ConocoPhillips

Good morning, and welcome to the Q3 2021 ConocoPhillips Earnings Conference Call. My name is Zanara, and I'll be the operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. During the question-and-answer session, if you have a question, please press star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Ellen DeSantis. Ellen, you may begin.

Thank you, Zanara, and welcome everyone to the third quarter earnings call. In the room with me today are Ryan Lance, our chairman and CEO. Bill Bullock, our executive vice president and chief financial officer. Tim Leitch, our executive vice president of the lower 48. Dominic Macklin, our executive vice president of strategy, sustainability, and technology. Nick Olds, our executive vice president of global operations. Mark Keener, our Vice President of Investor Relations, is also in the room today. The format of our call will consist of some very brief prepared remarks, and then, as Inara mentioned, we'll go to Q&A. A few reminders. In conjunction with today's earnings release, we posted a deck of supplemental material addressing third quarter earnings and cash flow results, as well as some fourth quarter full year 2021 guidance updates. Today we will make some forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results could differ due to the factors described in today's press release and in our periodic filings. And we'll mention some non-GAAP financial measures this morning. You can find reconciliations to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure in this morning's press release and on our website. With that, I will now turn the call over to Ryan.

Thank you, Ellen. as ellen mentioned i'll make a few opening comments and then bill will address a few details about this quarter's results and then we'll begin the q a session in this morning's release i referred to the quarter's results as notable obviously financial and operating results were outstanding but the context for describing them as notable meant something different for the past year we've been integrating concho improving underlying metrics across the business and creating the most competitive ENP for the energy transition. The significance of this quarter's performance is that it represents the post-concho, go-forward baseline for the company. On a run-rate basis, the integration is essentially complete. We've captured the announced $1 billion of synergies and savings from actions the company took in connection with the transaction, all ahead of schedule. We're unhedged. But even more importantly, our torque to upside is helped by having high conversion of revenue to income and cash flow. The core executables of our global operating plan are delivering as expected. We'll close out 2021 as a stronger company compared to any time in the past decade. Every aspect of our triple mandate is moving in the right direction. Our underlying portfolio cost to supply is improving. Our overall GHG intensity is lower. Our emissions intensity reduction targets are more stringent. Underlying margins are expanding. And our trading 12-month return on capital employed is headed toward an estimated 14% by year-end, reflecting the benefit of more than just stronger commodity prices. Between now and year-end, our top priority is closing the Shell transaction, which we expect to occur in the fourth quarter. Once we close, we will be working diligently to integrate these properties and capture efficiencies in a similar fashion to what we've achieved through the Conchu integration. In addition to layering in these properties on top of our existing high-performing platform, we're continuing to high-grade our portfolio and optimize the business drivers everywhere. The setup for next year is, well, notable. We're now in the process of setting our 2022 capital plans, which we expect to announce in early December. Directionally, we don't anticipate a significant departure on CapEx from what we included in our June update, excluding Shell. In June, we provided an outlook based on a roughly $50 per barrel price that included a modest ramp in the lower 48 to reactivate our optimized plateau plans, some incremental base Alaska investment, and some longer cycle low-cost supply investments in Canada, the Monteney, and in Norway. Since June, we see some inflation pressures, especially in the lower 48. However, at this point, we'd expect to adjust scope modestly in order to, in response, to maintain our base capital at a level that is roughly consistent with our June update. And then, of course, we'll add CapEx for the shale properties once we've brought them into the portfolio. As we finalize our 2022 plans, we're watching the macro closely, keeping an eye on inflation and potential OVO pressures, and undertaking our typical capital high-grading processes. It goes without saying, the market certainly appears to be more constructive, but we must always remember that this is an incredibly volatile business, but there's more to come on that in December. It's certainly been a busy year for the company, but an incredibly successful one so far. And that's thanks to our dedicated and talented ConocoPhillips workforce. We believe we're entering a very constructive time for the sector. But even so, we know that there will be relative winners. The relative winners will be companies with the lowest cost of supply investment options, peer leading delivery of returns on and of capital, and visible progress on lowering emissions intensity. That's what we offer. Our third quarter represents a glimpse and a strong jumping off point to what you can expect from ConocoPhillips going forward. So now let me turn it over to Bill who will cover some of the key items from this quarter.