Granite Ridge Resources, Inc (NYSE:GRNT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Ciello : Appreciate that. Thanks, Luke.

Luke Brandenberg: Yes sir. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from a line of Jeff Robertson from Water Tower Research. Your line is open.

Jeff Robertson : Thank you. Good morning. Luke, with what you all have going on closing out the year with some of the incremental acquisitions, will that give you some production momentum as you start up in or as you head into the first quarter of 2024?

Luke Brandenberg: Yeah, good morning, Jeff. So, I’d say maybe a little bit, but most of the acquisitions, I referenced the one in the Haynes bill that was, plus or minus 20 million bucks. That was a little bit of production, but the vast majority of that is inventory weighted. That said, the group that we partnered with there, they’ll actually be completing some wells late this year. And so I’d say we could see a little bit of acceleration, if you will, or increase going into 24 from the $40 million increase. But I don’t think it’s going to be a ton. Most of that is really inventory weighted, where we may start drilling that next year at some point, but not necessarily immediately. We did have a little bit of a production buy that also mentioned, I guess it was through two transactions, that we were just fortunate to really get to capitalize on, hey, there’s some, late life funds and they may need to get out of assets.

The good funds, the fund made money, they just need to exit. And we were just a natural buyer and we could make it real easy for them. And so we did buy a little bit of production there, valuations that we’re very happy with. But it’s really de minimis in the big scheme of things.

Jeff Robertson : Is the Haynesville acquisition nearby the well that was brought in recently under budget and overperforming in terms of production?

Luke Brandenberg: No, not particularly. This one is going to be on the Texas side.

Jeff Robertson : Lastly, a question on the partnerships. I think you said you’d like to have one rig here in 2024. Is that one partnership, Luke, or would that be spread over a couple of different projects?

Luke Brandenberg: Yeah, good question. Glad you asked that. So the goal is for each partnership to have effectively a rig full time. Now, that may not be a whole rig again, if we’re, call it 70% of the unit. You’re not multiplying the full rig rate times 365 days, but it is one per group. And so really the objective is these guys are putting together deals or getting creative, getting scrappy and putting together drilling units and stacking one on top of the other, such that they can run a rig full time and just really try to get some of the benefits of it. So keep a rig running, so as to pick it up and putting it down.

Jeff Robertson : Thank you.

Luke Brandenberg: Yes, sir. Thanks for the questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from a line of John Abbott from Bank of America. Your line is open.

John Abbott : Good morning and thank you for taking our questions. Just thinking with the strategic partnerships. So, if I understand it’s going to be about one rig next year, related to basically one partnership 25% of CapEx. These partnerships, it’s it requires a little bit since you have a higher working interest requires a bit more capital. I guess, just starting off here, starting off here, and I know you want to grow that over time. But as you sort of think about, I mean, how quickly do you want to grow that strategic partnership capital? Since it is a bit more chunky and you do – you would be looking at a dedicated rig per partnership. Do you want to grow that gradually at 25% and like 50% and 175%? Do you want to grow that over a multi-year basis? How do you think about comfortably as you grow the business? How much to teach a capital do you want out there?