Kolibri Global Energy Q4 2025 Earnings Call - 15% production growth, cautious but flexible drilling plan as prices climb
Summary
Kolibri delivered a year of operational momentum despite a brutal price backdrop. Production rose 15% to 4,013 BOE per day in 2025, with December topping 5,600 BOE/d, driving a three-year compound annual growth rate of roughly 35%. Costs stayed low, reserves and NPV improved even on a much lower evaluator price deck, and management is sitting on a small net debt load while continuing buybacks.
Management is cautious, but positioned to act. About half of current PDP is hedged through a mix of costless collars and a short-term swap, leaving meaningful upside if prices hold. The company expects to start drilling in the coming months, with a base plan of roughly three wells (each near $7 million) to maintain or slightly grow production, and the ability to scale quickly if the strip stays high.
Key Takeaways
- Production up 15% in 2025 to 4,013 BOE/day, December production exceeded 5,600 BOE/day; three-year production CAGR is ~35%.
- Operating expense per BOE improved to $7.33 in 2025 from $7.44 in 2024, signalling continued operational efficiency.
- Net revenue fell to $56.9 million, down 3% year over year, driven by a steep decline in realized prices during 2025.
- Adjusted EBITDA declined 4% to $42.1 million; net income was $15.5 million, or $0.44 per basic share, versus $18.1 million and $0.51 in 2024.
- Netback dropped to $31.49 per BOE from $38.54, an 18% decline, reflecting lower commodity realizations.
- Net debt stood at $46 million at year end, and management plans to pay down debt in H1 as cash flow from late-2025 wells and higher prices comes through.
- Share buybacks ongoing, with roughly 650,000 shares repurchased for $3.2 million to date; further repurchases contingent on working capital and credit availability.
- Reserves and valuation improved despite a lower price deck from Netherland, Sewell. Approved developed producing reserves rose 30%, and NPV increased about 10% even though the evaluator used a first-year price near $58/bbl.
- Hedging program: Q1 costless collars covering ~16,000 bbl/day at $58.50 to $77.25; an April swap at ~$94 for similar volume; additional collars across the year with new ranges around $61.50 to $91. Management says roughly half of PDP is hedged, leaving over 50% of production exposed to the market.
- Capital intensity: a typical well costs about $7 million. Management’s base plan is roughly three wells to keep production flat to modestly growing, implying low-twenties million dollars in CapEx, with flexibility to scale if prices remain elevated.
- Drilling timing: management is targeting June starts for this year’s program, with production impacts likely in early to mid third quarter, but they emphasize flexibility and the ability to move faster if conditions permit.
- Q4 operating expense spike was driven by a one-time workover. Management characterizes wells as generally low maintenance, and royalty burdens average around 22% of production revenue.
- Management tone: 'cautiously optimistic' on price durability. They have hedged to capture near-term upside, but are deliberately conservative in committing to a larger drilling program until cash flow and price trends stabilize.
Full Transcript
Conference Moderator, Conference Operator: Good day, welcome to the Kolibri Global Energy’s fourth quarter 2025 financials conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Media may monitor this call in a listen-only mode. They are free to quote any member of management, but are asked to not quote remarks from any other participant without that participant’s permission. If anyone has trouble and needs assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by 0. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I advise participants that this conference is being recorded today, March 19, 2026. This call will be available on the company’s website at www.kolibrienergy.com. Here is a disclaimer.
This call may include forward-looking information regarding Kolibri’s strategic plans, anticipated production, capital expenditures, exit rates and cash flow, reserves and other estimates and forecasts. Forward-looking information is subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results will vary from the forward-looking statements. This call may include forward, future-oriented financial information and financial outlook information, which Kolibri discloses in order to provide readers with a more complete perspective on Kolibri’s potential future operations, and such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. For a description of the assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based and the applicable risks and uncertainties and Kolibri’s policy for updating such statements, we direct you to Kolibri’s most recent annual information form and management’s discussion and analysis for the period under discussion. As well as Kolibri’s most recent corporate presentation, all of which are available on Kolibri’s website.
Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Kolibri undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking, future-oriented financial or financial outlook information other than as required by applicable law. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Wolf Regener, the President and CEO of Kolibri Global Energy Inc. Please go ahead, sir.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Hi. Thank you, Dave, and thank you everyone for joining us today. With me on today’s call is Gary Johnson, our Chief Financial Officer. As I’m sure you’re all aware, we released our fourth quarter 25 results this morning and had released our reserve report two days ago. We’re very pleased with what we achieved this last year, which continues to build on our last few years and results in multiple ways. Production from the field has been going well, with our production over 4,000 BOE a day, which is up 15% over 2024. This production rate calculates us to having a 35% compound annual production growth rate over the last three years, which is great.
Our operating expenses remain low with just over $7.33 a BOE, which is even lower than last year’s $7.44 per BOE. Our drilling program last year resulted in our approved developed producing reserves increasing by 30%. Even though the oil price used by our reserve evaluators in Netherland, Sewell is down substantially this year, our net present value is up 10%. The example of how significant the drop is, the first year’s price used in the evaluation is down 18% to $58 a barrel. This is obviously way out of line with the current oil prices that have been averaging in the 90s right now. Things are going well for us. With that, I will turn the call over to Gary to discuss our financial results.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Thanks, Wolf, and thanks everyone for joining the call. I’m just gonna go over a few highlights of our annual results for 2025, and then we can take questions at the end of the call. All amounts are in US dollars, unless otherwise stated. As we mentioned in our earnings release this morning, we reported a 15% increase in our production to 4,013 BOE per day in 2025. The increase was due to the new wells we drilled that completed during 2025, including four at the end of the year, which increased our December production to over 5,600 BOE per day. The production and cash flow impact of the last four wells will primarily be reflected in our 2026 results.
Our net revenue for 2025 was $56.9 million, which was a decrease of 3% compared to the prior year. Prices declined by 60% in 2025, which more than offset the increase in production. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 4% to $42.1 million compared to $44 million last year due to the decrease in revenue. Net income was $15.5 million and basic EPS was $0.44 per share in 2025 compared to $18.1 million with basic EPS of $0.51 per share in 2024. The decrease was due to the lower revenue and higher operating expenses due to the production increase. Our operating expense per BOE was $7.33 for 2025 compared to $7.44 per BOE in 2024, a decrease of 1%.
Our netback from operations decreased to $31.49 per BOE compared to $38.54 per BOE in the prior year, a decrease of 18% due to the lower prices. Net debt at the end of 2025 was $46 million. We plan to pay down on this debt level in the first half of the year as we achieve higher production from the wells drilled at the end of the year. We also benefit from the recently elevated oil prices. Then the last item I wanted to mention was our share buyback program. We have purchased almost 650,000 shares since we started buying back shares for a total of $3.2 million. We will continue to repurchase additional shares to enhance shareholder value as our working capital and credit facility allows.
With that, I’ll hand it back to Wolf.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Thanks, Gary. As Gary laid out, we had a good year. Well, oil prices were obviously challenging, and were lower this last year than previous years, but we still performed well. Company is in solid financial shape, and we announced our intention to start drilling additional wells in the coming months. We’re looking to continue the success we’ve had over the last years, that 35% compound annual growth rate for our production over the last three years has been great. The wells we brought on production late in the fourth quarter, as Gary indicated, are really having the biggest impact in 2026. The timing of the oil price increase right now is really benefiting our cash flow. Overall, our plan is to continue to execute and build and grow company value for all shareholders.
As Gary said, continue to buy back shares and we’ll drill more wells. We’ll continue to get the word out about the company to shareholders and potential shareholders, including, we’ll be attending the ROTH Conference next week, and we’re doing a fireside chat at the Lithium Summit on April first as well. We’ll continue to do other things throughout the year. This concludes the formal part of our presentation. We’ll be pleased to answer any questions you now may have.
Conference Moderator, Conference Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you’re using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star and then two. Our first question comes from Stephen Ferazani with Sidoti. Please go ahead.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Good afternoon, Wolf. Afternoon, Gary. I appreciate the color on the call this afternoon.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Hi, Steve.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Wolf, how are you, how are you thinking about, obviously a lot has changed in terms of the price environment over the last three weeks or so. How are you now thinking about the drilling program for this year as opposed to maybe how you were thinking about it pre-conflict or even what you were talking about late last year? I’m assuming that the thought is maybe to drill more wells this year than maybe previously thought.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. Cautiously optimistic is what I’ll say.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Okay. Fair.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: I don’t know if the industry believes that these prices are staying up. We don’t, you know, it’s, we’ll see how this all unfolds. As for most people, this is quite unexpected. We did take advantage of that a bit. We did a bit more hedging at the higher prices, so that helps too. As we are going forward right now, we’re just planning on seeing how everything unfolds. I mentioned that we’ll start drilling some wells here over the next coming months, and once we have firm dates on that, we’ll announce that as well. We’re building multiple locations out here, so that’s always a longer lead time. This way we can quickly move if we decide to extend the drilling program, drill more wells.
Like I said, we’re cautious in everything we do in general, and so it’s probably different this year. I do think prices are going to stay higher than they were before, no matter what happens, even if this ended tomorrow.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: I mean, we know what the strip is to the end of the year, right? Your balance sheet enables you to pivot pretty quickly if you did want to ramp up a little bit, right?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Right. Exactly. That’s why we’re doing the long lead items, making sure we have everything in place so we could quickly do things. That’s the big advantage we have, being the size we have, right? We can-
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Right.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Start and stop much faster than some of the bigger guys that are more rigid in their financial structure, where we have a small board where we can quickly make changes to what we have proposed for the year.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Got it. In terms of, I know it changes when availability of crews, but it sounded like you indicated in the release June would be when you might start this year’s drilling programs. Is that fair right now? Would mean production probably early to mid-third quarter. Is that sort of the target?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah, I mean, hopefully. We’ll see how things go. Hopefully, we can get started a little sooner than that. Yeah, I’d like to keep the June out there until we have everything firmed up.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: I’d rather underpromise.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah. Understood. Things change fast, right?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: A couple of numbers surprised me in the quarter. The realized natural gas price. I know that moves quarter to quarter. Again, the differential can move. Seems a little bit lower than I would have expected.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. That’s really hard for us as well because,
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: We sell all of our gas and our wet gas, which is our gas and natural gas liquids, and Exxon handles that. Where that goes and as far as how much gas is pulled out versus how much NGLs and things like that are all on their hands. We’re always assuming that we get the best price that is available because they’re doing the same thing for their own account.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yep.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: It does fluctuate, and it’s hard for us to forecast that, as it is for you, unfortunately.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: I understand.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Luckily, it’s not a big part of our stream, thank goodness.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Right. Absolutely. The higher production operating expense, I think you noted the fourth quarter.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yes.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: The workover. That should be one-time engagement, right? Okay.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Correct.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Okay.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: That’s exactly right. For the year, you know, we were still looking great, and we do have-
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Oh, yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Budgeted, you know, reworks throughout the year. It just depends on when they come in, and if it’s multiple in a quarter, then our wells are really low maintenance. We’re lucky on that.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Right.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: They do need maintenance from time to time.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Understood. In terms of, you noted a lot of the there were oil-rich wells you brought online, mostly.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: In the second half of 2025. You’d previously noted the much slower decline rates. Is that playing out over the last few months?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. I mean, we haven’t seen a change. We’re happy with how those wells performing. I think, Netherland, Sewell & Associates over the years has been increasing what our decline rates or decreasing the decline rates
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Right.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: I should say over the years. On the newer wells, they usually hit those a little bit harder, and then in the following years, they kinda bring it up a little bit because they do perform well. We expect the same thing out of wells we drilled last year.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Got it. Last one for me. You may choose not to answer, but given that it’s March nineteenth, can you give any sense of what 1Q production might look like?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. No, we haven’t put it out there, so I can’t really.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Okay.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Speak to that on this call, unfortunately. Yeah.
Stephen Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: I understand. Thanks so much, Wolf. Thanks, Gary.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Oh, absolutely.
Conference Moderator, Conference Operator: The next question comes from Po Frat with Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Hi. Good morning, Wolf. Can you
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Hi, Po.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Can you give me at least a ballpark on your CapEx, you know, for 2026?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: You know, we haven’t put anything out there, so I have to be careful. What I’ve said in the past is kind of my goal, and speaking just for myself, not from our board-approved or anything else, is to keep the production flat to growing a little bit in general. That shouldn’t take more than three wells or so. That’s kind of as close as I can get, from my own opinion, as far as what we should do for the year. Now that oil prices are higher, we’ll probably be higher than that. You know, if we add more wells, it adds a lot. Our wells are, you know, in the roughly $7 million range each. It just depends on how many we end up drilling for the year, so.
Once we have that pinned down, we’ll put that out precisely. Our CapEx, you know, will be lower this year than it was last year by a long shot, unless we really accelerate what we’re doing out there.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah. I guess closer to 2024, the full year CapEx for 2024, maybe even lower than that.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. I mean, yeah. As we talked about earlier, it’s like with we were going into this kinda talking about what we were doing with oil prices being a lot lower than they are. With that lower oil price number in mind, you know, I think from my point of view, I think it’ll end up being reasonable to drill, you know, three wells or so at least. That’s in the low twenties. Then if oil prices stay higher, I anticipate that, you know, we would recommend and the board would agree that we should drill some more wells. That would increase the CapEx quite a bit.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: That’s helpful. I apologize, I couldn’t find any info on your hedging program. Can you just summarize, you know, your hedging program for, you know, the first quarter and then the full year?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Gary, do you wanna take that? You probably have that in front of you.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. Well, the first quarter, we didn’t really hedge much recently ’cause it was already in March when the prices went up. For the first quarter, we have costless collars in place. We’re about 16,000 barrels of oil per day. The costless collar range is $58.50-$77.25. But we have hedged in April, we have a fixed price swap at $94 for 16,000 BOE per day. And then we’ve also hedged, like, next May and June as well in the 80s. We’ve basically done as much hedging as we’re allowed to do on our credit facility right now for the second quarter.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. Those hedges were about 500 barrels a day, wasn’t it, roughly?
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Just in rough numbers. Yeah.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah, rough numbers. Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: We have a substantial amount of our production that’s not hedged. I’d say over 50% that’s free floating still.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Is the second half production pretty much open right now?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: No, we still have hedges there.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yes.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: We still have some old hedges from the costless collars, right? We added some other costless collars. Go ahead, Gary.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah. We put in some more costless collars for the second half of the year. We have about half of these were entered into obviously before the price uptick. $50.25 is the low and $66.75 is the high. We just did new ones where the low is $61.50 and the high is $91. Those are our costless collars, and those take place across the rest of the year.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Right. That’s 50% roughly of our current PDP. Anything new that we drill.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Is completely unhedged.
Gary Johnson, Chief Financial Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Correct.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Okay. Great. Then when you look at your cost structure, you know, for 2026, any changes that you could highlight? I’m wondering about the royalty per barrel. Looked like it was, you know, pretty low in the fourth quarter. Is that just because of the prices or just can you help me understand how that might move in 2026?
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: The royalty percentage changes a little bit depending on where the majority of our production coming from, because each sq mi out here has a different royalty structure. In general, you know, we’re averaging 22-ish% burdens on everything. Then the dollar amount would float up and down with pricing.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yes. That’s all.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Because it is a percentage.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Because it is a percentage. Right. So.
Po Frat, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Great. Thank you so much.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: Absolutely. Thanks for the questions. Good talking to you.
Conference Moderator, Conference Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Wolf Regener for any closing remarks.
Wolf Regener, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kolibri Global Energy Inc.: I just wanted to say thank you, everyone, for participating and those of you that will hopefully listen to this later as well. We’re looking forward to having a really good 2026 year, and I think we’re off to a really good start between our production levels and the pricing, which is helping out. Thank you everyone very much. Have a great day.
Conference Moderator, Conference Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.