Antero Resources Corporation (NYSE:AR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Kennedy: Yes. It was in the last comments we always target in a non – in a traditional year, unlike 2022, when we had a pretty big effort to increase that land position with the amount of free cash flow we had. But we typically always target $75 million to $100 million a year. That’s our traditional kind of customary commodity price environments. So that’s why you would assume this third quarter ratcheted down to $27 million, will be down in the fourth quarter from there, too. So that run rate is around we’re at like $100 million, but generally it’s $75 million to $100 million capital budget for land.

Arun Jayaram: Great. And just my follow-up, Mike is how do you think we should think about production costs next year? Obviously fuel costs, maybe some of the savings are transitory, but you got CPI inflators the AM escalator. But just give us a broad strokes around thinking about kind of production costs as we move into 2024?

Michael Kennedy: Yes, it’s really commodity price dependent. We pretty much have flat LOE next year. We do have an uptick of about $0.05 on production ad valorem taxes because that’s just commodity price, gas prices up $0.75, so that’s how you kind of get to that. And then similar on the GP and TUP a nickel as well just on the fuel cost. So assuming we have these increased a $3.50 type of commodity price next year, which is the strip, we’re up about a dime.

Arun Jayaram: A dime? What about the AM escalator?

Michael Kennedy: That’s baked into that dime.

Arun Jayaram: That’s baked into the dime. Okay. Thanks guys.

Operator: The next question is from Roger Read of Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Roger Read: Hey good morning. Thanks. I guess a couple of things I’d like to just dig into a little bit. As you think about the improvement you’ve shown in capital efficiencies without getting too granular on to the outlook, what is your expectation on how much further you can go with that?

Michael Kennedy: Well, that’s a good question. What improved from this year is, we are assuming coming into the year that we’d average about 8.7 stages per day in completions and then about six days to seven days per 10,000 in drilling, and we’ve improved two stages per day or more than that at 11 stages and completions and about a day improvement on the drilling. This time last year, I would have said that we wouldn’t have been able to achieve those improvements. So we’ll probably assume those same levels I just mentioned going into next year, but we’re always looking for continuous improvement. Paul mentioned the record completion of the 17 hours per day on the completion. It would be great to improve upon that, if you did, you can maybe get some out of the completion stages per day, but those are still probably industry-leading levels. So, I wouldn’t assume any improvement from there, but we’re always trying to achieve it.

Roger Read: No, that’s fair. It’s certainly been a nice driver within the industry overall, but I’m glad to see you all at the top of the pack. The only other question I’ve got really is, is there anything we should think about as we look into, let’s just say, the next six months or so, that you would expect changes on realizations across your portfolio, meaning whether it’s the gas side or the NGL side? Or we should just basically look at kind of where we’ve been and think that’s the right way to look at things?