California Resources Corporation

Good day and welcome to the California Resources Corporation first quarter 2025 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joanna Park, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Joanna Park Good morning and welcome to California Resources Corporation's first quarter 2025 conference call. Following our prepared remarks, members of our leadership team will be available for questions. By now, I hope you have had a chance to review our earnings release and supplemental slides. We have also provided information reconciling non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures on our website and in our earnings release. Today, we will be making some forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. Actual results may differ due to factors described in our earnings release and in our periodic SEC filings. As a reminder, please limit your questions today to one primary and one follow-up, as this allows us to get more of your questions today. And now I will turn the call over to Francisco.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call and for your interest in our company. CRC is executing very well. We delivered a solid quarter and are reaffirming our full-year 2025 outlook. Our business strategy is designed to mitigate commodity price volatility and generate cash flow to execute our operations, maintain a strong balance sheet, and sustainably return cash to shareholders. Before Clio covers our first quarter financial and operating highlights, let me open with some thoughts on how CRC is positioned to withstand the uncertainty in today's macroeconomic environment. First, the strategic steps we have taken to strengthen our business were timely. We have achieved critical scale. The era merger made us bigger and better. proving that assets are better in our hands. This combination provided new opportunities to streamline our business and achieve meaningful cost savings that strengthen our returns today and well into the future. We have now realized more than 70% of our total $235 million in announced annual synergies and expect to achieve the full target in early 2026. Second, our cash flow is underpinned by a strong hedge portfolio and diversified revenue stream. For the remainder of the year, we have approximately 70% of our oil production and 70% of our natural gas consumption. Hedge at attractive levels relative to the current strip. In addition, our power and natural gas marketing strategy are delivering meaningful margins, further underscoring the strength of our business. This integrated strategy provides strong visibility into near-term cash generation, supports debt service, and shareholder returns, and allows us to generate free cash flow at Brent prices down to approximately $34 per barrel. Third, we have high-quality conventional assets. They have low decline rates, high net revenue interest, and high ultimate recovery rates. With modest development costs, we can manage our production largely through capital efficient workovers and sidetracks. Low capital intensity provides an advantage over peers. We're also able to control the pace of activity due to our high ownership interest where we own both surface and mineral rights. We have a solid inventory of development projects and recent improvements in the state's oil and gas regulatory environment provide confidence that we will continue to build our permit inventory through several avenues later this year. We are returns focused and allocate capital to our highest return projects while effectively managing production and investing in our growth opportunities. Lastly, the strength of our business allows us to sustainably return meaningful cash to our shareholders. In the first quarter, we returned a record $258 million to stakeholders through dividends, share buybacks, and debt redemption. We continue to show that CRC is a different kind of energy company. I'll turn it over to Cleo to summarize our first quarter results and some of the drivers behind our strong outlook.