Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation Class A

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in Magnolia Oil and Gas Corporation's Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Megan, and I will be your moderator for today's call. At this time, all participants will be placed in a listen-only mode as our call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Magnolia's management for their prepared remarks, which will be followed by a brief -and-answer session.

Thank you, Megan, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Magnolia Oil and Gas's Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Participating on the call today are Chris Stavros, Magnolia's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Corrales, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meeting of the federal securities 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 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 on slide 2 of the conference call slide presentation with the supplemental data on our website. You can download Magnolia's Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings press release as well as the conference call slides from the investor section of the company's website at .magnolioilgas.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Chris Stavros.

Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for our discussion of our Fourth Quarter and full-year 2024 financial and operating results. I plan to briefly speak to our full-year results in Fourth Quarter, which closed out another year of strong, reliable performance and execution aligned with Magnolia's business model and helped by some conscious actions taken around reducing our field-level operating costs. I'll briefly highlight how our business model and core principles continue to deliver results that compound per-year value and is evidenced through Magnolia's performance since its founding. Finally, I'll conclude by providing an outlook of Magnolia's 2025 capital and operating plan, which is expected to deliver moderate growth with a similar level of capital spending while providing additional capture of low-cost resource opportunities. Brian will then review our financial results in greater detail and provide some additional guides before we take your questions. Starting on slide 3 of the investor presentation and looking at the highlights, Magnolia ended in a high note with -the-board strength in both financially and in our operations. Record quarterly production volume during the Fourth Quarter of .1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day lifted full-year 2024 total production to .7,000 POE per day. This amounted to annual total company production growth of 9% for a second consecutive year and with full-year oil production growth of 11% exceeding our original expectations. Our total production at Gittings grew 16% with oil growing 21% and partially supported by a prior year acquisition in addition to strong well productivity and a continued expansion of our development area in this field. Total adjusted net income for the year was approximately $401 million and adjusted even tax was $953 million and our DNC capital spending of $477 million led to a reinvestment rate of just 50%. This allowed the company to generate free cash flow of $430 million last year and we returned 88% of the free cash flow or approximately $378 million to our shareholders through our growing base dividend and ongoing share purchase program. Our asset teams and field employees embraced our asset optimization at field level cost reduction initiatives implemented early last year and were successful in lowering our lease operating costs by 10% per POE through the year. This in combination with our efforts in continuing to work with our materials vendors and oil field service providers lowered our overall finding and development costs helping us achieve a return on capital employed of 22% last year and places Magnolia's overall cost structure in a position of strength into 2025. The confidence and strength in Magnolia's outlook supported our board's approval of a 15% increase to our quarterly dividend payment earlier this month to 15 cents per share or annualized payment of 60 cents per share. Magnolia's board also authorized an increase of 10 million shares to our existing share repurchase program designated for open market repurchases and as we continue with our plan to repurchase 1% of our shares outstanding per quarter. Turning to slide four, Magnolia's business model has remained reliably consistent and steady since the company was founded. As I've stated before, our objective has been and continues to be to operate a highly investable, attractive E&P business that is enduring and focused on generating absolute per share value over the long term. Our objective is to be the most efficient operator of best in class oil and gas assets generating the highest returns on those assets while employing the least amount of capital for drilling and completing our wells. Our continued low and reinvestment rate which has delivered moderate growth and significant free cash flow generation serves as evidence of achieving that goal. This formula enables a significant portion of the free cash flow to be returned to our shareholders in our case through our consistent and ongoing share repurchases and a secure and growing based dividend. The combination of reducing our total share count, moderate production growth and low cost structure creates an investment proposition that provides average annual dividend growth of approximately 10%. Additional free cash flow accrues to the balance sheet allowing us to opportunistically pursue and to attract both oil and gas property acquisitions that can improve and extend our high return business. The results of our model and strategy are apparent when examining what we've achieved over the longer term. As shown on slide five, Magnolia has had one of the lowest capital reinvestment rates while realizing one of the highest rates of production per share growth among US oil and gas producers over the past four years. Turning to slide six, Magnolia continues to generate high pre-tax operating margins largely a result of our high quality assets, our emphasis around efficiencies and cost containment. We successfully lowered our overall wealth costs and DNC capital during 2023 and reduced field level operating costs last year, which at current product prices should lead to improve full cycle operating margins in 2025. As shown on slide seven, the strength of our balance sheet remains best in class. Maintaining low leverage is a key component of our business model, minimizing overall financial risk while providing flexibility and optionality for the company. The absence of any oil and gas hedges provides us with the ability to accrue a significant amount of excess cash flow to the balance sheet during a period of higher product prices, which can then gradually be deployed as product prices recede. Deploying this countercyclical strategy has been, in our experience, benefiting the company and our shareholders by executing on a creative, bolt-on acquisition opportunity during more modest product prices. While other producers have shown the ability to capitalize on one or two of these metrics, it is uncommon to have a low reinvestment rate with above average growth per share combined with high operating margins and low debt. This effective and potent combination allows us to maximize free cash flow generation and continue to support our highly competitive capital return program. Slide eight shows our returns at the corporate level or the overall financial outcome of our business model. As I mentioned, our return on capital employed delivered another solid result with RCE of 22% during 2024 and despite lower -over-year product prices. Magnolia's return on capital employed on average over the past six years or approximately since the company's inception was 26% or roughly three times our weighted average cost of capital. These superior returns are a function of our high-quality assets, our strategy around disciplined capital allocation, maintaining our low debt, a low cost structure, and further enhanced by our ongoing share purchase program. This combination has proven to be a successful recipe. Finally on slide nine, Magnolia's business model continues to result in consistent and reliable free cash flow through the cycle with a significant portion of that free cash returned to our shareholders. Since inception, Magnolia's returned nearly $1.6 billion or approximately 35% of its current market capitalization through a combination of share repurchases and dividends. We enter 2025 on south footing after a very solid year of operating performance and a strong financial position with an improved cost structure. Our business model and strategy remains largely unchanged. Magnolia plans to operate two drilling rigs and one completion group during 2025 and expects to maintain this level of activity through the year with total DNC capital spending anticipated in the range of $460 to $490 million. This level is roughly flat with last year and at current product prices represents a reinvestment rate of less than 55% of our adjusted EBITDAX. This also includes an estimate of non-operated capital that is roughly the same as 2024 levels. Our activity and spending is expected to deliver total annual production growth of 5 to 7%, including low single-digit annual growth in oil production, with the overall characteristics and quality of this year's program expected to be very similar to what we experienced last year. Most of our oilfield service and materials costs are under contract through at least mid-2025 and we continue to see some ongoing DNC efficiency improvements generated by our operations team at Giddings, inclusive of last year's 7% increase in drilling feet per day. While our DNC spending levels are expected to be similar to 2024, lower overall well costs combined with improved operating efficiencies allows more wells to be drilled, completed, and turned in line, supporting Magnolia's high margin growth while providing additional operational flexibility. Approximately 75 to 80% of this year's activity will consist of multi-well development pads in the Giddings area. Over the last several years, we have gained a much better understanding of the subsurface and normal technical knowledge through our own drilling and data gathering at Giddings. We plan to put some of this knowledge to work and allocate a portion of our capital to further delineate our significant acreage position at Giddings through some appraisal wells, decide to test some concepts, further extend the boundaries of the field, and expand the competitive advantage that we have gained in the area. Our Carnes area assets continue to generate significant free cash flow and we expect to allocate approximately 20 to 25% of our capital to this asset this year, including modest development as well as some appraisal activity. We believe that our business model and strategy provide us with a durable competitive advantage to sustain our moderate growth over time and allowing us to continue to act as serial compounders of value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Brian to provide more details on our financial and operating results.

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I will review some items from our fourth quarter and full year results and refer to the presentation slides found on our website. I'll also provide some additional guidance for the first quarter of 2025 and the remainder of the year before turning it over for questions. I know you ended 2024 on a strong note, highlighted by steady and consistent execution. During the fourth quarter, we generated total net income of $89 million with total adjusted net income of $95 million or $0.49 per diluted share. Our adjusted EBITDAX for the quarter was $236 million with total capital associated with drilling completions and associated facilities of $132 million. For the full year, adjusted EBITDAX was $953 million with DNC capital representing 50% of EBITDAX. Fourth quarter production volumes grew 9% year over year to 93.1 thousand barrels of oil equivalent a day. For the full year, production volumes grew 9% to 89.7 thousand barrels of oil equivalent a day with oil growth of 11%. During the year, we purchased a total of 11 million shares and our diluted share count fell by 5% year over year. Looking at the quarterly cash flow waterfall chart on slide 11, we started the year with $401 million of cash. Cash flow from operations before changes in working capital was $919 million, with working capital changes and other small items impacting cash by $11 million. During the year, we paid dividends of $107 million and allocated $273 million towards share repurchases. We added $165 million of bolt-on acquisitions through the year. We incurred $487 million on drilling completions, facilities, and leasehold and ended the year with $260 million of cash. Looking at slide 12, this chart illustrates the progress in reducing our total outstanding shares since we began our repurchase program in the second half of 2019. Since that time, we have repurchased 72.9 million shares, leading to a change in weighted average diluted shares outstanding of 23% net of issuances. Magnolia's weighted average diluted share count declined by more than 2 million shares sequentially, averaging 196.2 million shares during the fourth quarter. As Chris discussed, the board recently approved a 10 million share increase to our share repurchase authorization, leaving 11.7 million shares remaining under our current repurchase authorization, which are specifically directed toward repurchasing Class A shares in the open market. Turning to slide 13, our dividend has grown substantially over the past few years, including a 15% increase announced earlier this month to $0.15 per share on a quarterly basis. Our next quarterly dividend is payable on March 3rd and provides an annualized dividend payout rate of $0.60 per share. Our plan for annualized dividend growth is an important part of Magnolia's investment proposition and supported by our overall strategy of achieving moderate annual production growth, reducing our outstanding shares, and increasing the dividend per share payout capacity of the company. Magnolia continues to have a very strong balance sheet, and we ended the quarter with $260 million of cash. Our recently financed senior notes of $400 million do not mature until 2032. Including our fourth quarter ending cash balance of $260 million and our undrawn $450 million revolving credit facility, our total liquidity is approximately $710 million. Our condensed balance sheet as of December 31st is shown on slide 14. Turning to slide 15 and looking at our per unit cash costs and operating income margins. Total revenue per BOE declined year over year due to the decline in oil prices. Our total adjusted cash operating costs, including G&A, were $10.62 per BOE in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our operating income margin for the fourth quarter was $14.48 per barrel or 38% of total revenue. 95% of the decrease in our quarter over quarter pre-tax operating margin was driven by the decrease in commodity prices. On slide 16, Magnolia had a very successful organic drilling program during the year. The total proved developed reserves at year end 2024 were 149 million BOEs. Excluding acquisitions and price related revisions, the company added 44 million barrels of oil to the equivalent of proved developed reserves during the year. Total drilling and completions capital was $477 million in 2024 resulting in organic proved developed F&D cost of $10.77 per BOE and reflective of our current drilling program. Turning to guidance, we expect our 2025 capital spending for drilling completions and associated facilities to be in the range of $460 to $490 million which includes an estimate of non-op capital that is about the same as 2024 levels. We expect first quarter DNC capital expenditures to be approximately $135 million and anticipate this to be the highest quarterly rate of spending for the year. Total production for the first quarter is estimated to be approximately 94 BOE a day with 2025 full year total production growth expected to be 5 to 7%. Oil price differentials are anticipated to be approximately a $3 per barrel discount to Magellan East Houston and Magnolia remains completely unhedged for all of its oil and natural gas production. The fully diluted share count for the first quarter of 2025 is expected to be approximately 195 million shares which is 5% lower than first quarter 2024 levels. We expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 21% with most of this being deferred. Our tax tax rate is expected to be between 7 to 9% for 2025. We are now ready to take your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone please pick up your hands before pressing the keys. At any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question please press star then 2. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Neil Dingman with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Congratulations guys another great quarter. Chris my first question is just on your well cost specifically. One time I know you all had a good bit of your well cost included a number of tests you performed down whole before actually producing the well. I am just wondering now when you look at the plan are you still doing a fair amount of science as you drill some of these Giddings wells or is it now just strictly a development program?

Morning Neil thanks. We are sort of down the path pretty good here. We have been doing this for a while several years in Giddings certainly after COVID fairly consistently so the science now is probably far and away more limited maybe to some of the newer areas and I would tell you that we are more down the development path in Giddings other than maybe some of the appraisal activity which is a bit different but as far as pouring actual science down wells it is more limited right now so it is really more pure development.

Now that is great to hear and then second question just on shareholder return I believe I continue to think you all have one of the more appropriate dividend and buy back policies. I am just wondering Simon you don't probably spend too much terribly on bolt on and other opportunities and the cash position continues to grow to I don't know 500, 600 million are you comfortable with keeping that on the balance sheet or would there be various other strategic plans? Thanks.

Well we have seen this happen before where the cash built to 700 million for a little bit of time I called it the winnings during a period of very high product prices and then with a little bit of patience not believing that it would burn a hole in our pocket for too long we deployed it when the time was right or when we saw attractive opportunities so I am not adverse to seeing it happen and holding on to the cash for a little bit of time but not a lengthy period of time I just don't think it would occur for that long so anyway I think there will be things that always come up.

Our next question comes from Oliver Wong with TPH please go ahead.

Good morning Chris and Brian and thanks for taking the questions. I know you all are fairly conservative when it comes to booking of reserves but it would appear that you all have quite a bit of gassy inventory that gets very little credit from the market so just kind of wondering what would it take to just lean into that acreage a bit more just kind of given the trajectory of gas prices in the near term to maybe unlock some of that value there?

Yeah I guess part of the answer is that you know we I think our cost structure has seen quite a bit improvement so you know it all starts with well economics and some of the actions that we have taken the last couple of years around reducing our well costs may have improved the returns in certain areas that might have been previously a little bit more marginal and puts us in a much better position so you know we continuously revisit and review these areas to see if they could work and revisit them again as we further optimize just in terms of other efficiencies so look I think you know built exactly the same within our extensive position in Giddings the 550,000 acres you know probably not. There's probably some variability in the performance or what not or in the acreage but you know will more of it work out over time? Probably yes because we're learning more every day and that's you know part of the going to be part of the appraisal work that we're doing this year and so I think it's more along the lines of stay tuned probably have more to say about it or you'll just see it happen a little bit of time.

Okay makes sense and maybe for a follow-up question just on well costs I know you all have done a good job of lowering well costs over the past couple of years first starting with the completion side then moving to the drilling side last year but just kind of wondering are there any immediate levers or line of sight to things that you could potentially do maybe along the lines of longer laterals just given how contiguous the acreage is and if not is there anything in particular that's keeping you all from kind of taking that step?

No nothing nothing that's preventing us from taking the step I mean again you know we continue as I said it really all starts with the economics and and that we're in a much better position right now so you know we're examining different parts of the field and trying to test some new things and you know push the boundaries a little bit around the field so I you know it seems to me before we go out and pay you know four or five six million or whatever per undrilled location that we should probably take a closer look within the acreage that we already own so as I mentioned we gathered a lot of data some surface and also from some of the assets that we've acquired in the northern part of Gittings, southern part of Gittings and as we integrate and optimize some of the learnings from those assets it should allow us to expand some of the boundaries of the field and actions that we've already taken around not just the cost but but also some of the optimization around inventory etc. I think it's led to us adding you know tens of thousands of incremental lateral feed toward drilling inventory and over time it'll likely amount to multiples of that so we continue to test some concepts and I think it's it's going to go well for us over time.

Awesome thanks for the time.

The next question comes from Carlos Collance with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hi it's McKinley and for Collers so good solid work for the team. Thank you guys for taking my questions. So my question is what is your what is what does your 2025 capital program of capital and my second question is how close are you guys to dropping a rig even if partially going forward? Thank you.

Yeah I feel very comfortable with the range of capital spending the 460 to 490 million that we gave you know sort of the midpoint is right around you know certainly the current product prices what it'll take to generate the type of growth that we we talked about the five to seven percent and lower single digital oil growth. I wouldn't imagine that we'd have to if your question was around slowing activity or dropping a rig I wouldn't I wouldn't and certainly a current product price is not going to happen I would imagine that that would have to be something up low $60 before we we even thought about that. So I on oil I don't see that happening right now but you know we're prepared to do it we have a lot of optionality and flexibility in the program we've done a lot to improve our cost structure and so we're we're well set up to achieve what we what we plan to achieve for this year so I think I expect the plan to be fairly steady.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Zach Parham with JP Morgan please go ahead.

Good morning I just wanted to ask on the trajectory of your expected production through the year you talked about one Q capex being that the high point of the year should that drive more growth in two Q and then maybe flatten out in the back half just just curious if you could provide some color there.

Thanks Zach yeah so I I expect it to grow rateably through the year it may you know you may see some variability but I expect it to grow fairly rateably through the year you'll see growth in in four Q to one Q one Q to two Q generally you know the percentage between quarters may may jump around a bit it's depending on the pace of activity and as we said the first quarter will be a little bit higher in the highest part of the year in terms of capital which you know should see good first half volumes but then I fully expect to end the year at at a at a at a pretty good clip you know we could start to see likely frankly maybe triple digits on overall volumes or certainly getting close to that and then you know certainly in the year maybe 40,000 a day of oil if not a little bit better I think these numbers are more or less in line with consensus consensus maybe a little bit better.

Thanks for that color my follow-up I just want to ask about Carnes you mentioned some appraisal work that you're doing there can you just give us a little more color on what you're testing in Carnes?

Yeah there was a an opportunity that we we got involved in about a year or so ago through a small acquisition about 25,000 acres I've mentioned it on on previous calls and again I describe it as a as an exploitation or appraisal option it's an oily area and if we can make it work it could go together with some of the activity that we typically pursue in Carnes we have had a couple of recent wells there that have performed quite good but I do think we still need to study it a bit further before moving forward so we'll have to see how it goes it's still a little early but I'm I'm encouraged by what we've seen so far.

Thanks Chris. Thanks.

The next question comes from Noah Hungness with Bank of America please go ahead.

Morning guys my first question I was just hoping to get your latest take on the M&A opportunity set across the Eagleford and where you see that greatest opportunity set is it in the oily window or the natural gas or somewhere in the somewhere in the middle?

Yeah you know look over the last six to 12 months there have been several opportunities and assets or packages that have topped up in in the Eagleford mainly west of Carnes and of varying quality and size you know as we've said often times we look at everything we take a lot of tires and we we may or may not participate in some actual processes but anyway we look at a lot of things and we'll just sort of see how it goes there isn't anything that's I would describe as massive or huge but it certainly does have a varying degree of quality and you know we've always talked about on M&A not looking to just add existing volumes but looking to add you know opportunities where we can be happy the chance to improve our our resource set and upside over time so you know we carefully look at those things too but they are generally earlier.

Oh sorry.

Yeah they are they are they have tended to be a bit oilier as you would imagine in the lower Eagleford.

Yeah that makes sense and then for my second question I was just wondering your current CAPEX guidance has a range for splitting it out by area for Carnes between 20 and 25 percent and Giddings between 80 and 75 percent how how should we think about what would cause it to go one way or the other?

I don't think it's I don't think you're going to see you know any any subtleties that you might have appreciated or or looked through into the the wording of the the remarks is really around the noise I mean it you know for Giddings as an example last year it represented 76 percent I think of our overall company volumes you know I I think it's within a range 75 to 80 percent same same for for Carnes it might might be slanted a little bit more around some appraisal work that we do in one area versus the other etc could be partially timing but I I wouldn't tell you that there's going to be a sizable or significant shift one way or the other I mean we still like both assets for what they they're capable of delivering and providing to the organization to the company you know so I wouldn't expect a big change.

Sounds good thank you.

Thanks. Our next question comes from Neil with Goldman Sachs please go ahead.

Yeah good morning team and I apologize that this question was was asked already but just your perspective on the big focus areas around Giddings and in the year ahead what are some of the operational milestones that the market should be looking for in terms of continuing to assess how the that project is developing?

Well I hope to to be able to talk about you know some you know further expansion of the field in terms of our you know appraisal work and some of the things in terms of further developing it and delineating it you know as I said before it all starts with with you know well economics and and we're just in such a much better position or a really really strong position from our our cost side of things and so more comes into the fold with some of that and it provides us with more flexibility and optionality to pursue some things or take a little bit more risk around appraisal work and test some areas you know test the boundaries expand the boundaries of the field if you will so I hope to have more more color and and and maybe provide some more actual feedback or data around our results second half of this year it's we're really just starting to get at it so you know in terms of this year so hopefully back half of the year we'll have more to say.

That's great well stay tuned and then the follow-up is you've got a a really solid track record of dividend growth I mean you're targeting 60 cents here in 2025 which is differentiated relative to a lot of smith cap E&P and so just your perspective on the sustainability of that dividend growth and your ability to continue to achieve 10 percent type of numbers and how do you balance whether dividends or buybacks are the right use of that incremental dollar?

Well on the dividend you know the safety and security of the dividend is is a critical element of it I don't want to be one of you know small mid cap or any peak company for that matter that sort of you know promises dividend growth implements a growing dividend then it sort of somehow vanishes in the midst of a deteriorating portion of the cycle so I don't want to be one of those companies that sort of has to fall back on that on that promise so the dividend I view is a is a promise to the shareholders and so we we thoroughly stress test the dividend at much lower product prices when we go to the board for an increase every year whenever that happens and so I'm comfortable knowing that we'll be able to grow it and remember we talk about growing this dividend per share payout capacity so the share repurchase program and the consistency of that sort of builds into that and and works for you in terms of reducing the share count so your actual cash dollars outlay doesn't increase as much as the percentage increase in in the per share of the dividend so it's sort of a natural benefit that and plays hand in hand in that in that growth and so I think it's you know on the share repurchases the consistency of the program really is a good mix of of ingredients if you will around the recipe of our overall shareholder return program and I feel confident that it's you know we've done the right thing by our shareholders and sort of dollar cost averaging and for share repurchases and it's improved everything on a per share metric over time so the balance of how we're doing it I think is is a reasonable approach Thanks

team appreciate it thanks

the next question comes from Jeff J with Daniel Energy Partners please go ahead

hey guys I just was looking for some clarification around the Giddings appraisal work if you know this works out and you find what you're looking for how significant is it for you know your location countdown there I mean is it incremental or is this sort of a really big deal

well it's it's a really big deal in terms of of what you know what the what the potential is because you got you know as I said 550,000 acres and you know we always look to add more opportunistically if and when we can and that might even include you know some additional lease opportunities with time and some some bolt-ons as we've done in the past you know look it doesn't take much you know we we continue to as I said press on the boundaries of the field and you know by adding as a as I mentioned incremental lateral feet to to that drilling inventory it you know it doesn't take much to make a sizable impact on our overall resource relative to our annual drilling program so I think about it that way but over time and over multiple years it's it can be quite sizable

excellent thank you thanks

this concludes our question and answer session the conference is now concluded thank you for attending today's presentation