Ovintiv (OVV) Valuation Update - Feb 2

[dan_s]

On January 31st Ovintiv Inc. (NYSE: OVV) (TSX: OVV) ("Ovintiv" or the "Company") announced that it has closed the previously announced acquisition of certain Montney assets from Paramount Resources Ltd. < Adding approximately 70,000 Boepd (~25,000 bpd of oil).

The acquisition adds approximately 70 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day ("MBOE/d") of production, 900 net 10,000 foot equivalent well locations, and approximately 109,000 net acres of land, strategically located near the Company's current Montney operations with ample access to midstream infrastructure capacity.

"We are set to rapidly integrate the new Montney asset into our portfolio," said Ovintiv President and CEO, Brendan McCracken. "We consider it to be one of the highest quality undeveloped acreage positions in North America. It extends our premium Montney oil and condensate inventory life to approximately 15 years and positions Ovintiv as the premier operator in the play. This transaction, when combined with the impact of our recently closed Uinta asset sale, is accretive both immediately and long-term across all key financial metrics.

Our 2025 Non-GAAP Free Cash Flow is expected to increase by approximately $300 million, at current commodity strip pricing." < The net cash cost for the Paramount Acquisition and the Unita Sale is just $400 million. In addition, Ovintiv's net production increase is approximately 41,000 Boepd, making this an incredible combination of trades. Per my forecast, Ovintiv's 2025 operating cash flow should be over $4.5US Billion. I am expecting their 2025 capital program to be less than $3 billion.

When the transaction was announced in November of 2024, the purchase price was valued at $2.377 billion (C$3.325 billion). At that time, Ovintiv entered into currency swaps to manage the risk associated with purchasing an asset denominated in Canadian dollars. With current foreign exchange rates, the purchase price at closing is approximately $2.307 billion (C$3.325 billion) and the realized losses associated with the currency swaps are approximately $97 million.

The Company plans to issue its full year and first quarter 2025 guidance with the release of its fourth quarter and full year 2024 results on February 26, 2025.
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Since I already included both transactions in my 2025 forecast, my valuation stays at $70US/share.

OVV closed at $42.22 on January 31st.

TipRanks: "In the last 3 months, 15 ranked analysts set 12-month price targets for OVV. The average price target among the analysts is $58.00." < The 15 price targets range from $44 to $70. < None of the analysts have updated their price targets since January 28. The 5 most recent price target updates (Jan 16 to Jan 28) are $59, $60, $64, $68 and $68.

Timing should be good on OVV because (a) it will be reporting a big production increase in Q1 2025 and (b) it should be getting a lot more price target increases as analysts that cover OVV put the impact of the two transactions that closed in January into their models.