Murphy Oil Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Murphy Oil Corp First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press Start Zero for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Kelly Whitley, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our First Quarter Earnings Call today. Joining us is Roger Jenkins, President and Chief Executive Officer of along with David Looney, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Tom Morales, Senior Vice President, Technical Services. Eric Hambly, our Executive Vice President of Operations, is currently attending a Harvard University Executive Program. In the interim, Molly Smith, Vice President, Drilling and Completions, has temporarily assumed his responsibilities. Please refer to the informational slides we have 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 interest in the Gulf of Mexico. Slide one. Please keep in mind that some of the comments made during this call will be considered forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurance 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 2021 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.

Thank you, Kelly. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for listening to our call today. Turning to slide two, Murphy continues to deliver a strong value proposition. Our ongoing execution excellence from our three producing areas proves that we are a long-term sustainable company. Our competitive advantage is continually reinforced, most recently with the achievement of first oil ahead of schedule from the Khaleesi Moormont Samurai and Kings Key floating production system in April. We continue to generate strong cash flow with higher oil prices realized this year. We've been able to increase our shareholder returns through quarterly dividend raises, as well as accelerate our debt reduction goals. Lastly, our meaningful level of board and management ownership highlights our personal interest in the company's long-term success. Slide three. Murphy remains focused on three strategic priorities of deliver, execute, and explore. Since the start of 22, we've increased our debt reduction goal, now targeting $600 to $650 million for this year, with first steps achieved through the redemption announcement on Monday of this week of $200 million. Overall, we believe this goal is achievable at an $85 per barrel WTI price and current production guidance for the year. Longer term, we have forecast having the optionality of up to an additional $1 billion of debt reduction in 2023, assuming only $75 per barrel pricing. We continue to review our overall debt target for additional accelerated reductions. Additionally, our delivering efforts are being recognized by external credit agencies, as Murphy's recently upgraded to BA II by Moody's and received a positive outlook from S&P. As we announced in early April, reached a significant milestone. First of all, the Kings Key floating production system, the two wells from the Khaleesi-Mormont-Samurai field project currently flowing with field uptime far exceeding our expectations. Completions are ongoing with five wells remaining, though we anticipate the next well to flow imminently. I'm pleased that our onshore wells are progressing slightly ahead of schedule. And for quarter two, we have 11 of 23 operating wells already flowing in Eagleford Shale with 10 operated wells in the Tupper Montany coming online as well. In Eagleford Shale, the team has been enhancing our completion methods real time, leading to early indications of higher production levels in the first wells online this quarter. Our third priority is exploration. We've been granted an additional exploration period in the Block 5 offshore Mexico by the regulator, and we're advancing plans to drill the Tulum exploration well later this year We're also working with partners on our 23 exploration program, which we anticipate to include two operated wells in the Gulf of Mexico. On slide four, for the first quarter of 22, Murphy produced an average of 141,000 barrels equivalent per day with 60% liquids conduct. This is a high end of our guidance range due to outperformance from our oil-weighted assets. We recognize strong oil pricing in the quarter with more than $95 per barrel for oil and $42 per barrel for NGL. leading to a total revenue of $764 million. Overall, I'm pleased to see that our realized prices are back ahead of WTI benchmark for this quarter. And I'll turn the call over for a financial update from our Chief Financial Officer, David Looney.