EOG Resources, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to EOG Resources Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Investor Relations Vice President of EOG Resources, Mr. Pierce Hammond. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the EOG Resources Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. An updated investor presentation has been posted to the investor relations section of our website, and we will reference certain slides during today's discussion. A replay of this call will be available on our website beginning later today. As a reminder, this conference call includes forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements have been outlined in the earnings release and EOG's SEC filings. This conference call may also contain certain historical and forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and reconciliation schedules for these non-GAAP measures and related discussion can be found on the investor relations section of EOG's website. In addition, some of the reserve estimates on this conference call may include estimated potential reserves as well as estimated resource potential not necessarily calculated in accordance with the SEC's reserve reporting guidelines. Participating on the call this morning are Ezra Yacob, Chairman and CEO, Jeff Leitzel, Chief Operating Officer, Ann Jansen, Chief Financial Officer, Keith Trasko, Senior Vice President, Exploration and Production, and Lance Treveen, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Midstream. Here's Ezra. Thanks, Pierce.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Since the end of 2020, EOG has generated more than $22 billion of free cash flow. and more than $25 billion in adjusted net income. We've increased our regular dividend rate 160%, and including both regular and special dividends, paid or committed to pay more than $13 billion directly to shareholders, and $3.2 billion indirectly through share repurchases, all while reducing debt 35%. EOG has a history of delivering consistently strong financial and operational results, and the third quarter is simply more of the same. Led by our employees' commitment to operational excellence and capital discipline, we outperformed on oil, natural gas, and NGL volumes for the quarter as well as beating expectations on per unit cash operating costs. We generated $1.6 billion of adjusted net income and $1.5 billion of free cash flow and returned $1.3 billion of that free cash flow back to our shareholders through a mix of our regular dividend and opportunistic share repurchases. In addition to announcing third quarter results, yesterday we demonstrated confidence in our ability to generate strong free cash flow in the future, as well as our continued commitment to return a significant portion of cash to our shareholders by increasing the regular dividend 7% and boosting our share repurchase authorization by $5 billion. Cash return to shareholders begins with our focus on the regular dividend, which has never been reduced or suspended in the 27 years since we've been paying one. and it reflects our confidence in the increasing capital efficiency of our business going forward. And we continue to improve our capital efficiency by leveraging technology and innovation across both our foundational and emerging assets. That is one of the key advantages of operating in multiple basins. We are able to drive improvements to operational performance through technology transfer between those basins. We are drilling further and faster than at any time in our history, completing wells with fewer people and less equipment due to efficient operations, and we continue to capture additional value through our marketing strategy. EOG's performance is sustainable because it's driven by our culture, empowering each employee to be a business person first, focusing on returns, and seeking ways to improve the business every day. Our culture is our competitive advantage, and combined with our focus on sustainable value creation through the cycles, gives us confidence in our ongoing performance as we finish 2024 and position ourselves for 2025. In a moment, Jeff will provide some early commentary on our 2025 capital program, but our investment strategy always begins with capital discipline, balancing short and long-term free cash flow generation, return on capital employed, and return of capital to shareholders. We also consider the macro environment in which we are operating, and currently the overall macro environment remains dynamic. Oil inventory levels are below the five-year average, with both supply and demand showing moderate growth year-over-year. We expect to finish 2024 with strong demand slowing into a seasonally lower first quarter and then increasing throughout the rest of 2025. Domestically, while efficiency gains continue across the industry, we anticipate another year of slower U.S. liquids growth grounded in the lower number of active drilling rigs and drilled but uncompleted wells. Regarding North American natural gas, inventory levels have moved closer to the five-year average throughout the year due to a combination of producer discipline and increased demand driven primarily by power generation. We remain optimistic on the long-term outlook for gas demand beginning in and increasing throughout 2025 from additional LNG projects coming online and ongoing increases in power generation. Last month, we released our annual sustainability report for 2023, highlighting our leading environmental performance and commitment to safe operations. We achieved a GHG intensity rate below our 2025 target for the second year in a row and achieved a methane emissions percentage at or below our 2025 target for the third consecutive year. Our in-house methane monitoring solution has progressed beyond the pilot phase and is integrated into our standard operating procedures. and our carbon capture and storage pilot project is operational and we stand ready to deploy our learnings to future operations. Our consistent sustainability performance is a result of our empowered and collaborative workforce and our continued investment in innovation and technology to achieve not only leading environmental performance, but also strong and consistent safety performance throughout our operations. This year's report highlights our innovative culture that drives EOG's mission to be among the highest return lowest cost, and lowest emissions producers playing a significant role in the long-term future of energy. Now here's Ann with details on our financial performance.