Murphy Oil Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. Please do not disconnect. The Mersey Oil Conference call will begin momentarily. Once again, please continue to stand by. Do not disconnect. The Mersey Oil Conference will begin momentarily. Thank you for your patience. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Murphy Oil Corporation first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star zero for the operator. And I would like to turn the conference over to Kelly Whitley, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead.

Good morning, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on our first quarter earnings call today. Joining us is Roger Jenkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, along with David Looney, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Eric Hambly, Executive Vice President, Operations, and Tom Morales, Senior Vice President, Technical Services. Please refer to the informational slides we've placed on the investor relations section of our website as you follow along with our webcast today. Throughout today's call, Production numbers, reserves, and financial amounts are adjusted to exclude non-controlling interests in the Gulf of Mexico. Slide 1. Please keep in mind that some of our comments made during this call will be considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurances can be given that these events will occur or that the projections will be attained. A variety of factors exist that may cause actual results to differ. For further discussion of risk factors, see Murphy's 2020 Annual Report on Form 10-K on file with the SEC. Murphy takes no duty to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Roger Jenkins. Roger Jenkins Thank you, Kelly.

Good morning, everyone. Turn to slide two. I'd like to start with why Murphy Oil? that illustrates our unique assets and abilities. Murphy produces from primarily three sources, Eagle for Shale, Gulf of Mexico, and Onshore Canada. Our unconventional Eagle for Shale and Onshore Canada assets have complementary characteristics, which enables our onshore team to leverage shared capabilities and expertise. Further, we have deep roots and successful deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico business, which provides a large portion of our revenue. Murphy's exhibit a unique ability to execute offshore projects faster than our peers, with leading drilling and completion abilities and an average three-year project timeline from sanction to first oil. Our leading offshore execution capability augments our high potential exploration portfolio. Our assets achieve low carbon emissions intensity, which we believe will be in the top quartile as compared to our oil-weighted peers at the end of 2021. They continue to generate high levels of cash flow, which are directed toward de-levering our business and returning cash to our shareholders through our long-term dividend. Throughout all of this, our company's been supported by the multiple decade ownership of the founding Murphy family. Also, our board and directors and management team maintain one of industry's highest levels of ownership compared to our peers, and we all have personal interest in our company's long-term success. On slide three, Our three priorities this year are to delever, execute, and explore. Murphy's made significant progress on delevering and de-risking our company in the first quarter with the monetization of our share of Kings Key floating production system and issuing new senior notes, utilizing proceeds to fully repay our revolver and take out senior notes that were due in 2022. Overall, we'll achieve a total of $233 million of debt reduction, or 8% of our total debt, since year-end 2020 from these transactions. Our current strict prices will maintain the goal of reducing debt by an additional $200 million in 2021 for a total 15% debt reduction this year. Our execution ability remains top-notch with high levels of performance as our onshore business brought wells online ahead of schedule and under budget, while our operated and non-operated offshore projects remained on schedule. Our oil production beat guidance by 7% this quarter, while our Eagleford Shale assets in particular were 4% above guidance despite experiencing impacts from the winter storm in Texas. Lastly, as we continue advancing our unique high-potential exploration program, we're excited for drilling the two upcoming non-operated wells. The Silverback Well was recently spud by Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico, and later this year, we will turn our attention to the Cutthroat Well in Brazil's Sergipe-Alagoas Basin with ExxonMobil. I'm excited to discuss these three simple priorities with investors and analysts today. On slide four, getting to the details of the quarter, Murphy produced an average of 155,000 barrels equivalents per day with approximately 63% liquids production. Significantly, our oil production was 88,000 barrels per day, which beat our guidance of 82,000 barrels per day. As shown in our 2021 quarterly well cadence, accrued capex with first quarter weighted and total 230 million net to Murphy. This amount excludes key spending, but includes our $20 million acquisition of an additional 3.5 working interest in the non-operated Lucious field. Overall, we spent a third of our total capital planned for the year. Commodity prices rebounded significantly in the first quarter, with oil realizations averaging $58 per barrel, slightly above the WTI benchmark, which we haven't seen since before the pandemic. Our natural gas realization prices averaged $2.55, per 1,000 cubic feet. And now we'll turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. David Looney, to give a financial update.