Ovintiv Inc. (DE)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Eventiv's 2023 fourth quarter and year-end results conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Members of the investment community will have the opportunity to ask questions and can join the queue at any time by pressing star 1. For members of the media attending in a listen-only mode today, you may quote statements made by any of the OVINTIV representatives. However, members of the media who wish to quote others who are speaking on this call today, we advise you to contact those individuals directly to obtain their consent. Please be advised that this conference call may not be recorded or be broadcast without the express consent of OVINTIV. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jason Verheist from Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Verheist.

Thanks, Joanna, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and year-end 23 conference call. This call is being webcast, and the slides are available on our website at oventive.com. Please take note of the advisory regarding forward-looking statements at the beginning of our slides and in our disclosure documents filed on EDGAR and CEDAR+. Following prepared remarks, we will be available to take your questions. Please limit your time to one question and one follow-up. And I'll turn the call over to our president and CEO, Brendan McCracken.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. 2023 marked another year of execution against our durable return strategy. We beat and reset our targets twice over the course of the year, and this trend continued into the fourth quarter in every aspect of our business. We converted our operational success into bottom line financial results with full year net earnings of $2.1 billion, and cash flow of $3.9 billion. With capital investment totaling $2.7 billion, we generated free cash flow of approximately $1.2 billion, of which $733 million, or 63%, was returned directly to our shareholders. We continued to lead the industry by delivering efficiency gains in each of our assets, completion design innovations, record-setting execution performance, leading well productivity per lateral foot, and base decline management are a few of the areas contributing to our excellent return on invested capital. In June, we more than doubled our premium drilling inventory in the Permian with a set of three highly accretive acquisitions. Our team has seamlessly integrated the new assets, and we are very pleased to report out on the excellent results from our first end-to-end wells in the former NCAP acreage. These Permian acquisitions, combined with our strategic Bolton additions and our organic assessment and appraisal programs, have added 1,650 premium drilling locations to our portfolio in the last three years. We identified the importance of this inventory renewal years before others, and we prosecuted a multi-year disciplined strategy of both organic and inorganic investments, The result is a huge boost to our full cycle returns and the durability of our business. We made great progress against our 50% greenhouse gas emissions intensity reduction target. For 2023, we achieved a 42% reduction from our 2019 baseline. Over the course of the year, we repurchased approximately 10 million shares and increased our base dividend by 20%. This reflects our commitment to maintaining financial strength, generating superior returns on capital investment, and returning significant cash to our shareholders. Our strong execution in 2023 has set us up for continued success in 2024. We'll cover more of the details later in the call, but year over year, we are set to deliver 40% more free cash flow at lower commodity prices. Our strong execution momentum continued through the fourth quarter. At 240,000 barrels per day, our oil and condensate volumes significantly exceeded expectations, coming in 7% above the midpoint of guidance. This outperformance was driven by faster drilling and completions and strong well results from both our legacy and newly acquired Permian assets and excellent base production performance across our portfolio. Our seamless acid integration in the Permian allowed us to accelerate our expected turn-in line schedule, meaning that the vast majority of our fourth quarter turn-in lines came on in October and November. This, along with strong well performance, drove our fourth quarter oil volumes, which peaked in November. The higher volumes were achieved with lower capital, which came in at the low end of our guide, driven by operational efficiencies. Our per unit cost performance for both T&P and operating expense came in well below the midpoints of our guide by margins of 15 and 4% respectively. And finally, we reduced our total debt by $426 million, further strengthening our balance sheet. Our message in 2024 is simple. We will continue to focus on maximizing returns on our invested capital and maximizing our free cash flow to enhance shareholder returns and further reduce our leverage. In 2024, we expect to generate about $1.6 billion of free cash flow. This is $450 million more than in 2023, with flat production and assuming lower commodity prices. Our 2024 oil and condensate capital efficiency reflects an 18% gain compared to our original pre-acquisition 2023 guide, This is driven by disciplined capital allocation and operational efficiencies. I'll now turn the call over to Corey, who will cover the 2024 plan in more detail.