speaker
Operator

Good day and welcome to the Magnolia Oil and Gas first quarter 2021 earnings release and conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, press star then zero to speak with a conference specialist. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, press star then one on a touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Corrales of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

speaker
Brian Corrales

Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Magnolia Oil & Gas' first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Participating on the call today are Steve Chazen, Magnolia's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Stavros, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal security laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Additional information on the risk factors that could cause results to differ is available in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. A full safe harbor can be found in slide two of the conference call slide presentation with the supplemental data on our website. You can download Magnolia's first quarter 2021 earnings press release as well as the conference call slides from the investor section of the company website at www.magnoliaoilgas.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Chazen.

speaker
Tom

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. My comments this morning will focus on our business model and provide an update on our Giddings asset. I will also provide some more details for our plans for the remainder of the year. Chris will review our first quarter results. and we'll provide some additional guidance before we take your questions. Our business model centers around disciplined capital spending and generating significant free cash flows. We limit our capital spending to approximately 60% of EBITDAX, which is intended to generate mid-single-digit production growth. As we shift the balance between Carnes and Giddings, we're going to generate higher production growth with lower levels of capital as a result of the improved efficiencies at Giddings. We plan to spend somewhat less than $300 million to generate year-over-year production growth of 6% to 9%, that is, in the high single digits. The reduced amount of capital needed for this level of production growth provides greater free cash flow for Magnolia to improve its per share value. The optionality that free cash flow provides allows Magnolia to improve its business while also enhancing shareholder returns. In contrast, some of our more leveraged peers have to allocate their free cash flow to reducing their debt. We clearly don't need to do that. First quarter was one of the best quarters in our company's short history. We had record earnings, EBIT margins of 48%, just shy of our goal of 50%, and free cash flow of $100 million. Further, with no oil hedges, Magnolia can benefit fully from the improved oil prices. During the first quarter, we spent just $39 million on drilling and completing wells, or 26% of our adjusted EBITDAX, to deliver 3% sequential production growth. Record production at Giddings with driver are better than expected production volumes. Giddings production grew 22% sequentially and was up 45% for the same quarter last year. Oil production at Giddings increased 32% sequentially It was up 73% from the prior year quarter. Our significant production growth at Giddings was accomplished by spending only $91 million of DNC capital over the previous four quarters, demonstrating the quality of the acreage. Well costs at Giddings are averaging about $6 million per well, and one rig can drill about two wells per month. In our initial quarter at Giddings, we now have a total of 28 horizontal wells on line. The eight wells added in the first quarter are in line with the average production rate reported last quarter. The current operated rig at Giddings continues to focus on the initial core area. We're expected to bring online 20 to 24 wells this year. We plan to add a second operated rig this summer to drill wells in both of our asset areas. Production impact, the added activity is not likely to be realized until later in the year, the biggest impact reflected in 2022. Even with the additional rig, our drilling completion costs will be somewhat less than $300 million for the year. Over the last couple of years, a large portion of our free cash flow has gone to adding small bolt-on acquisitions. Now that we have a better understanding of returns generated in our Giddings development, we do not have any need for any large-scale M&A. This allows more of our free cash flow to be used for reducing our share count. We reduced our diluted share count by 4 percent from fourth quarter levels and expect the second quarter share count to average about 245 million shares. We were able to accomplish our annual share reduction goal in the first quarter alone, but we still plan to buy back about 1 percent of our shares each quarter. Despite spending $88 million during the quarter on share repurchases, we still exited the quarter with $178 million in cash. In summary, we had a great start to our business in 2021. With the efficiencies and better productivity at Giddings, we were able to do more with less, all while maintaining our low-cost structure and strong balance sheet. Less capital is needed to grow production, resulting in more free cash flow to improve the value of our business. With no need for any large-scale M&A activity, our free cash flow is focused on share repurchases combined with small bolt-on acquisitions. Finally, we plan to pay our first semiannual dividend in the third quarter. I'll now turn the call over to Chris.

speaker
Brian

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. As Steve mentioned, I plan to review some items from the first quarter results and provide some guidance for the second quarter and full year 2021 before turning it over for questions. Starting on slide four of the presentation on our website, Magnolia delivered very strong first quarter 2021 financial and operating results. The company generated total reported net income of $91 million, or 37 cents per diluted share, and adjusted net income of 94 million, or 38 cents per diluted share, both well ahead of consensus estimates. Our adjusted EBITDAX was $151 million in the first quarter, with total drilling and completion capital of approximately $39 million. D&C capital spending represented just 26% of our adjusted EBITDAX during the quarter. As a percentage, this was better than our earlier guidance, mainly due to higher product prices, higher production, and lower non-operated capital. Total first quarter production grew 3% sequentially to 62.3 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day, also higher than our earlier guidance. Our production in Giddings grew 45% from the prior year quarter, with oil production at Giddings growing 73%, from the year-ago period. Total production exceeded our guidance due to continued strong performance from some of our newer wells in Giddings. Looking at the quarterly cash flow waterfall chart on slide five, we began 2021 with $193 million of cash. Cash flow from operating activities during the quarter was $118 million, and cash flow from operations before changes of working capital was $142 million. Our DNC capital outlays, including leasehold costs, was $40 million during the quarter. We allocated $88 million during the first quarter toward our share repurchase efforts, reducing our fully diluted share count by approximately 9 million shares. Since we began our share repurchase authorization in the third quarter of 2019, we have reduced our diluted share count by 20.5 million shares, or by about 8%. We currently have 12.6 million shares remaining under the purchase authorization. We generated $100 million of free cash flow in the first quarter and ended the period with $178 million of cash on the balance sheet. $400 million of gross debt is reflected in our senior notes, which do not mature until 2026, and we do not expect to issue any new debt. Magnolia has an undrawn $450 million revolving credit facility, and our total liquidity of roughly $630 million is more than ample to execute our strategy and business plan. Our strong balance sheet and consistent free cash flow generation is a relative advantage for Magnolia, allowing us to improve our per share metrics, whereas cash flow for many of the more heavily indebted companies is consumed by interest costs or the need to allocate free cash flow to reduce leverage. Our condensed balance sheet and liquidity as of year end 2020 are shown on slides 6 and 7. Turning to slide 8 and looking at our unit costs and operating income margins, our total adjusted operating costs, including G&A, were $10.47 per BOE for the first quarter. Including our DD&A rate of $7.66 per BOE, which is generally in line with our F&D costs, Our operating income margins for the first quarter of 2021 were $17.83 for BOE, or 48% of our total revenue compared to 29% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Turning to some additional guidance for 2021, we expect our full-year capital to be below our normal range of 50% to 60% of adjusted EBITDAX, mainly due to higher than expected product prices and the improved efficiency of our capital program. While we plan to add a second operated rig during the summer, our total drilling and completion capital is still expected to be somewhat less than $300 million for the full year. The cadence of our activity and capital spending is expected to see a modest increase in the second quarter and further increase during the second half of the year, coinciding with the additional rig and activity. Overall, we expect to run one rig for the full year at Giddings, with the second second rig drilling in both Giddings and Carnes with a mix of development and some appraisal drilling at Giddings. Only a small portion of the production impact from the second rig will be seen late this year, with most of the benefit not reflected until 2022. 2021 capital spending and activity is expected to deliver full year production growth of six to nine percent compared to 2020 production levels of 61.8 thousand VOE per day. Looking at the second quarter of 2021, we expect production to average 66,000 barrels per day, a sequential increase of 6% compared to the first quarter. As we completed several ducts in the Carnes area late in the first quarter, most of the company's second quarter sequential volume growth will come from Carnes. This is somewhat a function of running one rig during the first half of the year and a matter of timing of drilling and completions between Carnes and Giddings. Oil price differentials are anticipated to be approximately a $3 per barrel discount to MEH during the second quarter. The fully diluted share count for the second quarter of 2021 is expected to be approximately 245 million shares, which is 4% lower than the fourth quarter 2020 levels. We expect our shares outstanding to decline further through the year as part of our ongoing share reduction efforts, as we expect to repurchase about 1% of our outstanding shares per quarter. I wanted to provide some additional information that should be helpful for those modeling our earnings for this year. Following GAAP rules, we do not expect to have any material federal tax expense for the remainder of the year as a result of a valuation allowance associated with the oil and gas property impairments taken during the first quarter of last year. Had the valuation allowance not been created last year, our non-cash tax expense for the first quarter would have been approximately $20 million on our total net income. Simply put, our pre-tax net income should approximate our total net income for the remainder of the year. Further to this point, we did not expect to pay any material federal cash taxes during 2021. As we have announced previously, last summer we provided notice to Intervest that we are ending our operating services agreement with the company. That process is now nearly complete as Magnolia has built out its organization, filled out most open roles with Magnolia employees and taken over the Enervest-provided services that were part of the original agreement. The transition from Enervest contract workers to Magnolia employees provides us with better operational control and should reduce our cost structure once the process is complete and into the second half of this year. We expect to take a one-time charge to be reflected in our second quarter results for costs associated with the anticipated termination of the services contract with Enervest including costs related to modernizing some of our IT systems and software. We expect to see a meaningful decline in our cash G&A starting in the second half of the year as a result of the end of the Intervest contract and plan to provide more details around this with our second quarter results. In summary, Magnolia's high-quality assets and continued capital efficiency should continue to generate strong operating margins and sizable free cash flow, allowing us to execute our strategy and improve per share value of the business. We're now ready to take your questions.

speaker
Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then one on a test shown phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, press star then two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And the first question comes from Zach Parham with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Zach Parham

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. You're now guiding the capital spending of somewhat less than $300 million in 21, which you talked about being less than 50% of EBITDA. Given that the 22 strip is currently around $60, how should we think about spending in 22? Is that two-rig program for the full year a reasonable expectation at this point? And I guess just more generally, how do you think about the balance between production growth and free cash flow generation?

speaker
Tom

I think you should view the amount of growth you have in your view and the capital spending is not uncorrelated. And so if you think we're going to grow in the low end of the single digits, of the Hopper single digits, you should have significantly less capital than $300 million. And if you think we're going to grow at the high end of it, it'll be closer to the $300 million. And the same thing will be true next year. So I think the run rate of the second half of the year in capital, which would be roughly twice what we spent in the first quarter annualized. Because we're running one rig in the first quarter, we're running mostly one rig in the second quarter, and then as we go in the third and fourth quarter, we're running two. So that rate, whatever it turns out to be, will approximate what you should see next year. That would generate, all things being equal, more growth than we're showing for this year, because we're basically running more rigs. The range, the six to nine range, actually reflects differences in our guess as to what non-operated activities would generate, since we don't really know that. It's picked up some recently, but it's still not a lot. And how many exploration-style wells we drill in Giddings versus development wells, and how the exploration-style wells turn out. So that's really the variance. And because of the variance we've built into this, the variance around the high end is probably somewhat greater.

speaker
Zach Parham

Got it. Thanks for that. And just one follow-up. You talked about paying no cash taxes for the remainder of 21. Just given that Magnolia is consistently profitable and generates free cash flow, when do you anticipate becoming a cash taxpayer?

speaker
Tom

It's actually a more complicated question than you probably would guess. The B shares that we have, which are about 27% of the total shares, those are physical. They're actually partnership units with a voting right attached to them. And so they pay their own taxes. And when they're sold, they have to be converted to the A shares. It's the only way to sell them or bought by us. doesn't matter which. We get a step up in tax basis and that provides shelter going forward. So our ability to predict this depends on the number of B shares outstanding. So it is true for sure that given our level of spending and given the profitability of the business, eventually we'll pay taxes And while I don't enjoy paying taxes, you know, as a person, I've always dreamed of being the nation's largest taxpayer. So, you know, it's sort of a good thing.

speaker
Zach Parham

Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. That's all for me. Thanks, Cass.

speaker
Cass

Thanks.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Leo Mariani with QBank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Leo Mariani

Hey, guys. You alluded to the fact that in your prepared remarks here that you saw some strong recent Giddings well performance. I was hoping maybe you could give us a little bit of color around that. And then additionally, just also wanted to ask about maybe some of the wells that came on in 2020 at Giddings, particularly some of the ones early in the year before you shut things down. Really, the question around that is just how is the longer-term well performance also looking at Giddings? I think as you folks know, historically, Austin Chalkwells sometimes haven't held up great over the long term. I think obviously you guys are targeting kind of a better section here of better permeability, so maybe you could just kind of speak to those two things.

speaker
Tom

Well, so we said we put on basically eight wells during the quarter. which ties to the drilling rate. So that's what that is. Virtually none of them have been on for 90 days. And so reporting 30-day production really isn't very useful for this, because the wells tend to start out a little noisy and build up over time, although it's been a little better lately. You can actually see what the older wells are doing because this is how many wells we're putting on, and the production clearly is not declining sharply. So the answer to your question is the decline rate is much less, say, than Carnes wells. And the better wells, are really quite strong in that period. But you can actually see it in the production, because we're not drilling enough wells to make the production grow if we were faced with 50% declines in the other wells. So it's been pretty remarkable. Again, I think physically, if you think about it, The historical fracking done in Austin chalk basically just fracked the chalk formation against existing fractures. Here what we're doing is we're creating some from the frack process, but we're also opening existing fracture zones. And so you get more, call it normal, non-fract type production going into the mix. So I think the answer to your question is that, you know, to some extent, you know, it's in the finding cost. I mean, you know, our finding cost is... Less than $5. Less than $5 of BOE for the wells. And, you know, and that continues to go down as we get more data. So that'll give you, and putting a royalty in there, because the royalty's taken out of that, give you an idea of what the wells are producing. So I don't think it's a great mystery that it's significantly lower than a Carnes, and produces a lot more oil over its life. But the reason we didn't talk about the eight wells is none of them have been on for the 90 days. But the ones that have are probably a little above average, above the average we showed you. So, you know, no reason really to put in hype numbers like that.

speaker
Leo Mariani

Okay, that's a helpful color for sure. And just in terms of returning capital to shareholders, you guys have obviously been very aggressive with the buyback. Clearly, you've indicated that you're going to start to bring a variable dividend into play here as we get later in the year in 2021. So maybe you can just talk about philosophically how you allocate some of that free cash flow to the variable dividend versus the buyback. Then you also mentioned M&A opportunities with free cash flow. If I heard you guys right, it sounds like you mostly think it's pretty small, bolt-on type stuff and not really anything chunky available.

speaker
Tom

It's not anything chunky available that would compete. That's the issue. I mean, there's stuff to buy for sure, but it would be dilutive to our results. And you might stumble into diluting yourself, but you shouldn't go out deliberately to do that. So that's really the principle of this. That's why the large deals, you know, there are other people who have a different set of alternatives. As far as buying the shares are concerned, we look at the earnings as sort of actually valuable information. Our finding costs and our DD&A rate are approximately the same, as Chris pointed out. So the earnings we have is available for, you know, improving things. So that's reducing the shares or whatever. And so, you know, if we're going to earn, I don't know what, you know, let's say we just annualized the first quarter. So if we're going to earn $1.40, $1.50, buying stock in that $10, $11 doesn't, you know, does not strike us as expensive. So as long as we can do that, that will be the principal focus. Over time, as we reduce the share count, the amount of dividends will go up because I view the dividend as sort of a lump sum, and it's just divided by the number of shares outstanding. So while we might pay a little less than we might otherwise pay in this year or maybe next year, it's a share count. The clients are just more money to pay more dividends. per share. And that's really the goal. As long as the stock is clearly inexpensive, you know, the priority will be there. And, you know, there are people who don't want to own oil stocks or don't want to own us. Anybody who's got a million shares can call up Mr. Stavros and we'll be glad to arrange to take those shares off their hands.

speaker
Zach Parham

Okay. Thanks, guys.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Neil Dingman with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Cass

Morning, all. Steve, just following up on that comment you just had. I mean, I agree the shares do look cheap, but again, my comment with a question, I guess, would be is your Gideon's returns are so phenomenal. So I'm just wondering how do you, when you and Chris sort of debate the ops versus the finances behind that, when you think about stock buybacks versus, uh, the incremental Giddings delineation using that money for?

speaker
Tom

You know, the Giddings is there forever. Locations don't go away. You know, so to some extent, since we don't sell shares as a company and no plans to do some, you know, buy something with a bunch of watered stock, our objective is to keep the stock in a reasonable range. We could spend more money and grow more. There's no argument about that. But the locations will still be there, and the opportunity to buy the shares is sort of now It's not the most popular segment in the world. And as long as people have that view and we can buy the shares cheaply now, we'll do that because we can always accelerate the drilling. My objective is to spend the money as wisely as I can over time. And so the business will grow nicely. you know, without pushing it, and our finding costs will stay low. If you start accelerating just to generate free cash flow, for what end, I don't know. You know, we'll get sloppy. Just the nature of oil guys. So, you know, this is a way to control our costs. And we can make the growth anything we want it to be. And so if high growth became more in vogue, we could probably do that. But right now, a growth of 6% to 9% and buying in 4% of the stock every year strikes us as a rational approach to generating pretty safe 10% per share metrics. 10, 11, 12, 13% metrics on a per share basis, and we think that should be attractive to a generalist investor.

speaker
Cass

No, I would agree with your comments, Stephen, and I think you just kind of hit on my follow-up, and it was around your Giddings growth. I mean, my thought was really these days, obviously, as you mentioned, any type of growth, it's so taboo, but it But for you all, as you mentioned, it takes so little capital to boost Gideon's. You know, just anything else you would think about. I mean, hell, you guys had great growth with just one rig. So, you know, again, given what I know how investors feel about growth, but how cheap it is to grow in Gideon's, maybe anything else you could say around that. Thank you, Steve.

speaker
Tom

Yeah, but, you know, we're putting a second rig on, and most of that will be in Gideon's. some in Carnes. In a $65 environment, while Carnes still isn't as good as Giddings, by North American standards, it's probably still some of the best money you could spend. And so that's sort of the balance we're doing. And we'll look into next year to see what needs to be done, but I don't like ratcheting up the rigs and then bringing them down and that sort of thing. So I try to be sure that we're able to continue whatever we're doing because we just manage better that way. In an emergency, of course, we can do whatever, but we just manage better if we build slowly and thoughtfully. And again, the locations aren't going away. And I don't have any, you know, I don't really care what the banks think because, you know, the only reason we don't reduce our line of credit is people would misinterpret it. So we just don't have that kind of, you know, debt needs. So, you know, I think this is the right strategy for a multi-year program. And, you know, one of... What would ruin the strategy or what would change the strategy would be if the stock were to go to some, you know, double or triple in the same price environment, and then the share repurchase strategy wouldn't work anymore and we'd have to endure more dividends.

speaker
Cass

Sure, sure. Well said as always, Steve. Thanks so much. Sure.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Umang Chaudhary with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

speaker
spk02

Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions.

speaker
Tom

Sure, good to talk to you.

speaker
spk02

My first question, most of my questions have been already asked, so I have two quick ones for you. The first question was around Gating's appraisal program and your expectations from that program as you add the second reg this summer.

speaker
Tom

Yeah, so some of it, the second rig will be used for pad drilling, and some will be to look at four new areas. And with the spacing of that, I don't know. We're still putting together the petrophysical work, so there'll be four wells, I think, that'll be, and there might be three, by the way, or some other number, but four is currently where we are now, and they'll be spaced over the year to look for areas where basically it's look for areas where we can economically lease more land to build the footprint in the areas and see if we can find some areas where we can add to our footprint. It's less about the production because we've probably got enough in the core area for a number of years. Since we've got this on our way to being figured out, I don't want to lose the first mover advantage.

speaker
spk02

Got it. And any color around the expectations in terms of like whether to be as oily as your focus area or do you expect the appraisal program to be more gaseous or in the gaseous part of your acreage footprint? Just trying to understand.

speaker
Tom

I think we're looking for basically, for getting as well, about 50% oil. And there might be some that are 40% oil. There might be some that are 60%. But when we get through, we're looking for a balance. The gassier parts... while we had a good day for gas this last quarter, it's still a pretty weak commodity. And until we get gas prices that are regularly over $3 or so, I'd rather focus on the oilier parts.

speaker
spk02

Got it. And my second follow-up question was really around the infrastructure build out in Gatings. I think last you mentioned was that if the program is successful, this was in early 2020, you would consider building a pipeline infrastructure, but the trucking cost itself is lower because your assets in Gatings are located pretty close to the refining demand centers. I just wanted to get your latest thoughts around potential to develop the pipeline infrastructure to reduce costs down the road.

speaker
Tom

That's something we're actively working on. Generally, the idea is that we'll be able to reduce the amount of production facilities we had. Use centralized production facilities and carry the oil to a trunk line and take that down. It's not very far, not very expensive. and then we probably put in a water disposal line to go with it for the same area. It's not a lot of money to do it, but it would generate significant efficiencies for us. What it looks like over the next two or three years, it's clear we can probably do that. We may have some people come in and ship on our line, too, But generally speaking, we see opportunities to do that, you know, because you want to make sure you had enough locations and you could figure out where they were before you put the line in. But right now we have enough line of sight to probably do that. You know, the principal issue is getting it right away. It's not whether the line makes sense. So, you know, you have a bunch of, you know, rich people live in River Oaks, you know, who have ranchettes there. And so nobody wants a pipeline in their ranch yet. So that's the fundamental issue.

speaker
spk02

Got it. That's really helpful, Carla. Thank you so much.

speaker
Tom

Sure.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Noel Parks with Toohey Brothers. Please go ahead.

speaker
Noel Parks

Hey, good morning. Morning. I just wanted to ask, and sorry if you touched on this already, the second ring that you're going to be bringing on, I was just curious about the rate you got for that and what the market looks like and whether you're taking it on spot pricing or whether you've locked it in for some period.

speaker
Tom

The rig rates have not changed very much. You know, And so the same people we had who run the first rig for them, and we were there for them during the downturn, and so they're here for us now. So I don't think we, you know, I don't think it's a lot different. You know, if you're talking about inflation in the field, inflation is caused by transportation costs and steel and things like that, which everybody knows. You can see they talk about it on television every day, so it must be right. So, you know, that's where the inflation is. But, you know, I would also add that, you know, there's a modest amount of inflation in oil price. And so the margins in this are, you know, You toss in a few pennies back to a steel producer or a guy running or driving a truck. You see, the price of sand doesn't change, for example, but the hauling of the sand costs more. That's the sort of thing you're seeing. That's true in American industry in general. We're not having UPS deliver our sand.

speaker
Noel Parks

Right. And could you just walk through the components of your cycle time now, just on average your drill days, completion days, and if there's a rig mold or demold in there. What's that like now typically?

speaker
Tom

We average two rigs. Two wells, yeah. Two wells a month. The actual drilling time is less than that, but that counts the moving the rig and that sort of thing every so often. I don't think that changes very much. In some quarters, it might be a little more or a little less, depending on how many moves of it. When we do the so-called exploration wells, those are single wells, and you don't have the pad efficiency, so you'll see some degradation there as we drill the three or four of those. But, you know, in the development, that's really all. And then, you know, the completion just depends. We only use one completion break, and we use it in Carnes and Giddings. Just a map depends on the schedule. So, you know, if we drill a well in January or March or whatever you want to say, you know, we could get to it right away, or it might take a couple months. And again, you know, three months, a quarter well, it It's a big deal to somebody studying the stock. From our perspective, it doesn't really make a lot of difference whether the well starts producing in June or July. It just depends. Again, with a small program like ours, small changes turn into big deals, but they're really not.

speaker
Noel Parks

Great. Fair enough. Thanks a lot.

speaker
Tom

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

As a reminder, if you have a question, press star then one to be joined into the queue. The next question comes from Nicholas Pope with Seaport Global. Please go ahead.

speaker
Nicholas Pope

Morning, guys.

speaker
Tom

Morning.

speaker
Nicholas Pope

Hey, I was trying to reconcile a little bit the kind of the capital CapEx guidance for the year. I think coming into the year, you were talking about expecting an average of six million on Giddings wells to drill and complete just kind of a back of the envelope math you know that's struggling to get to a 300 million dollars with a 30 type well count in Giddings during the year and trying to understand if there's maybe some more non-op activity that might be expected In Eagleford, in the Carnes area, just could you help me out a little bit with that, Matt?

speaker
Tom

Yeah, so your issue is sort of right. So you don't have to do it even more than that. You look at the first quarter, we spent about $40 million, included a little non-op activity and some completion of some docs. But you'd expect that in any quarter. And there were eight Giddings wells, sort of, two, four, six probably drilled in the quarter. So, you know, that's what a one-rig program costs. And if it's all we did, you know, you'd spend $40 million a quarter. And it would fluctuate with, you know, completing ducts or whatever we did in Carnes or whatever. But, you know, that's sort of the answer. When we put the second rig on, it'll cost another $40 million a quarter, for a full quarter, and so you do that. And then the rest would be in the non-op area, and some of the second rig will be used in Carnes, and some of it will be done to drill these exploration Giddings wells, so you get a little mismatch on the wells drilled. But, you know, that's right. You know, it's just... And are you all on track to get... Yeah, it's a struggle to get to 300, yeah.

speaker
Nicholas Pope

It's a good problem. It's a good problem. And you all are on pace on that. I think you all talked about, you know, kind of entering the year around 6'2", or at least that's what you average for 2020. an expectation of $6 million for DMC and for Giddings. Is that kind of on track?

speaker
Tom

Yeah, that's right. Got it. Yeah, and then, you know, the current laws are less expensive.

speaker
Nicholas Pope

Got it. Perfect. Thanks. That's all I had. Thank you.

speaker
Noel Parks

Thanks. Thanks. Okay.

speaker
Operator

This concludes our question and answer session, which also concludes today's conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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