Riley Exploration Permian, Inc. (AMEX:REPX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Noel Parks: Sure. Absolutely. And then just thinking about the infrastructure, gas infrastructure, third-party issues that cropped up. I guess, as you look ahead, any changes in your thoughts as far as what you’re spending you might be doing looking to, I don’t know, head more towards trying to either shift vendors or you consider contributing some capital of your own towards improving infrastructure. If any changes in your thinking on that recently?

Kevin Riley: Our view on that is somewhat stayed consistent as we’ve always been looking for opportunities to better optimize the field and production and long-term takeaway in both assets, both the legacy and the new. We do see opportunity to continue and invest alongside current midstream providers in addition to opportunities that we’ll take on, on our own. But I don’t think that, that will materially sway capital allocation or the amounts of capital we spend going forward relative to what we have in the past.

Noel Parks: Sure. And I mean, in a perfect world, I guess, for Riley and then the other producers that offset you. In a perfect world, would it just be sort of just — unlimited capital to get out and fix an upgrade of a bunch of different facilities or pipelines? Or is it just one of those things that there’s only so much you can do so fast, just given trying to keep your current infrastructure up and running and sort of making changes incrementally.

Kevin Riley: I think there’s a combination of both, both assets are challenged with different midstream constraints or issues. New Mexico is more of a legacy system, so older pipe, looking to help build and put some more integrity into that system for sustainable gathering in addition to plant capacity expansions, both of which are currently ongoing in New Mexico and Texas. So we do have line of sight into 2024 for some more capacity. In addition to that, we have our own internal projects, such as the on-site power generation, which, as I mentioned, that will be coming online shortly, which will utilize some infield gas along with other initiatives we are working on.

Philip Riley: I just add one more thing, Noel. We do see this as an opportunity for capital investment. Some of it might be remediation, but some of it is absolutely an opportunity for investment. This goes back to Bertrand’s question on capital allocation, ensuring we have liquidity to capitalize on these opportunities. So what’s interesting about this, it can’t be capital intensive, but we’re finding smaller, more modular type of opportunities. An example is the power. Kevin mentioned and other things that could be analogous to that. What’s interesting for that when you mix it with an E&P is the type of decline profile that has, which is typically flat or even an incline. So these are things that we’re excited about. We’re working on now and we’re earmarking some capital potentially for next year.

Operator: Your next question is from David Dernick of the Dernick Companies.

David Dernick: My question for you today is more operational. Could you give us any insights into the ongoing repressization, CO2 waterflood that you have going on, on the Texas side? And are there any plans to expand that? And then secondly, are there any updates on any movement for the potential sequestering of the CO2 project?

Bobby Riley: David, this is Bobby. I’ll start that. We’re continuing the pilot program on what we call our Brushy Bill lease. We have what we believe has obtained miscibility pressure over the last 30 to 45 days. And we’re at the point now where — as we’re injecting gas, we see production response. As we shut the gas off, the production drops. So we knew now that we are in immiscible state. So it’s still a long-term project though for us to evaluate what the ultimate impact could be in a field-wide application. But so far, we’re encouraged with what we’re seeing in the field. I don’t know exactly how to discuss the carbon sequestration. We continually look for opportunities out there because that would obviously have a tremendous impact on the viability of a wider spread tertiary project using CO2.