PDC Energy, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to PDC Energy 3rd Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will follow at that time. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Kyle Sork, Investor Relations. You may begin, sir.

Thank you, and good morning. On today's call, we have President and CEO, Bart Brookman, Executive Vice President, Lance Locke, Chief Financial Officer, Scott Myers, and Senior Vice President of Operations, Dave Lillo. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our press release and posted a presentation that accompanies our remarks today. We also filed our Form 10-Q. The press release and presentation are available on the Investor Relations page of our website, www.pdce.com. On today's call, we will reference both forward-looking statements and non-US GAAP financial measures. The appropriate disclosures and reconciliations can be found on slide two in the appendix of that presentation. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Brookman.

Thank you, Kyle, and hello, everyone. As I look back on the past 12 to 18 months, I could not be more proud of the PDC team. Our decision-making, resilience, focused priorities, and strategic shifts. As we accelerate out of last year's deep compression of energy prices, the company is extremely well positioned for success. Today, I hope to reinforce our corporate commitment to safety, the environment, financial and operational excellence, and delivering value to our shareholders. Let me address some third quarter highlights. Pre-cash flow for the quarter of $268 million on a capital investment of $149 million. Timing of capital projects year-to-date for both basins are in line with expectations, including drilling, completions, and turn-in lines. Production for the quarter, 18.8 million barrels of oil equivalent. And while we were disappointed in our recent Grizzly Pad production performance in Delaware, our teams have quickly pivoted with strong technical focus on production optimization, and we have some very encouraging early results. Current production for the company has rebounded and is now in line with expectations, and Dave will touch on this more in a moment. Operating costs remain in check, with lifting costs under $250 per BOE and GNA all in at $1.64. We also made tremendous progress on our balance sheet, as our quarter and leverage ratio stands at 0.8. Debt levels for the company continue to decline at a rapid pace, while PDC's total liquidity currently stands at $1.7 billion. Now, on the ESG front. First, I encourage all of you to view our recently published sustainability report, which is available on our website. In 2021, we made great strides as we defined aggressive greenhouse gas and methane emission reduction targets for the company, established a zero routine flaring goal by 2025, continued with quality refreshment of the board with a focus on diversity, and formalized ESG governance at the board level. In 2022, you can expect a strong emphasis on the continued safety of the PDC employees, ongoing emission reductions, community and charitable giving, diversity at all levels of the organization, and sound corporate governance. So as we close out the year, As I noted, production is rebounding, back in line with our expectations. We anticipate a leverage ratio of 0.5 as we approach year end, and our net debt should drop below $1 billion. The company's free cash flow for the year is expected to exceed $900 million. And today, I am pleased to announce we are expanding our shareholder return target for 2021 from $180 million to at least $210 million. These returns will primarily be fixed dividend and share repurchases. However, recent discussions with our board of directors have led us to consider a special dividend, if necessary, to achieve this $210 million goal. So in closing, let me give a little flavor on 2022. expect modest single-digit annual production growth while the company maintains capital discipline in both basins as we enter next year debt reduction will become a lower priority while we increase our emphasis on shareholder returns at the current strip we believe free cash flow for pdc can exceed one billion dollars next year and i assure you the company will continue to place the utmost importance on safety and ESG initiatives. With that, I'm going to turn this call over to Dave Lillo for an operational update. Thanks Bart.