WhiteHawk Minerals (WHK) 2026财年第二季度业绩电话会：产量增长、收购与股息

核心要点

• 在超过11500口在产井的支持下，净产量平均约为70 MMcfe/日，较2025年第二季度增长57%，较2026年第一季度增长9%。
• 营业收入（含已实现套期保值收益）为2570万美元。调整后EBITDA达到2070万美元，可供分配现金为1740万美元，即每股0.63美元。
• WhiteHawk在IPO后两个月内签署了价值约1.12亿美元的收购协议。管理层预计，收购的资产将在2027年新增约16 MMcf/日的产量和1700万美元的增量现金流。
• 董事会派发季度股息每股0.50美元，年化相当于每股2.00美元。首期按比例派发的股息为每股0.11美元。
• 截至本季度末，WhiteHawk的净负债为5550万美元，拥有1.5亿美元未提取的循环信贷额度，杠杆率为0.67倍。
• 管理层计划维持其滚动套期保值框架，即未来12个月预计产量的约90%、随后12个月的80%以及第三年的60%。

核心财务数据

GAAP净亏损中包括2170万美元的债务偿还非经常性损失、1580万美元的非经常性管理费和激励费，以及170万美元的对赌负债公允价值非现金变动。

业务与运营表现

WhiteHawk的产量来自11500多口在产井。该公司还报告在360万总单元英亩的土地上，拥有500多口总可见井和9000多个总已确认未开发井位。

本季度约55%的产量来自阿巴拉契亚地区的马塞勒斯和尤蒂卡页岩，另有25%来自海恩斯维尔页岩。在马塞勒斯页岩，96%的产量由EQT、Range、CNX和Antero运营；在海恩斯维尔页岩，58%由Expand、Mitsubishi Adamas、Comstock和东京天然气运营。

WhiteHawk的收购策略包括较大规模的战略性交易以及向个人矿权所有人收购。管理层在马塞勒斯、尤蒂卡和海恩斯维尔确定了30亿至50亿美元的潜在战略机会，同时指出现场分散小额收购机会超过300亿美元。

已签署的约1.12亿美元收购项目集中在马塞勒斯和海恩斯维尔。管理层预计这些资产将在2028年带来更高的产量和现金流，使交易估值处于或接近此前讨论的6倍至7倍收购现金流倍数的低端。

管理层展望

管理层预计，在其阿巴拉契亚资产附近，为数据中心和人工智能提供支持的已宣布或计划中的天然气电厂将在2031年前增加7 Bcf/日的马塞勒斯天然气需求。管理层还提及有14 Bcf/日的液化天然气（LNG）出口缓建或在建产能预计将于2030年前投产。基于这些因素，公司预计到2031年天然气总需求增长潜力将达21 Bcf/日，管理层预计其中大部分将由马塞勒斯、尤蒂卡和海恩斯维尔供应。

公司计划将至少75%的可供分配现金进行分红。基于第二季度每股可供分配现金计算，每股0.50美元的季度股息覆盖倍数约为1.3倍。

WhiteHawk的目标是将长期杠杆率维持在调整后EBITDA的约1倍水平。为帮助为其已签署的收购融资，公司获得了5000万美元E类优先股的投资承诺，初始股息率为10%，且可随时赎回。

风险与关注领域

WhiteHawk仍面临天然气价格波动的风险，不过管理层正利用大量套期保值头寸来保护现金流和股息的可预见性。第二季度期间，96%的天然气产量以4.02美元的价格套期保值，83%的原油产量以62美元的价格套期保值。

收购策略带来了执行和融资方面的考量。管理层强调纪律严明的项目选择和保守的资产负债表，但新发行的E类优先股初始股息率将达到10%。

来自数据中心、AI发电和LNG出口的未来需求仍取决于已宣布项目的推进时机和完成情况。管理层表示，其对阿巴拉契亚地区7 Bcf/日的发电需求预测是保守的，同时也承认最终规模和时间节点存在不确定性。

分析师问答精选

• 套期保值策略：管理层表示，WhiteHawk预计将继续维持其90%/80%/60%的滚动套期保值框架。公司每月对头寸进行审查，并期望通过套保量之外的产量增长以及在大宗商品价格较软时期进行的收购保留上行空间。
• 近期收购：与San Jacinto相关的资产是IPO前确定的近期机会之一。WhiteHawk自2024年起就已拥有该阿巴拉契亚资产的一部分，这使其在同意收购额外权益之前就具备了运营历史和对资产层面的熟悉度。
• 资产负债表能力：在基础业务和并购资产EBITDA增长的支持下，管理层重申了长期将杠杆率保持在1倍或1倍以下的目标。
• 一体化天然气运营商：WhiteHawk预计将受益于大型运营商的中游一体化以及获得更高天然气实际实现价格的能力，而无需直接为基础设施建设提供资金。
• 数据中心需求：管理层表示，运营商对该机遇规模的看法总体一致，尽管部分生产商在把握这一机遇方面似乎处于更有利的地位。WhiteHawk旨在使其特许权收益敞口与这些运营商保持一致。

业绩电话会议完整文字记录

完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the WhiteHawk Minerals Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions].

I will now hand the conference over to John Ragozzino. Please go ahead.

Unknown Executive

Good morning, and welcome to WhiteHawk Minerals Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial condition, results of operations and future performance.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to WhiteHawk's SEC filings for a statement of discussion around these risk factors. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements, except as required by law.

We may also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in yesterday's earnings release on our website.

With me on the call today are Daniel Herz, Chief Executive Officer; and Jeffrey Slotterback, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Daniel.

Daniel Herz

Thanks, John. Good morning, and welcome to the inaugural WhiteHawk Minerals Second Quarter Earnings Call. It's good to be back. To quote Plato from the Republic, the beginning is the most important part of the work. Plato's original meaning is, of course, much deeper than business and relates to education, character and the formation of the soul. I do believe this quote is directly applicable to WhiteHawk Minerals though. We must create the right character and soul of our company, a character rooted in working every day to deliver for our shareholders, protecting the downside while benefiting meaningfully from the significant upside potential, and we are off to an excellent start.

WhiteHawk is uniquely positioned across our 3.6 million gross unit acres to benefit directly from the largest operators in the most economic natural gas basins with zero capital expenditures and minimal operating expenditures. This positions us to benefit from the tremendous work and capital deployment by EQT, Range, CNX, Antero, Expand and others, resulting in significant cash flow and dividends to our shareholders.

That means shareholders are directly tied to these operators while receiving significant returns through dividends and reinvestments through acquisitions of additional minerals and royalties. We have previously discussed a two-pronged acquisition strategy, strategic or larger acquisitions and ground game acquisitions.

Since our initial public offering just two months ago, we have executed on both prongs, signing definitive agreements for acquisitions totaling nearly $112 million. Those acquisitions focused in the Marcellus Shale and Haynesville Shale are expected to add approximately 16 million cubic feet per day in 2027, which we expect will add approximately $17 million of incremental cash flow.

Further, we expect these assets to generate even more production and cash flow in 2028, placing the acquisition squarely within and even to the low side of our 6 to 7x acquisition cash flow multiple previously discussed. When I consider the potential for WhiteHawk Minerals, I see several ways for us to succeed.

First, our strategic and ground game acquisition strategy; second, the exposure we have to the two most economic natural gas basins in the U.S.; third, our mineral and royalty ownership benefiting from the largest natural gas producers in the U.S.; and fourth, the medium- and long-term significant tailwinds behind natural gas.

While I consider these areas the primary drivers of value at WhiteHawk, I first and foremost balance that with protecting the downside risks, something we focus on every day and something I believe we have done a very good job at through our balance sheet and natural gas hedging strategy.

I will discuss each of these drivers in more detail shortly. But first, I want to briefly review our second quarter operational results and then later on hand it off to Jeff Slotterback, our Chief Financial Officer, to review the financial results.

We delivered a strong second quarter with net production of approximately 70 million cubic feet equivalents per day of natural gas. This was an increase of 57% over the same period in 2025 and a 9% increase over the first quarter of 2026. We generated this production from our more than 11,500 producing wells.

We have more than 500 gross line-of-sight wells, positioning us for solid production from our asset base over the next year. We have then benefited from our more than 9,000 gross identified undeveloped locations across our 3.6 million gross unit acres.

In the Marcellus Shale, 96% of our production came from EQT, Range, CNX and Antero. WhiteHawk currently receives royalties on 43% of their combined gross production. That is Whitehawk receives 43% of their combined gross production.

In the Haynesville Shale, 58% of our production came from Expand, Mitsubishi Adamas, Comstock and Tokyo Gas. Whitehawk currently receives royalties on 45% of their combined gross production.

For the quarter, approximately 55% of our production came from the Marcellus and Utica Shale in Appalachia with an additional 25% from our Haynesville Shale assets. Our line-of-sight wells carry a similar basin weighting. And of course, as a reminder, we receive royalties on 13% of total U.S. natural gas production, making us what I believe is the premier natural gas mineral and royalty owner.

Now to dig in deeper on how I expect WhiteHawk to succeed and outperform. With respect to our acquisition strategy and opportunities, we see between $3 billion and $5 billion of strategic acquisition opportunities in front of us in the Marcellus, Utica and Haynesville Shale. These are larger opportunities owned by private equity firms or funds later in their fund life.

We have limited competition for these opportunities, and I believe our acquisition announcement today demonstrates the depth of our relationships and ability to execute. Furthermore, the ground game opportunity where we buy from individual mineral owners is well over 35x our existing asset base or over $30 billion.

We currently own a 0.51% royalty interest on our gross acreage position out of an average 17% royalty rate. And of course, there are additional minerals surrounding our position that we are interested in purchasing. To that point, given our massive footprint, we have tremendous data on our operators and on all of the wells on our position and the surrounding position, which I believe provides a unique data advantage.

And not only do I believe it is a significant advantage to have the amount of information that we have, some of our operators agree and have entered into partnerships with us to buy on the ground ahead of the drill bit in defined areas, opportunities that augur well for WhiteHawk's acquisition future.

Next, being exposed to the two most economic natural gas basins has several benefits to WhiteHawk.

First, development activity remains robust in both high and low natural gas price environments, which helps mitigate downside at WhiteHawk.

Second, because we are in a power race, situating new natural gas power generation next to the most economic areas not only makes sense, it is exactly what is currently happening.

There are 21 announced new or planned natural gas power plants to support data center and AI power demand surrounding our Appalachian assets, which is expected to add 7 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas demand in the Marcellus Shale by 2031. Finally, having our production and footprint in the Haynesville Shale gives us direct access to the growing liquefied natural gas export markets.

Currently, there are 14 billion cubic feet per day of LNG export facilities under construction, which should be online by 2030. So in total, we expect 21 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas demand growth by 2031, much of which will be met by growth in the Marcellus, Utica and Haynesville Shale.

Third, our current and future production is tied to the largest natural gas producers in the United States. These operators spend billions of dollars per year developing our position, working with power companies, hyperscalers, LNG export facilities and many others to ensure both production and demand is balanced, not just over the next year, but over the next decade and beyond.

Benefiting from EQT, Range, Antero, CNX, and Expand uniquely positions WhiteHawk to benefit from their expected growth. And finally, the macro tailwinds of natural gas are very strong. I often say I want WhiteHawk to do well when prices go up and when prices go down.

But with that said, when we look out over the next five years, it is extremely encouraging. I have touched on this already, but when we look at the demand growth from LNG exports and power generation for data centers and AI, we see a natural gas price environment, which will demand higher prices to incentivize operators, our operators to develop their position more quickly to meet that demand.

It is that simple, and WhiteHawk Minerals will benefit. So, we are off to a good start. But let's be clear, we are just getting started. There is a lot more to do on the acquisition side. We will remain disciplined, but we will take advantage of the opportunities as they come. Our asset base will then be even larger when the macro tailwinds develop into a higher natural gas price environment, which should further drive shareholder returns beyond just the immediate accretion to cash flow and net asset value per share.

In the meantime, we will continue to work to drive our cash flow per share and grow our dividends to shareholders. With that, I will hand it over to Jeff to review the financial results.

Jeffrey Slotterback

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you all joining us today for WhiteHawk's first earnings call as a public company. Over the next several minutes, I'll walk you through our second quarter results, starting with our operating revenue and cash flows. I'll also cover the initiation of our quarterly dividend and close with a look at our balance sheet and liquidity before we open the line for questions.

During the second quarter of 2026, our average realized natural gas price for the quarter was $3.43 per Mcf, including hedge settlements compared to a $2.42 per Mcf before the effect of those hedge settlements. For context, Henry Hub first-of-the-month pricing averaged $2.90 per MMBtu. For the quarter, our natural gas volumes were 96% hedged at $4.02, while our oil volumes were 83% hedged at $62. We hedged a substantial portion of our expected production on a rolling basis, specifically to protect our downside, secure predictable cash flows and enhance the visibility of our dividend.

On a forward-looking basis, we look to lock in through fixed price swaps, 90% of our production for the next 12 months, 80% of our production for the following 12 months and 60% of our production in year three. The intent is to keep protecting our downside while retaining exposure to the upside from our acquisition strategy, our operators' continued development of their positions and the long-term tailwinds for natural gas supply and demand.

Moving to our financial results. Our operating revenue, which includes the realized gains on our hedging instruments, was $25.7 million for the second quarter. Total asset cash flow was $22.4 million for the quarter, including the $3.3 million or $0.52 per Mcfe of operating expenses incurred during the period, which are included within revenue on our income statement.

Total asset cash flow for the second quarter represented a 10% increase from $20.4 million realized in the first quarter of this year. On a GAAP basis, our total revenue was $29.1 million, including an additional $6.7 million in unrealized mark-to-market hedge gains.

Our adjusted EBITDA, which is effectively comprised of our asset cash flows less G&A expenses, was $20.7 million for the second quarter after giving effect to our $1.78 million of G&A expense, which excludes certain nonrecurring IPO and other transaction-related costs.

Below EBITDA, let me cover our financing costs and taxes for the period, which our earnings release presents as adjusted for the effects of the IPO. Concurrent with the closing of the IPO, we reduced our senior notes to $75 million outstanding, which bore interest at an 8.5% effective rate, giving an implied net interest expense of $1.6 million for the quarter.

Also pro forma for the IPO, we have $46 million of Series B preferred stock outstanding, which pays a 10% coupon or $1.2 million for the quarter. During the second quarter, we paid $550,000 of estimated cash income taxes during the period related to 2026.

In total, our cash available for distribution for the second quarter was $17.4 million or $0.63 on a per share basis based on our $20.7 million of adjusted EBITDA for the period. Adjusted EBITDA, cash available for distribution and cash available for distribution per share are non-GAAP measures.

Reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP measure are available in our earnings release and on our website. On a GAAP basis, net income for the period, which includes costs associated with our IPO and the internalization of our former external manager, specifically a $21.7 million nonrecurring loss on the extinguishment of debt, $15.8 million of nonrecurring management and incentive fees and a $1.7 million noncash change in the fair value of our earn-out liability resulted in a net loss of $39.2 million, which brings me to our dividend.

On August 12, our Board approved the initiation of our first quarterly cash dividend at a rate of $0.50 per share or $2 per share on an annualized basis. This initial dividend has been prorated for the period from the closing of the IPO on June 10 through quarter end, resulting in an initial declared dividend of $0.11 per share. That dividend is payable on August 28 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 24.

Our $0.50 dividend implies 1.3x coverage by cash available for distribution per share on a full quarter basis and reflects our expectation to pay out at least 75% of our cash available for distribution as a public company.

Finally, before opening the line for questions, let me turn to our balance sheet and liquidity. In June, WhiteHawk completed its IPO, generating gross proceeds of over $220 million, including our exercise of the Greenshoe overallotment. With the IPO proceeds, we repaid more than $162 million in debt in total, reducing our notes outstanding to $68.7 million at quarter end. We fully retired $37.8 million of our Series B preferred equity and additionally redeemed approximately $10 million of our Series B preferred equity.

We exited the quarter with net debt of just $55.5 million and maintained an undrawn $150 million revolving credit facility. As of quarter end, we were 0.67x levered. In order to fund the approximately $112 million in acquisitions signed since our IPO, we have received commitments to fund a $50 million Series E preferred at closing of the SJM II acquisition in late September.

The Series E preferred will initially bear a coupon of 10% and can be redeemed at any time. We are committed to a conservative balance sheet, and we target long-term leverage of approximately 1x adjusted EBITDA. Maintaining that discipline protects our dividend, preserves our flexibility to act quickly on acquisition opportunities and is fundamental to how we intend to build long-term per share value for our shareholders.

With that, I thank you for your time this morning. Rebecca, could we please open the line for questions?

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Wayne Cooperman with Cobalt Capital.

分析师问答

Unknown Analyst

My question is kind of longer term on your hedging strategy. There's a pretty strong case out there that gas prices are going to be materially higher a few years from now. At one point do you kind of pull back from hedging? Or do you just think that the future curve will get it right and you'll just keep riding.

[Technical Difficulty]

[Music]

Operator

Please hold for technical difficulty.

Daniel Herz

Wayne, can you hear us? Sorry about that. We actually took space in what we thought was an impermeable office, but it turns out it was permeable.

Unknown Analyst

I don't know, I'm sorry if I broke your call, but I don't know if you heard my question or we got cut off before.

Daniel Herz

We couldn't really hear it, but I heard about hedging. So if you would start off.

Unknown Analyst

I guess my question is, given that there's a pretty strong case to be made for gas to be a lot higher in the future, at what point do you modify your hedging program? Or do you just think that the futures curves will get it right and you'll just ride the curve higher over time?

Daniel Herz

Yes. I think that's what you should continue to expect from us is that we will layer in, as Jeff laid out, 90%, 80%, 60% on a rolling basis. We meet as a hedge committee monthly and review it. And then, of course, as gas prices rise, we expect our operators to respond with increased production above levels that we were hedged at. So we'll benefit from that increased production. And oftentimes, sometimes we root for lower prices because it offers opportunities like we've been executing on to buy more assets at what we think are attractive prices and then benefit over the 3-, 4-, 5-year period in a substantially increased asset base.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Scialla with Stephens Inc.

Michael Scialla

I wanted to ask about your Slide 5 with your acquisitions. I think there were two strategic acquisitions that you did with San Jacinto here. And were those any of the nine that you had identified that you talked about when you did your, prior to your IPO? And maybe just how you would characterize those acquisitions, what you acquired relative to what you've done in the past?

Daniel Herz

Yes. Thanks, Mike. I think, so one, yes, this was part of what I would characterize as $0.5 billion of immediate opportunities in front of us that we had identified on the page that you're talking about. We see, as we talk about $3 billion to $5 billion of larger deals, but we really saw $500 million plus immediately in front of us.

As a reminder, for those less familiar new information, we've done a number of transactions with this group. And in fact, this asset in Appalachia, in particular, we bought 20% of it back in 2024. So we've owned a portion of this asset, which is the best way we think to do due diligence is to own the asset for multiple years, understand it intimately. And then we've purchased through the announcement last night, or we've entered an agreement to purchase another large portion of that asset.

So actually, there's still more potentially for us to buy there, which is very exciting. And then that's the vast majority of the $105 million, but there's also an asset in the Haynesville that they owned that we've been monitoring for several years as well and trying to buy. So this was a great opportunity for us to put the assets together in our two primary areas and acquire them.

Michael Scialla

Very good. And I want to see how you're thinking about the balance sheet heading into the year. You talked about your goal of keeping leverage around 1x with these acquisitions and it looks like you might move a little bit above that near the end of the year. Just how you're thinking about what's your appetite for more acquisitions given what sounds like a robust market and how you balance that with the leverage, looks like you're going to have at the end of the year?

Daniel Herz

Yes. So I mean we have a number of, I think we think, attractive tools that have allowed us to grow over time. We're targeting below 1x leverage. I would think about I would think about our business, the base business and then the ground game acquisitions and beyond our ability and really our expectation to grow our EBITDA. So we end up nicely below 1x levered over time. So we feel really good about where we are. I think we feel even better about where we're headed.

Operator

Your next question comes from Noelle Parks with Tuohy Brothers.

Unknown Analyst

One of the things that's kind of developed over the last couple of months is there are signs of, I guess, increasing number of the big producers heading towards more of an integrated gas model, buying or buying back midstream infrastructure. And I was just curious your thoughts on it either broadly or if you have more specific instances where you think it could be called for? And does that figure into your investment decisions as you look to expand?

Daniel Herz

Yes. I think you're really touching on something that positions us in a unique way in that we are so well tied to the largest U.S. natural gas producers. 49% of EQT's production pays us royalties, 57% of Expand's production in the Haynesville pays us royalties. So we want to be not just in the core of the most economic natural gas basins in the U.S.

We want to be exposed to the largest, most well-capitalized operators. And very specifically to that, it's because of their, I would say, integrated model and ability to achieve the highest price for natural gas for us as the mineral owner. So we spend no capital, obviously, on midstream acquisitions or infrastructure of size, but we benefit from their pricing that they're able to achieve.

So I mean, we've obviously track our operators very closely. We're in regular direct communication with them. I think it's a trend very much worth watching. It's a trend we benefit from. I think you're going to see it beyond midstream, and I think it bodes well for us.

Unknown Analyst

Great. And among your operators, when it comes to the data center power market opportunity, which we all know is going to be large. It's tough to sort of decide kind of what order of magnitude it will ultimately be. But are your operators pretty much aligned in their view on sort of the quantity of power in the various regions and the timing of when that will be needed? Or are there any sort of contrarian views among the guys you're dealing with?

Daniel Herz

Well, it's very interesting the way you phrased it. I don't think I don't think there are much in the way of contrarian views. I think there are certain operators that are doing a better job at taking advantage of the opportunity in front of them. You'll, obviously, and you do a very good job of assessing who the better operators are at taking advantage of the data center and AI power demand growth that's coming. We like to align ourselves with those best-in-class operators who are, we think, taking better advantage of those opportunities. But I mean, I think you'll have noted in my remarks, I was commenting at 7 Bcf a day of in-basin power demand growth. We obviously see and hear from our operators the potential for significantly more than that.

But we think when we peel back the story and try to take a very conservative outlook at what the demand side is going to look like in Appalachia and around the U.S. on the power side and looking at gas turbine generation and then layer on the LNG export growth that's coming, we've tried to take a conservative bent and even doing that and then, of course, factoring in pipeline takeaway that's coming out of the Permian, we still very much see an environment that's going to demand higher natural gas prices as Wayne was asking about in the first question, we really see a robust environment over the next five years.

Unknown Analyst

But as I said again to Wayne, we anchor ourselves in protecting the downside, delivering our cash flow, delivering our dividend. And then as we have in our past companies, let the positive tailwinds come to us. If we do that, I think we're going to do extremely well here at WhiteHawk Minerals.

Operator

Your next question comes from Selman Akyol with Stifel.

Selman Akyol

Congratulations on a good inaugural quarter. I just wanted to ask about the Series E because it looks like it's structured to be taken out over the next several years the way you have it positioned, and you noted it could be called at any time.

So I guess I'm asking, one, what are your long-term plans for financing that? And then b, as you think about your acquisition game going forward, should we look for more of these preferred to be used and then taken out over time?

Daniel Herz

Thank you. Thanks for the kind words, and thank you for the question. So this is a type of security we've used in the past, and it's been quite effective for us in being able to execute and really grow WhiteHawk from the beginning. we have a number of tools to be able to grow our business and pieces of capital to grow our business.

We are constantly looking for the absolute most efficient way to drive cash flow and net asset value per share through those securities. And that's exactly what we're going to do on a go-forward basis with our capital structure as well as with all of our acquisitions.

What's really nice is when we look at this acquisition and we look at the capital structure, we see significant accretion on cash flow per share, on net asset value per share, and that bodes well, we think, for value in the short, medium and long term here.

Operator

This is the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Daniel Herz for closing remarks.

Daniel Herz

Great. Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you all again very soon. Bye.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.