Crescent Energy Company

Good morning, and thank you for joining Crescent's second quarter conference call. Our prepared remarks today will come from our CEO, David Roccatarelli, and CFO, Brandi Kendall. Todd Fault, Chief Accounting Officer, and Ben Connor and Clay Wren, both Executive Vice Presidents, will also be available during the Q&A. Today's call may contain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal security laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including commodity price volatility, global geopolitical conflicts, our business strategies, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in these statements and our other disclosures. We have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after today's call. In addition, today's discussion may include disclosure regarding non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliation of historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure, please reference our 10Q and earnings press release available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Our outstanding second quarter results continue the strong momentum that we've created since entering the public markets. Crescent remains uniquely positioned to navigate the current energy market dynamics and we're excited to share our recent achievements with you today. Our second quarter results exceeded estimates across key categories due to strong operational performance and efficiencies achieved on our development program. Our successful execution allows us to raise our full-year outlook, increasing production and cash flow expectations with significantly less capital investment. Importantly, we've achieved several strategic objectives since our last update, adding to our scale and operating position through the closing of the accretive Western Eagle for transaction and improving our capital markets presence through increased flow and an opportunistic notes offering. Let me discuss the quarter under three key themes, financial, operational, and strategic. First, let's cover our financial results. Our second quarter results outperformed expectations. with net production of approximately 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and $50 million of levered free cash flow. We invested $150 million of capital during the quarter, coming in lower than expected and beating estimates as we continue to realize efficiencies through improved cycle times and optimized completions, both of which I'll touch on in more detail. Improving capital efficiencies are allowing us to realize a 10% reduction in drilling and completion costs per foot relative to 2022 levels. Additionally, we generated EBITDA of $225 million, also above estimates, reflecting higher production through strong well performance and our oil cut ticking higher to 46%. Our strong performance year to date has allowed us to raise our 2023 outlook. To give you the punchline, we are doing more with less, generating more production with significantly less capital. Our revised guidance increased net production to 146,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day at the midpoint, while capital expenditures, excluding acquisitions, decreased by 10% to $600 million at the midpoint. With the majority of our CapEx incurred year to date at current commodity prices, we expect to generate significant free cash flow for the remainder of the year, which we intend to allocate to debt repayment and the dividend. Second, I'll provide an update on operations. We are seeing strong well performance, DNC cost reductions, and sustainable capital efficiencies. Improving cycle times in the Eagleford, which have decreased by as much as 20%, are continuing to drive down costs. And on the completion side, While we've touched on improving efficiencies in the past, we're beginning to see those translate into cash flow. In the Uinta, our completion designs continue to generate consistent well productivity at reduced costs, increasing our return on capital. On top of our improving efficiencies, we're beginning to see some softening in the service market, which could lead to further upsides to our capital costs. Today, we are well positioned to benefit due to the short-term nature of our service contracts which would allow us to more quickly realize cost efficiencies and capture capital savings in a deflationary environment. Lastly, I'll touch on some of our recent strategic accomplishments. In early July, we closed on the acquisition of the Western Eagleford assets and are safely and effectively integrating the assets into our operations. While it is still early, we anticipate a smooth process given our longstanding involvement in the assets of the non-operated partner, and our institutional knowledge from our offsetting Eagleford operations. Across the market more broadly, this past quarter was highly active for upstream A&D, and we continue to keep our pulse on the market from value accretive opportunities. We remain focused on areas where we can add meaningful scale, with an emphasis on our existing footprint across Texas and the Rockies. We are a natural acquirer of assets in Eagleford, which remains the most fragmented of the Like the Western Eagleford acquisition, any opportunity we pursue must meet our returns driven framework with an emphasis on cash on cash returns and accretion, all while maintaining our strong balance sheet. The transaction remains an excellent example of our opportunistic growth strategy to add scale, long life reserves, and proven inventory in areas where we have existing operations and a competitive advantage. Relative to other opportunities on the market, We believe this acquisition was an attractive way to add cash flow and reinvestment opportunities. Across recent Permian transactions in particular, where many assets face steep production declines and undeveloped inventory continues to see real value allocation from buyers, we believe our expected returns will be highly competitive on a full cycle basis. I'll turn the call over to Brandy, who will discuss recent strategic accomplishments, including recent capital markets activity and an update on our balance sheet.

Thanks, David. We've made great progress in the capital markets and improved access to both the equity and debt capital markets while maintaining our strong balance sheet. The recent Class A conversion, which increased our public flow from 29% to 45%, was a highly strategic transaction and in line with our stated priorities to increase our flow, research coverage, and market awareness. We expect the conversion to drive incremental demand from passive investors and believe it represents a key step towards simplifying our corporate structure. Importantly, there was no dilution to existing shareholders and the Class A shares were distributed to predominantly large institutional investors with experience in managing public equity stakes. The Class A shares are subject to customary legal trading restrictions associated with restricted securities. KER did not participate directly in the conversion and remains a long-term Holder and alongside our chairman, John Goss, continue to jointly hold their significant 22% insider ownership in the business. Following the close of the Western Eagleford acquisition and completion of the Class A conversion, we received a ratings upgrade from S&P and were added to the Double B High Yield Index, which we anticipate will have a positive impact on our liquidity and future cost of capital. This follows the upgrade we received from Moody's earlier this year, and we are pleased that the agencies recognize the strength of our business and our consistent execution. Following the upgrade, we executed an upside $300 million tack-on-nose offering with proceeds used to repay a portion of revolver borrowing associated with the acquisition. Over the long term, we remain focused on achieving our goals of becoming an investment-grade company, which requires increasing our scale in a financially prudent way. Now to provide an update on the balance sheet. Following the close of the $600 million Western Eaglefoot acquisition and associated tack-on-nose offering, we maintained our strong financial position with an estimated net LTN leverage ratio below 1.5 times approximately $800 million of liquidity. This is in line with our goal of remaining between 1.0 times and 1.5 times on a net leverage basis with more than $500 million of liquidity. We expect our strong outlook for free cash flow will allow us to further reduce absolute debt in line with our long-term leverage target of 1.0 times net debt keep it up. Alongside the closing of the acquisition, our lenders reaffirmed our $2 billion borrowing base and $1.3 billion elected commitment amount. Our strong banking relationships have been critical in helping us navigate recent volatility in the bank market over the last few months. Additionally, consistent with our hedging practices, we added derivatives alongside the announcement of the acquisition to further preserve the returns on our invested capital. Proforma, for the closing of the transaction, were approximately 45% hedged for the balance of 2023 and less than 30% hedged for 2024, with only 6% of our total approved developed reserves hedged today. We continue to like our long-term exposure to commodity prices. Lastly, we announced a second quarter cash dividend of $0.12 per share, which represents a 4% annualized yield. Our shareholder return continues to compare favorably to our peer group and remains a key part With that, I'll turn the call back over to David.