Antero Resources Corporation (NYSE:AR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

David Deckelbaum: Fair enough. I wanted to ask just on the land spend. I know maybe it’s 15% of your budget. I think previously we thought you guys have had a little bit more success than you had intended in ’22. I know half of that ’23 budget is loaded into the first quarter. Is that more carryover from activities you were pursuing last calendar year or is there kind of like a renewed view that there’s more opportunity for you with the organic leasing program?

Michael Kennedy: Well, it’s both. I think we noted there is going to be — of that $150 million, a disproportionate amount incurred in the first quarter, and that is that carryover that you referenced, David. But in addition to that, I think we found that we’re having more and more success, the barriers to entry in this area of the Marcellus are very high. You have to have the midstream. You have to have the transport. It is liquids, you have that processing — so what we found is that we’re having more and more success, and we are the operator of choice for the landowners out in West Virginia kind of the hometown team. So, we continue to find success, and it’s really just acreage right next to where we’re currently developing in the best acreage we have in that Tyler, Wetzel Counties, Marcellus liquids core where the wells continue to be terrific and high BTU content.

David Deckelbaum: The second one for me is just, as you think about ’23 in the guidance, what are you assuming in terms of the Shell Cracker in terms of uptime and timing there that’s implied in your numbers?

Michael Kennedy: There’s a little bit of risking around that. I think it’s — the Shell performance has improved quite dramatically in the first quarter versus the fourth quarter. So, we’ll see if that risking has merit or not, but we did risk that pretty healthily for ’23. As a reminder, it won’t have an economic impact. There are kind of minimum volume commitments around that. So, from a cash flow standpoint, it’s really not material. But from a volume, we did risk the ethane volumes just to allow Shell to continue to improve their performance.

David Deckelbaum: Thank you, guys.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I’ll turn the floor back to Mr. Kruger for any final comments.

Brendan Krueger: Yes. Thank you for joining us on today’s call. Please reach out if there are any further questions. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.