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spk03: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first quarter 2024 Matador Resources Company Earnings Conference Call. My name is Daniel, 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 for one year, as discussed in the company's earnings press release issued yesterday. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Max Schmitz, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations for Matador.
spk10: Mr. Schmitz, you may proceed. Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Matador's first quarter 2024 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 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 the 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 annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. In addition to this morning's earnings press release, I would like to remind everyone that you can find a slide presentation in connection with the first quarter 2024 earnings release under the investor relations tab on our corporate website. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Joe Foran, our founder, chairman, and CEO. Joe? Thank you, Mac.
spk02: We'll try to be brief and to the point, but obviously the quarter is off to a good start. We're really pleased and believe or confident that the next quarter will be even better. We now have the connectors in place. and functioning, so you have 595 miles of pipeline that work is enhanced by being in one system. Second, by doing so, we've increased our flow assurance and only increased the flow assurance at the same time we improved our balance sheet by recently having three transactions. We amended the credit agreement to extend out to 2029, five years and increase the committed amount from 1.325 billion to 1.5 billion with room to go up from there on the basis of our borrowing base. And that's important because think about it for a moment that 19 different credit committees among our 19 banks said that we had the financial strength to do that, and then 19 different reservoir groups reviewed our assets and said they were in support of not only the amounts that are a billion and a half, but we could go higher than that. And this, what we call the Triple Crown, was... Triple Crown was supported... by both our old and new banks and is in place and is available, not that we plan to spend it immediately or anything else, but it indicates the financial strength that we can look for future quarters. And then the last thing, yes, I'm pleased to report that we're going to turn on a record number of wells this quarter. There will be 43 gross operated wells and 36.2 net wells. So I look forward to answering your questions today, but also look forward to coming back in 90 days and indicating what we've done to improve the asset base of Matador. So with that, I turn it back to you, Mac, and whatever questions that are on the line.
spk10: Thanks, Joe. Daniel, we're ready for questions. Thank you.
spk03: Thank you. To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we would welcome additional questions from you.
spk11: One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from Scott Handel with RBC Capital Markets.
spk03: Your line is open.
spk00: Hey, thanks. Good morning, y'all. You know, look, brick-by-brick M&A has been a staple of your strategy, I think, since the inception. And I've got sort of a couple-part kind of question, but, like, how do you see the current, you know, market opportunities in terms of price and quality out there right now? And as you go forward, can you talk about the mix, like how you see the economics of both organic and inorganic growth? And then finally, if you could give us some color in what you think your financial capacity is to do more M&A at this point.
spk02: Well, let me take that in order. You know, the first question is we We're happy to go either way on either growing organically, as we've mainly done in this Matador, has grown primarily organically, but also we're prepared to go by acquisition depending on whatever the industry and the economy is giving us. There are times when it's better to do one or the other, much like a football team has a passing game and a running game. And if you look back, we have now, I think, some like 68 wells that have been drilled on the state line acreage.
spk05: Yeah, 62 currently producing and then six more this quarter.
spk02: All right. So 68 wells. But when we bought that, our stock took a big hit because people couldn't believe we paid that much. for it but with 68 wells you can see that it actually worked out and that's the kind of the disadvantage of an acquisition you pay the upfront money and people can think you've overpaid and so it takes a matter of months or years to prove it out just as we did in state line then on the second hand is you have these drilling opportunities and so you want a balance of those but again That takes time, and you do that one at a time, so it's an incremental deal over time. There are advantages to both, and the best way to approach them, I believe, is have a wide variety of ways to grow. You could add midstream into that. Building out midstream is a growth opportunity, organic growth opportunity, but it enhances your productivity. product the value of your production because today what you need in the Delaware is flow assurance and there's a capacity limitation and unless you have some flow assurance and work with the other pipelines you you're going to have some difficulties getting your product to market so I just point out that that you that you need to be prepared to grow in all these different ways because you never know what the economy is going to do or circumstances. And as another example, in the high storm Erie, because we had our own midstream system, those guys really had respect because they were out there sleeping in their trucks and keeping the gas flowing that might not have occurred elsewhere, but because it was their gas as well as ours, they were out there sleeping in their trucks. And on that point, I just say I think it's helped that we have an employee share purchase plan, which we have over 90% participation. And they're professionals. They would have probably done that anyway, but it didn't discourage them any to keep the gas flowing because they're all shareholders too. Now, your second question was about our financial strength to do this. Is that right, Scott?
spk00: Yeah, just an idea of your capacity to do more at this point.
spk02: Well, good question. Thank you for asking. But recently we did what we called our triple crown was we refinanced our reserve-based lending agreement with those 19 banks that I mentioned, and we increased it from $1.325 billion to $1.5 billion. But as we did that, we paid down our RBL to where we only have approximately $25 million borrowed on the RBL, and we were it. able to do that because the RBL was signed on Friday and on Monday we did the stock offering for 5 million shares and that's approximately 350 million and so that enabled us to pay down all the RBL so we have now today basically a billion and a half on the RBL available to do acquisitions Then we went out and on Tuesday did a bond offering that was heavily oversubscribed, as was the stock offering, and we picked up $900 million, and those monies aren't due until 2032. So we're sitting there with time on our hands. We can afford to be patient, but we're actively looking to grow either way. or a third way with midstream. So first matador grew primarily by acquisition. The second matador has been primarily organic. But even acquisitions, we're looking for acreage to go along with whatever production comes. So we're not particularly interested in some that's all production. We want a balance between the drill bit and aquaculture. and actual production so that you, in effect, have something that's half organic, half production. So some balance on that, and we try to be creative and solve the problems and work with others. So we're active in all those directions.
spk00: Great. I appreciate the color. And as my follow-up, Joe, you mentioned flow assurance is important. And, you know, right now, Oaxaca gas is obviously under pressure and, you know, in the negative kind of arena. And it probably will persist in the back half of this year. Can you talk about your position? Is there any concern of not getting your gas sold or, you know, getting, you know, some weak pricing on the residue gas? Can you kind of give us you know, your view of those dynamics for Matador?
spk02: Well, that's another good question, Scott. And I'd let Greg Krug answer that, who's the head of our marketing in midstream. And this is something we've talked a lot about, put a lot of thought into, and I think Greg's done a terrific job of creating diversity on our sales of our gas product.
spk15: Greg? Thanks, Joe. Scott, we've tried to take a very wide look at this as far as to try to get our diverse market portfolio out there as far as where we're not exposed to one particular index or the other. We've got a lot of different options here, anywhere from hedging to financial positions or gas transport on firm transport, I should say, on takeaway pipelines to other regions, like Houston Ship Channel, for instance. We're looking at all those different options, and I think we've got a pretty good scatter of our exposure to all the different indices.
spk02: Greg, just to add to that a little bit, is that even at Waha, you have a range that you could either go with or you have other choices. And the same thing is that with the NGLs, it gives us a hedge on pricing.
spk15: Yes, that's correct, Joe. As far as the NGLs, you need to keep that in mind. We are a two-stream reporter, so when we talk about our natural gas pricing, we also have a an NGL component, and we get a nice uplift on that. It kind of really all depends on the particular wells, but some of these wells are really rich, and there's a lot of NGL that comes along with the production, so we get a nice uplift on that as well.
spk00: Yeah, but in particular, just to hone in on one point, just if you could, Do you have any concerns? I mean, you're growing production in the Permian. It's tight with capacity right now. I don't think a lot of other players are growing production too much, but do you see a risk that you may not be able to sell your gas or there'd be difficulty selling your gas that could constrain things in your outlook at this point?
spk15: No, we don't. And one being reason is that we do hold transport, firm transport on these pipes. And And then we're protected as far as on the hedging part of it on the basis there at Waugh Hall, for instance, where if you see negative pricing there, I mean, we blocked in that basis number for a portion of our gas where we're not exposed to that with that portion of gas that we've hedged. And so I think we've got plenty of transport to get out of the basin. uh we are not uh we're not concerned with that now you're right as far as with growing production that we have we that's one reason we're looking at additional uh capacity out of the basin and we're looking at all the different pipes and i think we're well on our way to get in a position where we're we're going to be fine on that appreciate it thank you thank you one moment for our next question
spk03: Our next question comes from Tim Resvin with T-Bank Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk12: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. I just wanted to touch on what Scott was talking about on M&A and more on the bolt-on side. If we look at kind of the cash you've raised for the tender and then the equity issuance, it was much greater than what you spent in the last couple quarters on bolt-ons. So can you provide any kind of line of sight on what you think the bolt-on budget maybe looks like this year. I know it's hard to gain, but there's a lot of questions about that. Any kind of financial ring post you can put around on what you see for the rest of the year would be very helpful. Thank you.
spk02: Tim, I appreciate your question, but it's really difficult to put any number around at all. It's kind of like going fishing. is when you go fishing, you don't know whether you're going to catch two fish or ten fish. You're going to get out there and see what works and what's available and what can be done at a reasonable price. What I would emphasize, that we don't depend on acquisitions to meet our growth targets. Those are opportunistic. And in many cases... we're merely adding to the working interest that we already have. And that's kind of the way it works on trades, too, is that we trade out of something we don't have a big interest in for something that is more direct on us. So it's really a moving target that we first pin our growth on our drilling activity where we control the leases and we operate the wells and then we optimistically look at the acquisition opportunities whether it's by trade or by adding working interest from our partners or acquiring a company as we did Advantage last year and we have put ourselves this year with that triple crown of RBL stock offering and bond offering to where we can do both, meet our growth by drilling and growth by acquisition. So we'll do a company when the opportunity is right, but we want to maintain our ability to go either way. So if you hit a dry spell on acquisitions, you've got plenty of leases to drill. And in that case, we're confident that we could acquire an additional rig or even two to grow organically by drilling. Our main drilling contractor since the inception of Matador 40 years ago has been Patterson or its predecessors and we're confident they would work with us to get us the necessary rigs if we needed to do organic growth because the acquisitions have been slim. And the same thing is we're financially in a position that we don't have to cut back on the eight rigs that we currently have running that are high spec to do an acquisition because, as I indicated, we've got over a billion and a half available plus our cash flow. And nothing barred on a current RBL and feel like if we bought some that that would only go up with the acquisition. So we've tried to arrange it to give us, as we try to say, as many options as we can, Tim.
spk12: Okay. Okay. I was trying for some numbers. I didn't think I'd get it, but I appreciate the context. What did he say?
spk13: Huh?
spk12: Okay.
spk02: Well, Tim, as I would say to you, Tim, as well as everybody else on the call, is look, we'll answer the questions as best we can, but I want to remind you how we run an open shop here. If you'll come to see us, we'll spend more time with you and let you meet some people. We always want you to know that you and the other analysts are welcome to come here and have a private session with us.
spk12: Okay, I appreciate that. If I could change gears on a follow-up, on the midstream side, it sounds like things are on track for Marlin for middle of 2025. As a bigger entity, how do you think about kind of long-term, large-scale projects that you may need to do? And if you think you're kind of beyond sort of the heavy lifting on these large projects, how do you weigh the value of owning the segments versus highlighting the value in some potential transaction? Because you could argue there's not a lot of value in the stock today for San Mateo. And I'll leave it there. Thank you.
spk02: Well, Tim, first I would say that's a buying opportunity for any shareholder out there that feels we're not getting full value. Because in time, we all know the market begins, you know, in the near term, maybe a popularity contest. But in the long term, it's a weighing deal. So that's why I think you have 90% or more participation by the employees here because they can see the value of the midstream and the returns that we're getting from our drilling operations. So I'm patient on that. I've never sold a share of Matador stock because I could see that the value was increasing. Some of it had not yet been recognized, but in time, I'm confident that it will. That midstream was done not just as an attraction or that. It was done because it had usefulness, utility to our drilling completion and production operations and assured us that we wouldn't be waiting on pipelines but be getting our gas to market and when that well was ready to come on there'd be pipe waiting there to take it to market. Now it's had additional benefit because of changes in the environmental regulations so that we're not flaring and over the past four years we cut our emissions by 55 percent which is partly enabled by having our own pipelines to carry away the water and where we're not having to flare and we're not trucking the oil and gas and creating that environmental problem, but virtually all of our oil is on top. So it's something I think that adds value, but it also is very useful to our day-to-day operations, and I think in time people will see that. And as a public company, we play a straight game. If somebody comes in with a serious offer, or a serious proposal in some way to work with us on our pipeline or, as I said, even to acquire it, we'll give it serious consideration. But right now, we can find plenty of use for it in getting our oil, gas, and water taken away as needed and as helpful.
spk11: Thank you. Thank you, Tim. One moment for our next question.
spk03: Our next question comes from Neil Dingman with True Security. Your line is open.
spk09: Morning, guys. Thanks for the time. And Joe and team, nice quarter. Joe, my first question, first question just on old services. Maybe ask this a little bit different. Joe, I know you've got great contacts and relationships there. I'm just wondering, I've heard more about, like, what is your thoughts these days, you and the team, about sort of bundling versus debundling when it comes to services? Because I guess where I'm going with that, it's heard as of late, there's been sort of passed through in different costs that have gotten cheaper. So I'm just wondering, when you think about oilfield services, how do you all, do you have a preference when it comes to bundling or debundling of, you know, the sand, the chems, and other things around that?
spk02: Yeah, first I'm just going to thank our service providers. They've done a terrific job of being there when needed and their efficiency and everything else. Great relationships and really appreciate the extra effort that we've gotten through them. And it's been a team effort. So it's not just us that has gotten things there on time. and had the success in the field, they've participated, and they've been great to work with. But on specific answer to your question, I'm going to turn to Chris, and he can tell you his thoughts on bundling.
spk01: Hi, Neil. It's Chris Calvert, EVP, COO. It's a great topic, and I think one thing that we do like to highlight into is the partnership that we have with Patterson, and really, if you want to call it bundling, you know, from a drilling and pressure pumping perspective. That is, I guess, what you would call bundling. We use two of the largest cost centers that are provided by one parent umbrella company. That is Patterson UTI. You know, they have universal pressure pumping that merged with NextTier. And so that is really kind of the bundling of two of our largest cost centers. And we feel that that is a huge benefit when this transaction took place for the merger between UPP and NextTier. the services that we were used to with Patterson as far as quality of cruise, that carried over. And, you know, so we look at things to where that is really kind of a bundled package within our drilling contractor and our pressure pumping provider. On, you've mentioned sand and pressure pumping, similar to our drilling contract, similar to gas takeaway, we always value optionality here as something that we're always going to prioritize. And so when you think of sand bundling, whether it is provided by the pressure pumping company or self-sourced through a third party. We continue to look at optionality and the best way to optimize any sort of difference or delta in between contracted volumes from a sand contractor, excuse me, from the pressure pumping provider, or a spot rate that could be a little bit better at any given time. And so the value of the optionality between those two services is something that we always look at, but we do bundle that as well at times. And so it is something that we are always looking at. And so those, I think, cover really two of the largest cost centers that we talk to and that's really kind of how we see these things. There are advantages to bundling, and then also it makes sense sometimes to have optionality to where you're not tied to a specific provider.
spk09: That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the details. And just a quick follow-up on midstream. With the connections in place now, Floor Insurance seems like everything's really going your way on that. Do you all anticipate more sort of third-party going through that, or should we expect that anytime soon?
spk02: Yes, Neil. We're We're developing third-party relations on a constant basis. Our guys are out there meeting, and we want everybody to know we run a straight game. One interesting thing that occurred, and Greg Krug, who's head of our marketing in Midstream, can elaborate on it, but one of those third parties said, I'm very comfortable having you take away the gas and pipeline because I know that if you're flowing, I'm going to be flowing, and I won't be shut in. If you're moving your gas, you've got to be moving my gas too. We appreciate that perspective, and that's true. We are proud of our third-party people selling the gas, and we try to give them the exact same service that our people get. And Phil, so far, they've been most helpful in getting other people to call us to see if we can make a deal on being a reference for us that they've been real pleased with our service and work. But, Greg?
spk15: Yeah, this is Greg again. I echo what Joe just said as far as we definitely do not play favorites when it comes to Matador Gas over – our third party that we have out there. I think that's critical that we do that. We want to stay credible. That's not the way to treat your third party whenever you've got them on your system. We definitely try to treat them the same as the Matador gas and It is a comfort, I think, to some of them as far as, and that's one thing we have heard as far as that we're going to go the extra effort to make sure gas flows during bad storms. Joe just talked about winter storm Uri. That's a good example of that. Our folks were out there day and night, and I mean nighttime too, actually working during sub-freezing weather And, you know, I can't say that necessarily about some of the other folks out there as far as the other midstream companies and so forth because we did have some shut-ins on some of the wells that we had connected to other places. So that is – I feel like there's some assurance there for third parties.
spk02: Yeah, and on that same deal, we're comforted by the amount of repeat business virtually all of our – current third-party customers or repeat customers that have been with us before. But let me turn it to Glenn, who's the head of our production that is making that happen.
spk05: Yeah, and Neil, I just wanted to kind of pile on here and give a shout-out to the guys in the field. You know, Sam Witten and Paul Ramirez were a big part of getting those connectors driven to completion, you know, on time or ahead of time and on budget. you know, those connectors, you know, in the quarter, we installed over 50 miles of pipe, and we talked about, you know, some of the oil field service side, but, you know, those guys work very, our guys in the field work very closely with the companies that construct those pipelines, and we, you know, we're able to do quite a bit of work in the first quarter, and it sets us up very nicely for the second quarter. We have a number of wells that are going to produce to utilize those connectors, including those 21 Dagger Lake South wells. So it was a very busy quarter and, again, kind of sets us up really nicely here for Q2.
spk09: Great details. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, team.
spk03: Thanks, Neil. Thanks, Neil.
spk11: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Zach Parham with JPM.
spk03: Your line is open.
spk06: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. You highlighted that higher oil volumes were driven by better than expected production at state line. I noticed you hadn't turned in line any wells there since 2Q of last year. So just trying to get a little bit more color on what's driving now performance there. Is it lower, shallower declines than you would have thought? Maybe just any color you can provide there on the better performance.
spk04: Hey Zach, it's Tom Elsner. Yeah, thank you for your question. It's a great question. You know, I think a lot of the performance has been to, you know, really on the mid-terrain team, again, I know we've talked about that quite a bit, but they have a unique system that they designed down at State Line that Glenn can talk about more, but basically they are able to custom put these wells into either a high pressure, medium pressure, or low pressure gathering system that allows them to very rapidly appropriately fit the wells to the pipeline pressure. And the lower pressure they can go into, the better the wells can produce. And that also aids in our ability to recover from offset activity if wells go down and need repairs. There's a lot of clever things that Glenn and his team and work with the San Jose team have been able to accomplish down there. They're certainly great wells, and we're very proud of them as well. But I think a lot of the comments you made Here recently I've been to the credit of the midstream team. I will say we have drilled six additional wells, and those will be online here later in the second quarter as well.
spk06: Got it. Thanks for that, Culler. And then just one on the guidance. You raised the four-year guide to the high end of the range, but didn't provide an update on the 4Q exit rate guidance, which was previously, I think, $98,000. barrels a day at the high end. Just trying to get a sense of the production trajectory going forward. Based on my math, to get to the high end of the range in 24, it seemed like you're just over 100,000 barrels a day in 4Q. Maybe if you could just give us an update on where you expect to exit the year and maybe any initial thoughts on what that could mean for 2025 volumes.
spk13: Yeah, Zach. This is Brian. Happy to answer that. Thanks for the question. You're right. We pointed to the high end of guidance. We're really proud of the quarter that we had and to be able to point to the high end of guidance for the year. I mean, fantastic work by the teams and be able to execute that. And we haven't given a lot of specifics on the second half of the year, whether, you know, the balance between the third quarter and the fourth quarter. I think there's a lot of golf to be played there. And so, you know, I think expect third quarter to continue to improve over second quarter. And then as it relates to fourth quarter, obviously, you know, a few months out and we're early in the year. So, you know, We haven't updated the guidance as it relates to that core yet, but, you know, we're really excited about the remainder of the year and how it sets us up for a great 2024 and then into 2025. So just really, really great news all around.
spk11: Okay. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Zach.
spk03: Thank you. And our final question comes from the line of Leo Mariani with Roth. Your line is open.
spk08: Hey, guys. Wanted to just ask a little bit on CapEx trajectory here. Wanted to get a sense of how you see that kind of playing out. I know you've got the second quarter guidance here. Would you guys expect CapEx to come down a bit in the second half of the year versus, you know, first half, just trying to kind of get a sense of the capital cadence as it kind of relates to the operations?
spk02: Leo, that's a great question, and we talk about it. every week if not every day of how things are looking and it's a little hard to predict because somewhat tied to what the commodity prices do it if the commodity price goes up our current estimates would be a little low if it goes down then our our capex estimates are probably going to be a little high now that's simplistic but we try to put the best number we can and adjust it throughout the year and stay within cash flow and the other financial parameters that we make our decisions by. But let me turn it to Brian Willey because he works on this every day, if not every hour.
spk13: Thanks, Jay. It certainly feels like every hour. It's not every minute. No, we think about this a lot, as Joe said, and talk about that. And you're right, Leah. We did point to the high end of guidance for production, but we were proud that we were able to do that and not change our guidance as it relates to capital expenditures. And you saw in our release, we had $10 million that was in savings that we incurred during the first quarter, so great job by Chris and his team, the production group as well, and just really great execution. The remainder was just shifted, you know, to the second quarter, and we expect throughout the remainder of the year that kind of that midpoint of guidance on the CapEx, so you'll see that just play out over the third quarter and then into the fourth quarter. But, you know, really excited to be able to raise production guidance while we didn't change CapEx guidance. I think that's a great story for us.
spk02: And, Leo, and that's the way I look at it is it's a two-variable deal. It's not just what are you going to spend, right? but what are you going to get for that money that you've spent? And that's why Brian's point, I think, is a real good one, that we increased production, but we didn't increase CapEx, which meant we were able to achieve some cost savings as well as to find ways to improve our efficiency. And we'll continue that throughout the year. And while it may vary a little bit, we'll be matching it up or comparing it to what we're getting accomplished in the way of increased production or increased services or fixed plant like the Marlin. So all that goes in, and I look upon it as a two-variable deal as opposed to a one-variable deal.
spk08: Okay. No, I appreciate that. And just wanted to follow up on the midstream here. Joe, you certainly mentioned that you thought there was some hidden value in the stock and you could be somewhat patient and maybe wait for a deal at some point. But I know that Matadors are companies that maybe expressed a little bit of frustration over the last year or so that all the midstream value creation hasn't shown up in the stock. I mean, I guess to the extent that you know, we kind of continue on and later this year into next year and you still feel like there's not a lot of value in the stock. Is Matador maybe poised at some point to maybe take some action and try to bring some of that value out on the midstream side?
spk02: Well, you know, we're always looking for opportunities. And as I said, we're a public company and people that have proposals, we will look at them and If there are serious proposals, we'll look at them very seriously. And while I think everybody who runs a company feels their stock is a little underpriced, I don't know very many CEOs get out there and say, hey, guys, our stock's overpriced. You might want to trim a little bit. So yes, I think there are opportunities. And you look at us, how we've outperformed overall, how we've outperformed the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000 or even our peers, we've been one of the highest performing. But like anybody, you're always looking to do a little better. But if you can think that the first Matador started with $270,000 and After 20 years, we sold for $388 million, so it was a nice run. But this Matador started at $6 million, and we're up there over $8 billion, approaching $9 billion. And an original shareholder in the first Matador got in at $0.85, $0.90, something like that, and sold for $18.25. This matador, their basis of the original shareholder is $3.56, and now we're in the 60s. You know, that's been a pretty good return, and during COVID, we went down to single digits, and anybody that bought then has had a 10-to-1 type gain, and now we're paying 10%. dividend and so it really doesn't matter so much what it was but what is it down to someone and what could they might expect and if it behaves like we've done the last 40 years it's still going to be a good very good return form uh and continue to be a good good run i mean that going from three dollars and 56 cents back in 2003 to 65 is a 20 is you know basically a 20 to 1 so Even if you're not getting 100% of the, quote, whatever you call true value, you still have the benefit of over a 20 to 1 type gain. And we're paying the dividend now that has grown steadily since we've done it. So we think that's a good offering. And if you look at the quality of the properties, you know, we feel like we're in the best basin, earning good returns. have expanded to hedge our value some by having a midstream. So you not only have a commodity-based business, but you have a fee-based business. So that also reduces the risk. And you look at the heavy ownership by employees. And again, I repeat, I've never sold a share of stock. And neither have most of our other officers because we can see The opportunity is growing, and sooner or later, if we really have the value that we think we have, those in the market will see it and come on. One of the major business magazines in the country, you would all know if I mentioned the title, had an article that said we were one of the eight stocks that people ought to buy. And the other companies that they mentioned, and they were far better known, than us, General Motors being one of them. But if you look at that article, I was flattered to be in that group. So I think the outlook is good. We've been very consistent. You look at how many quarters that we've met or exceeded guidance, I think, and the financial strength that we have, the oversubscriptions, that we had both on the stock and the bond is another good sign. And then when you figure 19 different banks have their credit committees look at it and say, this looks fine. And then they had 19 different reservoir groups. So I think we've been thoroughly vetted as some that has some value. And I think both our drilling side and our midstream side are very optimistic that they'll be continuing bad value in the years ahead and our team has depth and they're really working well together and as we said we've been throwing praises on our field guys because we think they're some of the best in the business and I think the staff is and it's really a total team effort and they're not sharp elbows but just a bunch of guys that are trying to add value and we've grown as I said from Nothing, basically nothing to be in the number eight largest company in New Mexico. So I think it's a pretty good record, and past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but that's why I like the bet, and I like our chances.
spk07: Okay.
spk02: Thank you. Thank you.
spk11: And come see us.
spk03: 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.
spk02: Well, after that last speech, I think I'll just say ditto. And and tell you we really appreciate y'all listening in. And the invitation to come see us and visit more at length and more detail about any questions you have is open, is sincere, and we mean it. And I think as you meet our people, you'll feel more and more comfortable with either investing or adding to your investment. And also I want to note that we have an annual meeting coming up June 13, I believe, And we would invite you to attend the annual meeting. It's a little different than some because we didn't come up through private equity, but we came up through friends and family. So you have a lot of individual investors that are there that have been shareholders for 40 years. And, you know, as long as 40 years and many that are in the 20 to 30 years and you can ask about their experience and, and you have a chance to visit with our young people and take an estimate of what you think of them. They'll be there with displays about the new drilling bits that are coming onto the market and other bits of innovation as the U-turn wells and explain how that comes about as well as other things we get questioned. So really think that's an opportunity that you may not get with larger companies. They're more formal, but we really invite you. We'd like to get to know y'all better and continue to have more dialogue. So Brian invites you and Van, our president. Let me turn it to our president, Van. What would you add to all this?
spk14: I think, Joe, one thing I would add is just in Obviously, everyone on the phone can't see the room, but the room is full with our team and the staff, and really want to thank everybody in the room, everyone in the whole company, because these are good results, and those results wouldn't happen if everyone weren't doing their part and pitching in and working together. Also, thank you to some of these companies that we've done deals with. We feel like we try to structure our deals as win-win for both sides, and a lot of those companies are repeat business. We get back together when there's another deal to do. So it really is all about relationships. We do cherish our relationships, and Joe's invitation is sincere. We do hope to see everybody when you get a chance or at least talk on the phone more if you come up with other questions. So thank everyone for pitching in and doing their part, and we'll keep running headlong into the next quarter.
spk02: Yeah, I would like to say there's over 50 people besides the senior officers here in this room, and we do that so everybody knows what's going on and has an idea of where we go from here, and they get to hear your questions, and they like to hear my answers and the answers of the other senior people. So it's a little different than some... companies do but it works for us having come up again with friends and family uh we've tried to maintain that uh availability and uh and and we think y'all have helped make us better with your questions and the like because afterwards we go over the questions and make sure that we're addressing them and y'all have often made really good points that we've uh taken into consideration in making our final decision. So thank you. I think it's a process that works. It may be a little slow at times, but we'll get there, and we like our chances going ahead. So come see us and keep in touch.
spk03: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation today. This concludes today's program.
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