Matador Resources Company

Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call

4/29/2021

spk04: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first quarter 2021 Matador Resources Company earnings conference call. My name is Sarah, and I'll be serving as the operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will facilitate a question and answer session at the end of the company's remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes, and the replay will be available on the company's website through May 31st, 2021, as discussed in the company's earnings press release issued yesterday. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Max Smits, Capital Markets Coordinator for Matador. Mr. Smits, you may proceed.
spk08: Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Matador's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Some of the presenters today will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures regularly used by Matador Resources in measuring the company's financial performance. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures with the comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP are contained at the end of the company's earnings press release. As a reminder, certain statements included in this morning's presentation may be forward-looking and reflect the company's current expectations or forecasts of future events based on information that is now available. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company's earnings release and its most recent quarterly report on Form 10Q. Finally, in addition to our earnings press release, I would like to remind everyone that you can find a slide presentation in connection with the first quarter of 2021 earnings release under the Investor Relations tab on our corporate website. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Joe Foran, our Chairman and CEO. Joe?
spk03: Thank you, Mac, and good morning to everyone. And thank you for participating in today's earnings conference call. We appreciate your time and interest in Matador very much. I'm going to turn the call back to the operator in a moment to take your questions. But first, I wanted to make a few quick points. First, as you all have noticed, that we have continued to make good progress on our leverage ratio. At the end of the fourth quarter, we were about 2.9, and today we're 2.5. Second is the revenues are up, obviously, on commodity prices, but even more importantly, we've substantially reduced our cost, not from hitting on our vendors and beating them down so much as working with them, which we greatly appreciate, to make our operations more efficient. And we've reduced our time on well, fracking efficiency and effectiveness, and we want to thank each of our vendors for the way they've cooperated and worked with us. But these costs have come down dramatically, and as we all know, when you have an extra dollar of revenue, the royalty owner takes his share, the government takes their severance tax, sales and use tax, and the like, and you're generally left with about 65% of every dollar. But the cost side, every dollar saved goes to the bottom line, and we get to keep. So that's a big part of the difference. Finally, I'd like to stress that we've been through a lot in the past year, and There have been a lot of challenges with the pandemic, with the weather, with prices, and working our way through that has been a total team effort. Everybody here at Matador has contributed all across the spectrum, and you're likely to hear today how our guys in the field have. They loaded up groceries in the truck and threw it in a bedroll and slept in their trucks to keep the production on. And teams here have worked together to plan the drilling schedule and to work on costs together. And the geology keeps coming up with new zones. When we went out to the Delaware a few years ago from the Eagleford and made that our main area, We were basing it on three zones. Today, it's my understanding, as Ned will probably speak up at some time on a question, we are producing from 18 different zones and think we'll be over 20 by the end of the year. So just great. Same way on San Mateo. When our production group was ready to turn on the wells, the pipes were there waiting for them. so we weren't having to truck out the oil or the water. All of it, including the gas, were on top, which was good for our ESG as well as the bottom line. So with that, let me turn the call back to the operator for any questions that you may have.
spk04: Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star then 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, Please press the pound key. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up until all have had the chance to ask a question, after which we will welcome additional questions from you. Our first question is from Scott Hannel with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
spk11: Thank you. Congratulations on the strong quarter. It's good to see that leverage reduction coming quicker than expected. My first question is on some of the recent well performance and cost performance of these longer lateral and federal wells. Can you give us some color on what to expect from them? It seems like the Boros wells came on and are holding in there pretty good. I know the Vonnie wells obviously have the longer laterals. Can you give us a sense of, like, what the expectations are, you know, for those things? Are they holding in a little bit better based on, you know, well management? And then along with that, you know, maybe some color on the cost side, because I know you all, you know, tried some simulfracts in some of these wells, have seen some pretty dramatic cost reduction. And the plan going forward, is that something you can replicate or plan to replicate on future drilling? Sure.
spk07: Yeah, good morning, Scott. This is David. I'll take the production side of the question or the well performance side, and then I'll ask Matt to step in and talk a little bit about the costs and the fracks. Look, I think we're extremely pleased with the wells that we've drilled at, I mean, frankly, all over the basin, but at Rodney Robinson and State Line. those have been some exceptional wells. You are correct, the Boros wells have continued to be very strong. We had about, as I recall, about a six million BOE increase in our reserves this past year attributable to just revisions upward, and a lot of that was due to some of the Boros wells as well as the Rodneys and others that have continued to do well. You know, I think when we put the little shareholder letter out at the first of the quarter, we talked about how those 13 wells had made something like 3.8 million BOE already in the first six months of production. So they're hanging in there very well. I think, you know, the Vonnie wells are off to a very, very good start, so very pleased with those. You know, so we're anticipating that those wells will be, you know, probably actually even a little better than the Boros wells. I think that you don't always see, although the BIPs are excellent, those wells, we'll see the little kick from the longer laterals as we get more history on these wells. My prediction would be that we'll see the proportionate increase in EURs going forward. you know, all good right now. So, Matt, you want to talk about the cost?
spk06: Yeah, Scott, good morning. You know, we're really excited about the drilling and completion cost and most excited probably about the efficiency related to both. So just to kind of put a little background on this, we've now drilled over 75 of these two-mile laterals. So, you know, we're getting better as we go. And kind of what I'd like to point to, Scott, if we just look back at the first round of boros wells that we drilled, in the summer of last year. We spent about $800 per complete lateral foot on that. These Vani wells were $610, and so that's 20-25% better just on the cost. I will say one of the most important things to us is that we don't sacrifice any quality in doing that, and we haven't. Our MaxCom team continues to hit it out of the park. They're up to, well, earlier this morning I thought it was 116 drilling records. Billy just tells me right before the call it's 117. And so we calculate that's probably a $15 million cost savings related just to MaxCom. And they're staying in zone well over 90, 95% of the time. And I'll just point to a well that's not the first boros or the Vonnie wells. Scott, it's one of the later boros wells that we just finished. The wolf can't be well. The previous record on the boros was about 31 days, and the guys did it in about 16 1⁄2. So that's 14 1⁄2 days that they saved. And, you know, as we said in the past, if you contemplate that being $100,000 per day, that's about $1.4 million in savings. So they continue to knock it out of the park on the drilling side. And on the completion side, you know, we've improved our efficiency there. In, say, 2018, we were completing about 900 feet per day. And this year we're averaging 1,550 feet per day. And we just finished a couple of Stebbins wells, our Ted Pop wells up there, And we average 2,265 feet per day. So that helps us from a couple of different ways. Number one, the service company realizes that they're going to get to pump more fracture stages per day. And so they adjust that into their cost. And then we're paying less for wellhead equipment, trailer supervision, all the daily rental items that we have out there. And then Glenn and his team come in and they've modified their flow back procedure where we're using less equipment and saving several hundred thousand dollars. Just all in all, just a great team effort, and we anticipate that we'll just keep drilling them faster and completing them better.
spk11: Yeah, Matt, could you give a little color on the simulfrac, how that went, and if it's applicable on doing that going forward?
spk06: Yeah, sure, Scott. It's a really good tool for a four-well pad, which we have probably 60% of the remaining pads for the year will be four-well pads. Our first experience, we anticipated that we would save about $220,000 per well. We actually calculate that we're saving about $250,000. So we're off to a good start. We averaged around 2,200 feet per day with simulfrac. And so for the first crack out of the box, I think it's a home run there, and we'll be looking to improve as we go forward. And guess what, Matt?
spk07: We had like 750 years.
spk06: stages there on the Vonnies that were kind of without a hitch? Yeah, between the Boros and the Vonnies, it's 1,550 stages. So that's a lot of frack work.
spk11: Yeah, that's pretty impressive. And my follow-up, and I guess, Joe, you kind of led me into my question, and maybe we can hear from Ned, but, you know, obviously, you know, 18 zones, potential of 20, and it feels like this is kind of a question that comes up about once a year. strategically as you go forward, how should we think about what zones are you finding that are going to be most strongly economic, and should we start to think about you guys as you start looking into 2022 to really refining, targeting some of the better zones first, or how do you see that development strategy going forward?
spk03: Yeah, Scott, I'm going to say this first part and then let Ned really get more specific, but Overall, our guidance is still that proper growth at a measured pace. And while there's an abundance of zones to go after and we put plenty of rigs, the first key is, you know, Matadors went from the time we went public down there, bottom of 150 to one of the 20 approximately largest E&P companies by market cap and so we're more of a tortoise than a hare but we like that moving at a measured pace and staying profitable. Many thanks to the geological group that Ned has helped build that keep coming up with good ideas and we've been able to squeeze in testing those zones as we drill this multitude of wells to kind of stay fresh and Just give enormous credit to the asset teams and to Ned for coming up with ideas and being confident enough to test them out. It's worked out pretty well. And Ned, many thanks to you and to the asset managers, the team leads that we have for affirming your ideas. Go ahead, Ned.
spk05: Thank you, Joe. And it really is a full team effort here. I mean, it starts with the the land and legal group kind of getting the units put together, and then the geoscience team and the engineers working together to identify these targets. But, you know, really how we've done this in a lot of ways is focusing on what has worked in a lot of our early assets, you know, the X and Y sands. We started out with those in Wolf and pushed those to Rustler Breaks and then Hats off to Trent Goodwin and his team for pushing those up into the Stebbins asset area with great success. One of the zones that we really like right now has been the first bone. The Ray well in Russell Breaks is kind of flying under the radar right now, but that's a great well. You'll see us continue to push that zone around the basin, but You know, there's a lot left to do in this basin, and I think just letting the rocks speak for themselves and kind of keeping an open mind to what we test and, you know, how we look at things around the basin has been really a winning approach for us. So you'll see us keep doing that.
spk11: That's good, Connor. Appreciate it.
spk03: Well, thank you, Scott.
spk04: Our next question is from Neil Dingman of Truist Securities. Your line is open.
spk02: Morning, all. Thanks for the time. Jill, my first question, maybe for you or David, you guys obviously are doing a great job of hitting your leverage goals, probably even ahead of, you know, what I think a lot of us were thinking now. And I'm just wondering, will you all consider, I'm wondering, you know, let's say once you get to that two times, which I think is very possible and likely this year, would you all consider at that point maybe a more robust shareholder return? Would you prefer even continue to pay down the debt with perhaps the lion's share, or would you consider maybe external, internal growth? Just wondering sort of plans if you do hit that target as I think ahead of schedule. Nice job on that, by the way.
spk03: Neil, candidly, we're going to consider all three of those alternatives, and that's one of the things that we're hoping that the COVID will, ease itself so we can get back on the road and meet with our shareholders in person and hear from them what they think as well as meet with a few analysts who may come by and want to get together where we can discuss and hear your thoughts, look at what some of the other companies are doing and consider all three of those and parts of all three of those. So you might not have concentration on one. You may have some of debt reduction and some of raising the dividend, but look, we just paid our first dividend. So, you know, give us a little break. That was just 30 days ago. I was waiting for the next go. And, you know, the debt's going to be a continuing thing to... to reduce. We're not in any big rush to add rigs or anything. It's got to make sense, profitable sense. That's why we've always tried to work. Does it really add value so it's not growth for growth's sake? It's quality growth. A lot of effort is put around here to say, where does this take us? You know, it's a high-class problem to have to look at those three, but it's really nice to have the flexibility that we can do any of the three or any part of the three and still raise the value of Matador. And San Mateo, I don't want San Mateo left out because they've not only contributed to the EBITDA, to the cash flow, but the operational advantages that we've had when – our guys were turning on the Rodney Robinson or the Boris wells. If it was an outside midstream company, they might not have been as responsive and be there waiting for us when Chris and Cliff had completed those wells and had them ready to turn on. So we're really glad that Greg joined us, and Matt Spicer joined us, and they've really pushed the midstream ahead, and Matt Hereford, and James, and so it's all integral, and one hand has really helped wash the other.
spk06: Yeah, Joe, just want to add to that, just specifically on that Triple E pipeline, which is what we call the gas trunk line that runs from the Black River plant there in Russell Breaks area down the state line, we had... With permitting in process and a lot of that was BLM and a lot of it was state, a lot of it was fee. And COVID happened and people quit coming to work. And I'm almost certain that the San Mateo folks got it done when a lot of people wouldn't have. I mean, they went above and beyond. They climbed mountains to get people to come to work and approve permits. And we put two crews to work, which... got it done, and got it done just in time. Otherwise, I think we'd have been sitting there for weeks, if not months, with wealth drilled and completed and waiting to produce. So, you know, it was a Herculean effort by the San Mateo team.
spk02: Yeah, we agree, Matt. And, Joe, interesting to hear your perspective on all three. Matt, I'd really love to hear your opinion, given you guys are such big holders. And my last question is just on undrilled inventory. In broader terms, how you guys think about Tier 1 locations left in Key areas like State Line, Russell Breaks, and others. Thank you, guys.
spk03: Thanks, Neal. And also, it's true that we are big owners, and that has a definite influence with our stock ownership. We make a lot more from the stock going up when I say we, the whole executive group, especially Matt and David and Billy and us, by the stock going up a dollar or two than we do from our our salary compensation. And that's an important part of our culture. We expect the other staff to be buying stock and being interested in that. And we're pleased during the worst times of last year when the price war and the pandemic were going and our stock was challenged more, we had over 200 of the staff get out there and buy stock during that time. And, uh, I think the interest is paying off this year. Uh, and, and, uh, and then the second, uh, uh, part of your, uh, tell me that again. I got so interested in the inventory. Oh, the inventory is David. We made sure that I got so interested in talking about, uh, uh, that, uh, so the inventory looks really good I mean one thing that's helped it is all those different zones that Ned talked about but we believe we have a thousand or more A plus locations and that's what a lot of this business has come down to is how many A plus locations and we define that as it's kind of dated now but that was What would give you a 15% rate of return at $35 a barrel? Well, we're above that, but we really haven't added to those locations or redone the numbers on it, but we've got plenty of locations. We drilled last year 49, 48 wells, so let's call it 50. We think we've still got a 20-year inventory on on A-plus locations. But one of our shareholders really incised in our meetings. That's why we say we like getting out and talking to them. And he put his finger right on it. In today's world, any of those A-plus locations have you got? And if you don't have plenty for years ahead, you're going to struggle at some time. So we're trying to stay ahead of the drilling curve on that and touch wood. It's working right now, but we're confident that we're building the depth of staff to keep that going, and we like our chances.
spk02: Thanks, guys. Great answer, Joe. Thanks, Neal.
spk04: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Freeman of Raymond James. Your line is now open. Good morning, guys.
spk03: Hey, John.
spk01: Congrats on another great quarter. Just following up on Scott's earlier questions on the cost side, I guess this is a little bit of a loaded question, but, you know, it just looks like y'all are so far ahead of the game here. Obviously, you know, the CapEx came in 11% below y'all's expectations this quarter. you've already had, you know, 40% of your wells for the year that have been turned to sales at, you know, 657 a foot. And so when I look at the original kind of guidance of 730 foot for the year, it looks like, you know, on those remaining wells that y'all have for the year, you know, you'd be expecting them to be up about 20% on a per foot basis. And I realized y'all had some, you know, 10% service cost inflation and, the back half of the year, so that explains some of it, but just if there's anything else that, you know, we should think about, you know, in terms of what goes into those cost assumptions, it just looks like y'all are just doing a phenomenal job on the efficiency side, and maybe it's just as simple as y'all want to wait for another, those initial four greater Stebbins wells this summer to come online, and then maybe you evaluate where you are at that point on the CapEx trends, but just anything on that front, please.
spk06: Yeah, John, this is Matt. I'll answer part of the question. I'm sure David will have some comments too. You're right, we do assume the 10% increase in costs, and we're starting to see a little bit of that. Probably the biggest thing to talk about would be the cost of sand, you know, regional sand that we're buying from the mines there in Texas. We've seen a pretty good jump, you know, up to 40% in the price of the sand, and I think there's two components to that. Number one is just kind of supply and demand. The rig count went down and the mines kind of reduced their production, so I think they have the capability to increase that and probably help with some there, and they probably will at some point in time. The other is the cost to get that standard location, which is directly related to fuel prices. You know, consequently the price of crude is up and so diesel is up, and that's not necessarily a bad thing for us. We also think that, you know, just on the horsepower side of things, that the the pressure-pumping folks are probably going to be looking for some sort of increase in the future, so we kind of built that in, too. But to your point, too, about the wells up in the Stevens area and the Ranger arrowhead areas, you know, those wells, a lot of those will require an extra string or casing due to the aquifer up there, so those wells are inherently a little more expensive to drill. The ones that we've drilled so far actually have been under what we've budgeted, so we're doing well there, but that would account for you know, some of the discrepancy in the cost that you're looking at.
spk07: Yeah, and I think, John, this is David, you know, a number of those wells, you know, are new pads too, you know, so their costs are going to be a little bit higher. And, you know, we do, I do think it's just a little early, you know, in the year to, you know, to jump out there. Very happy with how the cost came in in the first quarter. But even some of that, you know, we'll probably push into the second quarter because we did have some, you know, some timing, you know, issues there too. Not so much on our side, but some of the non-op stuff was a little slower than we predicted in the first quarter. So, you know, we just looked at it. We're very pleased where we are and think things are looking good, but also think that we've got the range pegged pretty well for right now and, you know, probably need another quarter to look at it before we consider making any kind of changes.
spk06: Yeah, John, this is Matt again. I just want to clarify one thing I said on that 40% increase in the profit cost. That ends up being about 6% or 7% of the completion cost, which ends up being, I don't know, 2% or 3% of the FE cost. So it's, you know, not terribly impactful.
spk01: No, that's really helpful. And then maybe just my follow-up, David, on what you kind of started to mention on the non-op side, maybe coming a little bit slower. That was, you know, the other part I was going to ask about was if Given the price we've seen in the commodity, if you were seeing anything on the non-op side that would cause you all to think that possibly there might be some upward bias on the original non-op wells that you all had sort of planned in the budget. I think you had seven net wells planned in the budget. If you're just seeing anything on that front, either from an activity side or maybe how the costs were sort of trending on the non-op side.
spk07: You know, right now, John, I don't know that we think we're going to have a lot of, you know, additional non-op for the year. So, you know, there were just a few wells, you know, four or five or so in the first quarter that I think we thought would get completed to turn to sales that the partner, for some reason, you know, just didn't quite get there. But we know those are being completed. We know they're going to come on. You know, I think in terms of the total amount of activity, you know, maybe seeing a tiny uptick, but not too much. So I think right now we feel pretty good about, you know, where that number is. It's just, like I say, just a few of them kind of slid, you know, slid back a little bit. But I still think we expect to see that. And, you know, on the cost side, I think that the costing to still be coming in app are better than what we were anticipating. So... So that helped a little bit, too, in the first quarter.
spk01: I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.
spk03: Thanks, John.
spk04: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you would need to press star then 1 on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Gabe Dowd with Cowan. Your line is now open.
spk09: Maybe just starting with the permitting process, obviously it's resumed since the moratorium. It looks like you received another nine since the last update. Could you just maybe shed some color on how the process has changed, if at all, if it's elongated a bit or if it's still relatively business as usual?
spk07: Yeah. Hi, Gabe. It's David. Well, as we reported, you know, since the pause was lifted about a month ago now, the authority has returned to the local office, in this case Carlsbad for us, you know, to approve permits and sundries and the rights away and the like. And, you know, so we're pleased to see that we've gotten nine new permits, you know, through the kind of over-the-go line and through the system. And the staff's been very cooperative, you know, to get a number of sundries that, you know, that we needed to support, you know, ongoing wells that we were drilling. So I think that, you know, you know, I think we're optimistic and pleased to, you know, see things opening back up a little bit. I do think it's, you know, we're still cautious, you know, to sort of see if there's going to be a little more friction in the system, you know, going forward and how that may impact things going forward. But certainly, you know, it was encouraging news to, you know, to see nine new permits come across. And I think we're optimistic that, you know, we'll continue to get them. But, you But we're still cautious. We're still watching to see, you know, I don't know that we can say the process has fully returned to normal as yet, but hopefully it will move in that direction.
spk09: Gotcha, gotcha. Thanks, David. And then maybe just a follow-up, just hitting on activity levels moving forward. Obviously you added the fourth rig in March. Could you, David or even Joe, I guess, just help us, think about the correct pace for Matador moving throughout 21 and into 22. I know you'll be drilling through significant portion of the higher working interest inventory. So just trying to get a sense of you, if you would need to add an additional rig to kind of backfill the loss of those high working interest locations. Thanks guys.
spk03: Well, I'll try, David, and then you back clean up. But, Gabe, that's a multivariable type question about when we might add another rig. There's no immediate plans to do so. We're going to watch how costs come in. We're going to watch how the revenues come in. We're going to watch how the opportunities come in, and we're going to watch how the – the Federals act on their pace of approving permits and sundries and the like, and all those things go into that, and we just got the rig 30 days ago, so we got to see how that might work out. But that's one reason why we were pleased. We've already been through our loan committees on our bank loan, so we We have plenty of cash flow right now, but that's the advantage of having a line of credit. And I'm real pleased that we have 13 member banks in our credit group, and they unanimously approved our loan as it were, no changes. And so we've got their full confidence. But right now, we plan to keep the plan as we have it and let a little more time go by before making changes. It's the right pace right now. We could ramp it up, but we want to also get the debt down. So that's our first priority. And then the second one is paying the dividend. And the third is we're going to have growth. We've got a great opportunity set. So, you know, we can afford to be patient. Most of our federal acreage is now HBP, I think something like 78%. So that becomes optional after that, and the rest of the federal acreage, for the most part, overwhelmingly, has eight years to run. So that's a lot of option time, and we can look at different strategies, but we think we have good cards to play. David?
spk07: I think the only thing I would add, Joe, just to Just to clarify your question about the high working interest, Gabe, it is true that as we get closer to drilling the locations or finishing up drilling on State Line or Rodney Robinson, that those are some of the higher working interest wells that we're drilling currently, but we've still got a good ways to go. It'll probably be in the next year, perhaps, before we've been making many changes, certainly late in the year. So, you know, it's going to take us a while even to work through those locations. And should this go say, we decide to, you know, back off on some of those and move to some other areas. I think that, you know, before what you're talking about kind of kicks in, you know, in terms of maintaining the same level even of capital intensity, we're still a ways from that happening.
spk10: Understood. Thanks for clarifying that, guys, and good quarter. Thanks, Gary.
spk04: Thank you. Our last question is from Gail Nicholson of Stevens. Your line is now open.
spk00: Good morning. LOE this quarter set a record for first quarter LOE despite the storm in February. Can you talk about what drove the LOE performance in the quarter and what was the impact of the LOE from the storm?
spk06: Sure, Gail. This is Matt. I think the answer to your question is effort. Our guys, every summer, we start getting ready in July and August, which sounds kind of weird when it's 105 degrees that you start preparing for winter, but we do. That's not only on the Matador E&P side, but that's also San Mateo for the saltwater gathering and disposal and the oil transportation and the gas processing and gathering. It starts early. That helps a little bit, but I think just driving costs down. Gwen and his team, they've got 98% of the water that we produce is on pipe. They've got 78% of the oil that we produce is on pipe. That all helps from a cost perspective, just getting out in front of things and making things work. This Winter Storm URI, we took a different approach than I think a lot of other operators did. Joe said this before. They went to the grocery store and they packed a bunch of groceries and they got in their trucks. The one thing I'll disagree with him is he said they slept in their trucks, but I don't think they slept a whole lot, Joe. They were out there working and they were in constant communication with the San Mateo folks who were doing the same thing. They're out making this gas plant run. Our marketing team here in Dallas, they found a home, found places to sell the gas, manipulated the markets to make sure that we They didn't manipulate the markets. The sound of that, Gail, was me kicking it. They were able to watch the markets and make sure that we got our nominations right and got our products sold. So, true effort for the team. What I've been saying, Gail, it's the best first quarter we've ever had with the worst weather conditions we've ever had. So, I think hats off to the entire team.
spk00: Great. And then on the San Mateo side, San Mateo is generating free cash flow. We should see EBITDA growth throughout 21. Can you just talk about what are the growth drivers for San Mateo in 22 forward? And then what is San Mateo's plan regarding the future repayment of its credit facility?
spk07: Well, I think the key growth drivers for San Mateo going forward, I'd say, are two specific ones. Number one, The growth in Matador volumes in both the state line and the Stebbins area is expected to be significant over the next couple of years, 21 and 22, and that certainly will drive higher volumes and higher revenues and cash flows for San Mateo. And also, you know, we have a continuing and ongoing effort to – to increase third-party volumes at San Mateo, and I expect that we will continue to add third parties as well. So I would say those are the two primary drivers. I think I'd also just throw in the fact that I think those guys have also done, the San Mateo team, a very nice job of reducing operating costs over the last several quarters, and that's also contributed to better free cash flow from San Mateo. So I think all that's good. With regard to the San Mateo credit facility, we did repay $19 million since April 1st, so that paid that down a little bit. I don't think at the moment we're as concerned with rapidly repaying the credit facility there. I think what we're more focused on is given – you know, the merger of San Mateo II into San Mateo I and the additional collateral, you know, we are looking to, you know, looking to sort of expand, you know, the credit facility. And that's probably something that we'll take on as an objective here pretty quickly, you know, Gail, and maybe look to have a little bit, you know, better coverage commitment in terms of the elected commitment and just improve the size of the facility, you know, in the event that we need that going forward.
spk00: Great. Thank you so much. Great quarter, guys.
spk03: Hey, thanks, Gail.
spk04: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this ends the Q&A portion of this morning's conference call. I'd like to turn the call over to management for any closing remarks.
spk03: Thank you, Sarah. Really, I thought you all did good on the questions, and we appreciate the substantive nature of the questions, and we appreciate your, you know, following us. And we feel very optimistic, glad to see the whole staff, top to bottom, contributing to the effort in a material way. And we like the innovations. We didn't get into that, but there have been some great innovations done. On the technical side, the rig design that Billy and his group came up with has paid off. And I'd note that by way of substance on that, the fourth rig was a state-of-the-art rig that the other ones were and is already off to a real good start. So that has worked well, and the same thing on the fracking. The guys come up with new fracking techniques, and the plants are running well, so as sure as I say that, some will happen this afternoon, but everything is working, and it's been a great effort by the staff to work through these challenges, and we feel we've come out of the challenges much stronger than when we went in, and it's A year ago, almost exactly, our stock had fallen down to one, and then this time was about a three, and nobody quit. Nobody despaired. They just kept moving through, and it's rallied. And I'm delighted that, you know, get the bank approval. We appreciate them standing with us because last year they renewed it, no changes. the 13 different credit committees and 13 different reservoir groups, and they did it again this spring. So shareholder group, everybody, we just want everybody to know how much we appreciate it, and we see the outlook is very strong, and I think that will just generate more opportunities for us. So we'll sign off and once again invite any of you to come see us as the nation opens up again. We'd love to have you come by and meet more of our staff and have a longer visit. And I guess particularly on June 4th at the annual shareholders meeting, huh? Thank you, David, for kicking me under the table with the that yes, we're having an annual meeting June 4th. We've sent out the annual report and we really hope you'll come and we'll get back to normal again. So thanks a lot. Come see us.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation today. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer

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