Vermilion Energy Inc. (NYSE:VET) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call November 2, 2023 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Dion Hatcher - President, Chief Executive Officer
Lars Glemser - Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Darcy Kerwin - Vice President, International and HSE
Conference Call Participants
Travis Wood - National Bank Financial
Dennis Fong - CIBC
Operator
Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Vermilion Energy Q3 Conference Call. Please note that all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
Mr. Dion Hatcher, you may begin your conference.
Dion Hatcher
Well, thank you, Sylvie. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. I’m Dion Hatcher, President and CEO of Vermilion Energy. With me today are Lars Glemser, Vice President and CFO; Darcy Kerwin, Vice President, International and HSE; Bryce Kremnica, Vice President, North America; Jenson Tan, Vice President, Business Development; and Kyle Preston, Vice President of Investor Relations.
We’ll be referencing a PowerPoint presentation to discuss our Q3 2023 results. The presentation can be found on our website under Invest with Us and Events & Presentations.
Please refer to our advisory on forward-looking statements at the end of the presentation. It describes forward-looking information, non-GAAP measures, and oil and gas terms used today and outlines the risk factors and assumptions relevant to this discussion.
Production during the third quarter averaged 82,727 boes per day, which was at the top end of our Q3 guidance range of 80,000 to 83,000. This is mainly due to the successful restart of the Wondu [ph] facility in Australia in early September and an efficient turnaround at the Corpus facility in Ireland, which was completed five days ahead of schedule.
In addition, we continued to see strong operational performance across the majority of our assets. We generated $270 million of fund flow, which represents a 9% increase over the prior quarter; we invested $126 million of E&D capital, resulting in $144 million of free cash flow, which represents an 80% increase over the prior quarter.
This level of free cash flow was more than sufficient to fund current asset retirement obligations, lease payments and the base dividend with the excess free cash flow allocated to debt reduction and share repurchases.
During the quarter, we returned $20 million to shareholders through the base dividend and share repurchases, and we have returned $115 million to shareholders year-to-date, representing about 35% of our free cash flow.