Q4 2022 CNX Resources Corp Earnings Call

Speaker 2: posted an updated slide presentation to our website.

Speaker 3: Also, detailed fourth quarter earnings release data, such as quarterly EMP data, financial statements, and non-GAAP reconciliations are posted to our website in a document titled 4 Q2 022 earnings results and supplemental information of CNX resources.

Speaker 4: As a reminder, any forward-looking statements we make or comments about future expectations are subject to business risks which we have laid out for you in our press release today, as well as in our previous Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Speaker 5: We will begin our call today with prepared remarks by Nick, followed by Alan, and then we will open the call up for Q&A where Nav will participate as well. With that, let me turn the call over to you, Nick.

Speaker 6: Good morning everybody. 2022. It marked the best year ever for C-N-X as a public company with respect to free cash flow generation.

Speaker 7: The fourth quarter marked 12 consecutive quarters of significant free cash flow generation, which helped produce the annual record of $707 million. We utilized the free cash flow to reinvest into the asset base. We used it to reduce debt and we used it to acquire our discounted shares.

Speaker 8: Cumulatively, you add all this up, we've retired nearly 25% of the outstanding shares of the company since the inception of the Share Repurchase Program in 2020. And to put this in a perspective in terms of the total impact, the cumulative result of acquiring nearly a quarter of our company in this short period of time.

Speaker 9: It's been matched or bested by only four other companies in the S&P 500 and only by 22 companies in the S&P 1500.

Speaker 10: So when you consider the steep discounts in price that we enjoyed when acquiring our shares relative to the low risk, long term, free cash flow yield, and the intrinsic per share value, CNX may very well be one of one in the S&P 1500 universe of public companies. We're basically doing two things at the same time, material share account reduction.

Speaker 11: and at the same time at a substantial discounted price. And by the way, while we typically reference share repurchases since the midstream acquisition, that's our most recent share count high, we've been consistently repurchasing shares since 2017. And we're potentially just getting started because if we continue to see...

Speaker 12: substantially undervalued shares, we're going to continue to opportunistically acquire ourselves to grow for share value for owners.

Speaker 13: Stepping back for a moment to assess the results of the past few years, it's clear that at the halfway point of our initial seven-year plan that we provided in 2020, we've exceeded our initial expectations.

Speaker 14: The long-termism that wraps around our sustainable business model and it's embedded in our decision-making It's beginning to add up to incredible achievements on our key objective of long-term low-risk free cash flow per share and more importantly Allocating that free cash flow thoughtfully to produce.

Speaker 15: in the end, a drastically reduced share count and reduced debt level. This underpins our ability to grow long-term free cash flow per share in multiple different macro environments and that those macro environments could play out over the next decade plus and these results they're symptomatic of our consistent strategic thinking as well as our execution.

Speaker 16: Now, turning back to the shorter term outlook, despite the important success of 2022 and the continuing march of our long-term strategy, we find ourselves amid very chaotic times.

Speaker 17: There are broader macro challenges, I'll call them, that the industry has to contend with moving forward. In particular, we've got increased inflationary pressures in the second half of 2022. You couple that with the rapid deterioration of pricing through this winter, you're seeing the near-term challenges throughout the industry. In CNX, we're not immune to either challenge, albeit I will say,

Speaker 18: we are better positioned than most due to our midstream ownership, our focused activity set, and due to our programmatic hedging strategy. So although these two issues are going to impact near-term free cash flow generation, we're still able to execute the core tenants of our sustainable business model.

Speaker 19: basically just as we've consistently done year after year across all phases of the macro and commodity cycles.

Speaker 20: Despite the challenges we see out there today, companies next seven years is gonna set up to be vastly improved when compared to the original seven year look that we laid out again back in 2020.

Speaker 21: Now, why we can consistently generate substantial free cash flow per share goes back to the foundations of our competitive moat. Much of that is captured in our Appalachia First Vision. I encourage you to review it if you haven't seen it already or to revisit it if it's been a while and you want to take another look at this.

Speaker 22: but many of the competitive advantages that CNX brings to bear, they are tied effectively to the strengths of the Appalachian region itself. So allow me to summarize the three largest contributors to the CNX competitive moat. The first advantage we got unique stack pay position in Appalachia with the Marcellus and the Utica.

Speaker 23: presents an unparalleled opportunity to lead the development of what we think is going to represent one of the world's top two most prolific natural gas basins.

Speaker 24: Second major strategic advantage that we've got, integrated upstream midstream structure that allows us to make long-term investments that generate high rates of return by basically creating the lowest cost all in operating costs in the basin.

Speaker 25: And then the third strategic advantage, it's our opportunity set that we're seeing with our new technologies business segment in arenas of things like methane capture and abatement, with respect to transportation fuel market development, with respect to just overall general technology deployment. They continue to differentiate us and create a growth outlet.

Speaker 26: for CNX as the world continues to focus on lower emission and lower risk energy solutions. All three of these pillars or strategic advantages support a sustainable business model that generates that significant free cash flow to simultaneously reinvest into the business, to reinvest into reducing debt.

Speaker 27: and to reinvest into acquiring our discounted shares year after year. It's basically a long-term recipe for success when anchored by that Appalachia First Vision at the core or at the root.

Speaker 28: In 2023,

Speaker 29: Each of these themes or these advantages are playing out in different ways when you look at our capital allocation. So some allocation decisions such as our core D&C program, you know, they're very familiar to all of us. Other capital allocation decisions such as those in the new technologies segment, they were discussed, we talk about them in 2022.

Speaker 30: but now they're becoming tangible decisions in 2023. So allow me to touch on each of these broad buckets of capital investment for 23, at least in summary form Alan's going to cover these in much more detail shortly.

Speaker 31: So the first sort of category or bucket, it's that core of our 2023 capital investment, and it's the continuation of a one and a half RIG plus one FRAC crew D&C program to continue the development of our core Southwest Pennsylvania assets.

Speaker 32: This is the bulk of 2023 capital spend as expected and it's subject to the inflationary pressures that I alluded to earlier. However, today's higher capital costs, I will point out they're more than offset by the increased pricing outlook that we continue to programmatically hedge.

So in other words, our project level returns, they remain robust in this environment, thanks to our consistent de-risking approach. And some out there, you know, they're saying inflation is waning, and who knows, maybe they're right, but we assume in our 23 guidance, current inflationary pressures are going to continue through 2023's entire activity set.

If inflationary pressures drop in 23, we can adjust capital guidance accordingly at that time.

What's not going to change? It's our desire to use the highest quality crews and products to make the best long-term focus decisions and the key risks to our plan.

Now the second sort of component of our capital investment plan for 23, we continue to invest in our fully integrated midstream and water infrastructure. So similar to last year in 22, we invest capital dollars in 23 to enjoy the returns and the benefits over the next, call it 30 years.

And while the core projects that underpin our long-term plan, they vary little. The magnitude of these investments is going to vary from year to year with those inflationary pressures that I discussed as well as with shifts in plan timing as we're always looking, constantly evaluating how to best de-risk.

delineate and profitably develop our stacked pay fields. And then additionally many of these highly accretive life of field investments, they not only solidify us as the region's low-cost operator, but they also raise the level of our ESG performance. I'll give you a great example of that this year. It's a significant one as well I think.

And that's the construction of a centralized above-ground water storage tank facility in our southwest Pennsylvania field that not only provides life of field, low-cost, low-risk water supply, but that will also start the phase out of in-ground impoundments without adding trucks to the road. And that's a really good outcome from our perspective.

And then last, when it comes to the different major components of the capital program in 2023, we've targeted several discretionary capital allocation opportunities whose risk-adjusted returns, they compete for investment and they reinforce our Appalachia First Vision.

For example, in 23 we will be participating as a major non-op partner in a PAD related to the Pittsburgh International Airport Project. The continued development of our Pittsburgh Airport Project is critical to CNX and our Appalachia First Vision. It's critical to the airport as it continues with the terminal modernization program and it is critical to the wider region.

Given the key role that the airport plays as an economic development engine for the area.

Now this project, along with several other emission reduction business opportunities in that new technologies business unit, they're laying the cornerstone to once again support that Appalachia First Vision.

So now I want to pivot to some comments on our 2023 production outlook. Production as you know it's a result for us, not an objective within our strategy and business model. And while our focused activity set results in lower overall operational risk and long term certainty of execution.

Any short-term delays or disruptions to that program is going to create noise when looking at production on a quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year basis.

For example, as we discussed on the Q3 call last year, we experienced delays associated with an abandoned Utica wellbore. And while we initially expected to be able to make schedule adjustments to offset those delays and basically hold production levels flat year over year, weather-related and other operational delays in last year's fourth quarter completion schedule, they further impacted production levels in early 2023.

And as such, we're now expecting production in 23.

to be modestly lower rather than flat compared to 2022. And we expect production levels to be their lowest in the first quarter, built throughout the year as tills accelerate. Most importantly, we're expecting to return to our 2022 production level run rate around mid-year 2023 and plus or minus.

and from there return to more elevated annual levels in 2024 and beyond. So, a short-term issue. Now, when you take all this into account,

the plan for 2023, it's pretty simple, to continue the march of our sustainable business model. And before I do hand it over to Alan to discuss the quarter in a little more detail, I do want to introduce our new Chief Operating Officer that you heard from Tyler with the intros, Nav Beal. It's no overstatement to say that Nav has seen and done it all.

His view of this incredible potential of our asset base that drove his decision to join us, it just, I can tell you, contributes to our collective excitement about the future. So from overseeing North American operations for a Fortune 500 oil and gas producer, to his proven track record of building effective teams and successfully developing new shale players.

right remain focused.

on the daily safe and compliant execution of our operational plan.

In the end, this is a highly competitive business. We aim to win on behalf of our owners. So whenever we see an opportunity to improve the team, we're not going to hesitate to act. That's what we were lucky enough to be able to do with Nav. And you should expect to see and hear much more from Nav in the future. With that, I'm going to turn things over now to Allen.

Thanks, Nick, and good morning to everyone. As Nick mentioned, this quarter represents the 12th consecutive quarter of free cash flow generation through the execution of our sustainable business model that is grounded in clinical capital allocation to optimize long-term free cash flow for share growth.

In the fourth quarter, we generated approximately $276 million in free cash flow, or $707 million in free cash flow for the year. This brings our three-year cumulative total free cash flow to close to $1.6 billion, or approximately 55% of our current market cap.

Let's first turn to the capital allocation side of the business as highlighted on slide 5.

As you can see, we continued our market leading shareholder return initiatives by repurchasing 12.6 million shares in the quarter and another 1.3 million shares after the close of the quarter through January 17. Said differently, we bought back nearly 7% of our total shares outstanding over that time frame.

And since we started this program in Q3 of 2020, over the last nine quarters, we have repurchased approximately 24% of the outstanding shares of the company.

We continue to see this as a remarkable low-risk capital allocation opportunity moving forward. And although we have not given an explicit capital allocation framework, if you extrapolate these levels of buybacks moving forward, you can see that we will continue to dramatically reduce our denominator and thereby meaningfully grow our long-term free cash flow per share.

On the balance sheet side, this quarter we also reduced adjusted net debt by $57 million during the quarter, bringing our annual total reduction to $107 million, or $360 million since we started the program in Q3 2020. More importantly, our robust liquidity position and long debt maturity runway.

enable us to take advantage of any deepening valuation disconnects that might occur in either the equity or debt markets.

Let's now shift to our updated 2023 outlook on slide 6.

First, from a macro perspective, we expect the recent pricing volatility to continue in 2023 as the U.S. domestic markets continue to fluctuate with shifting weather expectations, uncertain domestic production levels, and continuing LNG demand from around the world. How gas prices unfold in 2023 will depend on a difficult-to-predict combination of those three core elements.

Despite that uncertainty, CNX's focus will remain on safely and efficiently developing our assets and generating free cash flow to clinically allocate towards reducing our debt and share count.

The outcome of the combination of those core elements is easy to predict. High rates of return on our capital investments and sustainable growth and long term per share value.

That in mind, let's now turn to the specifics of the 2023 guidance.

For 2023 production volumes, our initial expectations are between 555 to 575 BCFE, which is a slight decline based on the midpoint of the guidance range when compared to the 2022 production total of 580 BCFE.

As we discussed on previous earnings calls in 2022, we experienced various operational delays and challenges, including most significantly an abandoned Utica wellbore that resulted in lower overall production in 2022, which are now expected to result in the year-on-year decline. Most recently, further weather and operational delays to the frack line in Q4 2022 are expected to result in Q1 volumes being the lowest quarter during the year.

with volumes ultimately building quarter over quarter as we move forward. Despite the operational delays that were encountered in 2022, we believe that we have made the necessary operational and organizational adjustments that will result in a return to our 2022 production level run rate of approximately 1.6 BCF per day around the middle of 2023.

Based on our 2023 production range and using January 5th strip pricing, we expect the annual EVADAX range to be between $1.1 to $1.25 billion.

Given that our 2023 gas production volumes are roughly 80% hedged, this EBITAC's range includes estimated open volumes of around 100 BCFE.

As we've seen throughout 2022 and in recent weeks, while the extreme volatility in the natural gas markets will significantly impact near-term results, forward prices along the strip are still materially higher than in recent years, and as such, the rates of returns on previous capital investments remain not just high, but improved in this environment.

and the future business plan not only remains intact but even stronger. Let's turn now to the 2023 capital outlook. As we discussed on the Q3 call, we are expecting a capital range for the year between $575 and $675 million.

This capital range reflects the continuation of our operational plan that utilizes roughly one and a half drilling rigs and one continuous all-electric frack crew. Additionally, this annual capital budget assumes a full year of the increased inflationary cost environment that we experienced during the latter part of 2022 and reflects our desire to use the highest quality crews and products and to make the best long-term focused decisions that help de-risk our plan.

If we are to break the capital budget down into components, approximately 75% of the total is allocated to D&C capital, which includes pad construction and production equipment. Approximately 20% is allocated to non-D&C capital towards the core business, which includes midstream and water pad hookups and other centralized infrastructure.

Then the remaining 5% is allocated to what we are calling discretionary capital. That is per definition capital that we don't need to spend this year to maintain production but have determined that the investments outcompete other opportunities for that capital. For instance we are spending discretionary capital this year on a major non-op pad which Nick Hyland in his remarks.

That opportunity provides a number of benefits in economic terms, but also helps to unlock our Appalachian First vision. Also, we are spending targeted capital on our new tech business group to further our mine methane abatement operations and other emission reduction technologies.

We believe that these discretionary investments will generate significant returns and that they are prudent investments to make today.

Lastly, with respect to 2023 free cash flow, using the midpoints of the guidance ranges, we are setting our initial free cash flow outlook at approximately $375 million. Based on that free cash flow estimate and using our current share count, free cash flow per share is expected to be approximately $2.20. Importantly, that estimate is not based on any potential end-of-year share count projection, but rather based on the current share count. Since we are close enough tolle 50 to 100, Hopper found the Bryckton

again on our latest share count. Briefly summarize this guidance slide, the current 2023 free cash flow is lower than our expected future run rate due to three main factors. First, the lower first half production for the year that we discussed. Second, the impact on capital of assuming annualized second half 2022 installation levels persist throughout the year.

And third, the incremental investments and high IRR discretionary capital projects. Overall, our goal remains the same, to grow the long-term free cash flow share of the company, and our 2023 business plan is another step in continuing to do that this year and beyond.

Now let's shift to slide 7. This is a new slide that is meant to highlight how our hedging strategy is programmatically blocking in higher future gas prices.

The dark blue portion of the graph represents the percent of hedges as of Q1 2022. The light blue portion of the graph represents the hedges that we have added over the last three quarters. Lastly, the tan dash line portion of the graph represents the open volumes when assuming the midpoint of our production guidance in 2023 of 565 BCFE and assuming 590 BCFE for 2024 through 2027.

Through the consistent execution of our hedging strategy, we have and will continue to add higher priced hedges in what is an elevated natural gas price environment compared to when a lot of the hedges were originally put on. For instance, looking at 2023, as of Q1 2022, we were already 77% hedged at $2.37 per MCF, which is a realized price net of basis differentials.

Over the last three quarters, we have added 21 DCF of hedges for 2023 at an average price of $446.

Similarly, if you look at 2027, we had very little hedged as of Q1 2022. However, over the last three quarters, we have had 113 BCF of hedges at 351 per MCF, up from 210. This actually looks like a cow in a cow makes a goat wiggle as it makes the elk in a cow- directions

Walking in these increased pricing levels translates to significant future margin expansion that will add material-free cash flow compared to the original seven-year plan that we put out in 2020. Now back to Black liabilities, whether you'rebiologist orgun midsor Select exceeded and decided to take advantage of those shrimp random species.

In conclusion, we believe that the volatility that we're seeing in the commodity markets is simply noise as it relates to our sustainable business model and long-term plan.

Despite the uncertainty in the gas markets we are currently seeing in 2023, along with the uncertainty around the broader economy, we are confident in the sustainable business model that we have created. Our focus in 2023 will remain on safe and compliant execution to develop our extensive asset base and our clinical capital allocation to grow our long-term free cash flow per share. In other words, as always, we will continue to operate with an owner mindset.

With that, I will turn it back over to Tyler for Q&A.

Thanks, Alan. Operator, if you can open the lineup for questions at this time, please.

Certainly. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch tone phone.

If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key.

To withdraw your question, please press star then 2.

And at this time, we'll pause momentarily for the first question.

And our first question today will come from Zach Parham with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. You're welcome.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Nick, I know you mentioned that project level returns are robust at current prices and that you've got a significant amount of volume hedge, but just given the pullback in natural gas prices that we've seen recently, would you consider maybe delaying some completions or slowing activity at all?

And I guess it's not. Is there a price level where you might consider slowing down? Isaac, yeah. So there's always obviously going to be a price level where we adjust activity set or capital allocation with respect to repurchases, debt, all those different avenues. And the process though remains constant, remains the same. So we're continually running this math that you speak of.

And to sort of cut it short with regard to a conclusion, there is a substantial risk-adjusted, acceptable rate of return on our one frac crew, one and a half rig activity set, sort of under any foreseeable gas price moving forward. We continue to run it. The reason we continue to run the math is to always be thinking about

Thanks for that, Cutler. Just one follow-up. I know a lot of things have changed since you initially rolled out the seven-year plan several years ago, but in that plan, you expected operating costs to kind of tick lower over time. Maybe could you just update us or give us a little detail on how you expect those cash costs to trend in 2023 and going forward?

I think moving forward what you'll see is that some of our kind of a third-party areas, particularly the legacy Ohio production and the legacy West Virginia production in Shirley Penn, as that bleeds off and we replace that with our wholly owned kind of gathered infrastructure up in the SWIPA and CPA, you'll see those prices come down.

where average costs come down. Got it. Can you quantify what level of decline you expect?

Yeah, I think roughly we're always targeting to get back to kind of that dollar range.

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

And our next question will come from Leo Mariani with MKM.

Please go ahead.

I was hoping you could speak a little bit more, you know, some of the operational slippage that you kind of discussed in the fourth quarter. You mentioned there was the issue with the abandoned Utica well, but just wanted to kind of get a sense, and it certainly seems like with the, you know, as you're seeing lower production in 4Q.

Something you expect a little bit lower production in the first quarter of 23. Were there any other just like you know major supply chain issues or you know did you guys have any like labor issues you know on the frack side or certainly hearing from other operators that if you get a piece of equipment that breaks or something it's just really hard to kind of get fixed these days in a rapid fashion just giving

to the right a little bit. And obviously, the biggest signal contributor last year was the banded Utica-Wellbore, and then in the Q4, we had weather and a couple other issues. So it's more...

It's more on our side as opposed to anything you see. I mean, certainly we experience the same sort of supply chain issues everyone else does in the basin. But it's more just things flipping to the right on that end. You know, we're constantly evaluating opportunities to potentially get back on that cadence.

We run that math, we just thought it made more sense to let kind of the production dip a little bit in Q1 and just focus on getting back to our 1.6 BCFE run rate. Okay, that's helpful. And then just can you speak a little bit to the CapEx range, the 23 at 575 to 675, you know, I guess that's just eyeballing the math, kind of a, you know, 15, 18% range or whatever in terms of the numbers here.

I think you'll probably see elevated prices for the first half. And then as prices have come down pretty rapidly, you should see some softening in the supply chain costs in the second part of the year. Then on the non-D&C side, if you think about those projects, a lot of pipe construction and mainstream construction, most of that stuff is bid currently as it's being done.

So you need a wider range there, as you're not sure what environment you could be bidding into in the next five or six months. So, you know, just with kind of the uncertainty in the world, we went with wider ranges this time, and as Nick mentioned, as those could tighten up through the year, we'll provide that color to you all.

Okay, thank you. And our next question will come from Neil Dingman with Truth Security. Please go ahead. Hi, morning. My first question is on OFS inflation and specifically it sounded like you all suggested a bit that your day rates might be a bit higher than potentially some other rigs. I'm just wondering do you all believe?

I would call it your higher end rigs and fracks are worth these incremental costs. My second just on that just quickly is a brief period year to date. I'm just wondering if you could talk about what you're seeing on OFS inflation year to date.

Yes, so our focus on OFS is always locking in consistent crews that are not recent spot crews that have been cobbled together. We want long-termism in our supply chain. That kind of underpins our business model. So to get that, you might have to pay a little extra here or there. When a supplier comes, you ask them for a price increase.

because they could essentially go somewhere else. You know, you're willing to pay that just for all the kind of other externalities that it creates to have that consistency. And that's our focus. We're not trying to pinch pennies and chase spot crews to save a buck here or there. We want long-termism in the supply chain.

And then on the deficit on that job great and then OFS here today anything Now, like I said, I think you're still seeing levels where we're at the second part of 2022 and right now You know the range we're showing here reflects that those kind of persist throughout the year But again as prices come down, you know OFS will soften as it always does in a lower price environment Got it. And then Nick if I could ask one more just

curious, you know, looking at your sort of financial operational strategies, I'm just wondering, you know, you've laid this out, you've stuck to this and I'm just wondering, you know, do you all go back, would you all, I guess, what I'm wondering, would you all consider altering these plans to potentially more growth, dividends, or, you know, I don't even know, maybe even something strategic.

with your midstream given the sizable position you have there. And you know again why I ask this is just looking at you know I know one year doesn't make history but you know for the past year your stocks up 6% despite the share probably returns versus your three closest peers up somewhere around 30% to 60%.

I'm just wondering when you kind of look back if you would consider any of these alternatives.

That's a good question, Neil, because it really speaks to the broader strategy and philosophy that we apply within the company. So first thing I'll say, like any option when it comes to sort of realizing the NAV per share of the company and the share price, we're obviously...

wide open to considering it and running the math, but just sort of walking through the overall strategy and approach. The first chapter, which wasn't all that long ago, was really trying to set us up to execute the strategy to your point that we've been employing the past couple of years. And that was no small task, that was a massive lift. We had a...

figure out how to reintegrate midstream, we had to figure out how to spin coal, we had to figure out how to refi our balance sheet and build it into what we wanted it to be. We had to de-lever, right? So, all those things were accomplished and it really put us in a position to be that positive free cash flow generator and then be able to allocate the capital. Now, when we started on sort of the capital allocation side, once we had all that other stuff...

And I'll say it's not rocket science, but it is absolutely different for the space that we're in. And it's also, I think, incredibly effective over the long term. So you look at from 2020 to today, the strategy and the execution from our perspective under that philosophy, it is clearly working.

a quarter of the company has been taken in. That's not noise, that's hugely material. And more importantly, this is like the crucial point or piece of it, it was done at very attractive prices compared to the intrinsic value of the company. And amazingly, to me, at the same time, we de-leveraged the balance sheet. So, like we said in the commentary, that's rarified air.

And it might be one-on-one in a public company universe when you look at other other public companies or out there beyond energy. So, you know, is the strategy working? You know, I don't want to go into our radar here, but I'll say heck yeah. Mr. Market might have been sleeping on us a bit and a quarter of the company was retired over that time. And if Mr. Market is still asleep. We're still on the move with the strategy execution.

And before you know it, these numbers start to get very substantial almost to the point where they get absurd. So, we know this is going to work because frankly from our perspective, it's working. It's working as we speak. And the last thing I'll say is everything to keep on doing this is entirely within our control. So, we don't need to issue debt to win. We don't need to do a major acquisition to win.

We don't need high gas prices to win. All we need basically is time to run the play and execute. So we're very pleased with where we're at. And I understand exactly, right, the questions and the points that you're making and what you're looking at. I just wanted to put that in the context of how we approach it with our philosophy.

So thanks for the Cam to answer head, and our next question we'will come from John ABT, with Bank of america- go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for taking our questions.

First question is just

More on your ability to add, the opportunities that you see to potentially add to your inventory in this sort of pricing environment. Could you discuss the potential bolt-on opportunities that you see in Appalachian at this point in time?

Yeah, I think the kind of the bolt on opportunities are fairly.

reduced at this point. There's not a lot of private equity operators left. And you know, we always compare any potential M&A opportunity to the opportunity of doing M&A on ourselves through our buybacks. So that's a pretty high hurdle when you come at it from that perspective. So there's currently nothing kind of on our radar.

At this point, there's not a lot of private equity operators left. We always compare any potential M&A opportunity to the opportunity of doing M&A on ourselves through our buybacks. It's a pretty high hurdle when you come at it from that perspective. There's currently nothing on our radar from that perspective, given where our share prices are trading.

I appreciate it and also I understand that you continue to focus more on swaps.

What hasn't been the appeal in terms of collars from your perspective?

from hedging perspective? Yeah, when we look at it, we just don't think it's a free lunch to have the caller. I mean, we get the skew and everything, but we like having the certainty of the fixed kind of swap number. And particularly in this environment where you've seen us be able to layer into some pretty attractive hedges, we're going to stick with that strategy.

I understand because I'm just what I'm trying to understand is so when you hedge

I mean sometimes it's I guess it could be at higher prices, but sometimes it could be lower prices And you have a buyback program so if the stock goes higher you're using

Hedges that may have been hedged at a lower price.

So I'm just sort of trying to understand that value proposition. Why not go with the collars?

Yeah, again, we evaluate all sorts of hedging strategies and we always come back to the swap is the most effective. There's nothing that we can point to with a caller that says that's going to be any more effective than just a straight swap. There's no implied free lunch by going with a caller over the swap.

And then when we think about buybacks to your question, you know, we think the stock is materially disconnected from its intrinsic value. So we're more than happy to kind of pay the prices we're at today.

All right, thank you very much. And our next question will come from Jeffrey Lembouhain with Tutor Pickering and Holt. Please go ahead. I'm going to try this next one. Okay.

Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. My first one was just on free cash allocation to repurchases in 2023 and going forward. I know you just hit on this in a lot of detail on how aggressive you all have been in taking advantage of market conditions for the buyback, which I guess most recently in Q4 was maybe 75 to 80% of free cash flow for the quarter. So with the share price where it is today and just giving your comments, I'm not really seeing much that can be...

on the non-weather-related operational issues you mentioned in Q4 specifically, aside from the unique well board. Just want to get a sense for what exactly contributed there and to what magnitude and if those are in the rear view at this point in time. Thanks.

Yeah, so I think certainly as I mentioned in my comments, we believe those are in the rear view, you know, outside of the weather. Nothing individually immaterial, just a lot of smaller delays that added up to the frack line pushing to the right.

All right, thank you.

And our next question will come from Noel Parks with TUI Brothers.

Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Please excuse my background noise. I'm a bit on the move here. I apologize if you touched on this already, but with the free cash flow calculation, I think we've got a pretty big swing in accounts receivable in the quarter.

that contributed to the free cash flow. I just thought it just seemed larger than I had seen before. Is there any particular driver of that?

So one of the things we've been working on from a liquidity and risk management perspective is matching up the physical payment timing on the derivatives with the physical cash receipts. And so a lot of that started to take hold in Q4. So some of the notes that we saw that were asking about that difference between the realized loss and the cash out the door on the derivatives, that's what cost that.

From our perspective, it's a great opportunity to eliminate that kind of 50-day lag between when we'd have to pay those and when we get the physical sales ourselves. So that's kind of a great de-risker. Particularly, it was more important when the gas prices were trading around $10, but it's still important from a equity management and risk management perspective. So you see that unwind in the upcoming quarters as all we've effectively done is slid cash from period to period.

perspective, it's a great opportunity to eliminate that kind of 50 day lag between when we'd have to pay those. And when we get the physical sales ourselves. And so that's kind of a great de-risker, particularly it was more important when the gas prices were trading around $10. But it's still important from a liquidity management and risk management perspective. So you see that unwind in the upcoming quarters, as you know, as we effectively done is slid cash from period to period. Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

And this will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Tyler Lewis for any closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining this morning. Please feel free to reach out to us if you might have any additional questions. Otherwise, we will look forward to speaking with everyone again next quarter. Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.

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