Laredo Petroleum, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Vital Energy Inc. Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Dustin, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be conducting a question-and-answer session after the Financial and Operations Report. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. Vice President, Investor Relations. You may proceed, sir.

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me today are Jason Paget, President and Chief Executive Officer, Brian Limmerman, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Katie Hill, Vice President, Operations, as well as additional members of our management team. During today's call, we'll be making forward-looking statements. These statements, including those describing our beliefs, goals, expectations, forecasts, and assumptions, are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our actual results may differ from these forward-looking statements for a variety of reasons, many of which are beyond our control. In addition, we will be making reference to non-GAAP financial measures, Reconciliations to GAAP financial measures are included in the press release and presentation we issued yesterday, detailing our financial and operating results for second quarter 2023. The press release and presentation can be accessed on our website at www.vitalenergy.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Jason Pigott, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Ron. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Financial and operating results in the first half of the year have been outstanding. We have strengthened our business through accretive acquisitions that extend our oil-weighted inventory and enhance oil production. As a result, production was again above the high end of guidance with oil setting a company record and capital investments were below the low end of guidance. We closed on two accretive oil-weighted acquisitions, are well positioned for the second half of 2023, and expect to maintain our momentum into 2024. As we think about our 2024 program, we will remain focused on our core strategies, maintaining capital discipline, generating free cash flow, reducing debt and leverage, targeting accretive acquisitions, advancing sustainability, and integrating digital solutions. For 2024, we are targeting relatively flat production compared to 2023, inclusive of volumes acquired this quarter. Importantly, we believe we can accomplish this at similar investment levels to full year 2023 and grow free cash flow versus full year 2023, enabling continued debt reduction. Our expected 2024 budget benefits from planned development in our recently acquired acreage in Upton County and Delaware Basin, reinforcing our strategy of acquiring and quickly developing high return oil-weighted acreage across the Permian Basin. Today, over 90% of our production comes from properties we acquired over the last four years. Proud of what the organization has accomplished thus far in 2023 and are focused on continuing to execute our strategy and build additional shareholder value. I will now turn the call over to Katie for additional details on our strong operational performance.