. The balance sheet has never been in better shape with net cash of $83 million, gross cash of $543 million, and with the RCF undrawn liquidity lines of in excess of USD 650 million.The sustainability strategy and climate strategy is very much on track with a plan to reduce our net emissions intensity by 50% through the end of 2025.And last but not least, I'm very pleased to announce this morning that Will Lundin will be stepping up to succeed me as the CEO of IPC. After 19 years working with both Lundin Petroleum and IPC, it's time, I think, for me to take a slightly different role and step up onto the Board of this amazing company and continue to watch the progress. Will is an exceptional individual. He's lived and breathed value creation in the resource industry and the oil and gas space. I think the time is very good right now with such a strong balance sheet and a reserve life of in excess of 25 years and 1 billion barrels of undeveloped contingent resources, I think, we're going to be in great hands and this is very much in line with the way we like to run our succession planning within the Lundin Group.So I would like to just thank very much the Lundin family, the IPC Board, and particularly the amazing team of professionals within IPC corporately here in Geneva, in Canada, France and Malaysia, and also to all of the shareholders and analysts that's been a privilege to engage with over these years.So that concludes the presentation part. Happy to pass across now and take any questions that you may have.

[Operator]

We will take the first question from line Ruben Dewa from Jefferies.

[Ruben Dewa, analyst]

And I just wanted to say my congrats on your tenure as CEO and wishing yourself and William all the best on your new roles. So just one on the CapEx phasing into 2024 for Blackrod, just wanted to check if is all that CapEx falling in 2024? Or will it be split over a number of years to first oil?And secondly, I just wanted to ask you what are your views of the major milestones for Blackrod up until first oil? And are you still exploring perhaps farming out any interest in Blackrod?

[Christophe Nerguararian, executive]

Yes. And I think in terms of the phasing of the CapEx, just to be clear, in typical IPC fashion, when we set the budget this year and next year, we took a relatively conservative position. So we expect to be spending the budget as fast as we can possibly move, burning through all of the contingency. We don't want to be coming back to increase our CapEx guidance.So I think the fact that if we see some CapEx move into next year and some into 2025, that's more driven by our conservative nature with respect to how we budget and how we like to guide and outperform as opposed to anything with respect to worrying about the schedule, so very much on schedule and on budget with the project.But I think the major milestones we set out in the presentation, so of course, it's really the road access, which we've started work with and we've started work also on expanding the road. As we move into next year, the major activities will be getting that construction camp completed with the mobilization of the -- from the workshop of the main vessels to the site. The pipelines, which are expected to commence in 2024. We're already looking to start to sign a couple of the main pipeline contracts.So again, everything there is very much on schedule. And the drilling, which is the other key part of the project, which is expected to commence next year. Maybe we can even start that late this year. So I think on all the key work scopes, the civil works, the fabrication, getting ready to start, the CPF construction, the drilling in the pipelines, I think everything is very much running as we would expect that.

[Operator]

It appears no further question. I'll hand it back over to your host for closing remarks. Thank you.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

Thanks, Operator. We've just got a couple of questions here from the internet. Mike, how is the Onion Lake capacity expansion going? And how is the current levels of production for Onion Lake?

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Yes, good question. I think as we showed on the slide with respect to Onion Lake, with the new Pad L and the contribution from the 2 wells, we've been actually pushing up towards the facility capacity limits of 14,000 barrels per day.There is, of course, the option to look at expanding that production capacity. But I think we want to wait for at least a year or so to see the sustained production can be retained at those levels before deciding to invest in additional facility expansion. And of course, that will be driven by how much return we can make by investing in increasing the facilities, say up to 16,000 barrels a day and accelerating that production.But I think we want to at least run the plan for a sustained period at those levels. But we're certainly very much off to a good start with Pad L.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

Yes, very good. And a couple of questions from different people relating to the non-core asset divestments. Are there any other non-core assets that we can look at divesting, if we're getting such good prices for them?

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Yes, I mean, I think at the margins, there are always some small land position, mainly in Canada, I would say. So given the very favorable results that we saw and the amazing job done by the team in Canada, if there's any additional small non-core packages, then we'll look to tidy those up in the months ahead.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

Christophe, there's a couple of questions around the share buybacks. Is there a level where we will buy back less shares in terms of the NAV?

[Christophe Nerguararian, executive]

Yes, it's a very good question. And obviously, if you look at the discounts we're trading at, I wish we will very soon be in a position where there's no such discount. But as long as there's such a wide discount, I don't see a reason to stop buying back our shares. It makes tremendous sense to do it to create more value for shareholders.As Mike mentioned, even if it's a smallest that asset we disposed of, if we can get 2x to 3x the value from an NAV basis and recycle that to buy our shares back at a 60% discount, I think it's a very good use of our capital.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

And Christophe, perhaps another question on 2024 activity. How does the Blackrod CapEx phasing impact other 2024 activity and any catch-up effects from the movement 2023 to 2024?

[Christophe Nerguararian, executive]

Yes, I think it's fair to say, as Mike mentioned, that 2024 is really going to be the CapEx year for Blackrod. And I think it's going to dwarf any other activity that we'll be looking at investing in next year. So, I think generally, it's too early to guide. We'll give all the details in early February, obviously, for 2024. But it's a fair assumption to say that, really the vast majority of our investment efforts will be on Blackrod Phase 1 next year.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

And finally, there's quite a few comments here. Thank you, Mike, for your great work as CEO. I won't read them all out because they'll get a big head on his way out. But yes, lots of comments on that and looking forward to a very bright future with Will as CEO. So, that's the end of the internet questions.

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Great. Well, thank you very much. Another amazing quarter. Congrats again to all of the IPC team and very much looking forward to my new role on the Board and wish Will all the best of luck. I know, he's going to drive the company to new heights. So, look forward to tracking that progress.

[Christophe Nerguararian, executive]

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mike. It's been absolutely a great honor, pleasure. It's been amazing to work with you and for you. I think it's fair to mention that from all the team and from all the colleagues around the world, it was a privilege. We will definitely try to run with the team and Will as fast as you've been running and pushing us over the last 5 years, I think, with Will. It's a challenge we're willing to take and Will is so much full of energy and has a clear vision for the business that I think we should -- we're embarking on a very, very exciting phase.The only downside is you'll be asking all the tough questions on the Board and knowing exactly firsthand what's happening in the car, who's driving, who's doing what. But very much looking forward to continue working with you in your different role and taking on the new challenge with Will, who's an exceptional leader. Thanks.

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Thanks very much, Christophe. Thanks.

[Rebecca Gordon, executive]

Thanks, everyone.

[Mike Nicholson, executive]

Okay. Thank you.