Michael Wirth: I’d say overall – and of course, we met with – I was out. Pierre was in some separate meetings than I was. But I was out in a number of meetings with John Hess, sometimes the larger Hess shareholders, sometimes with larger Chevron shareholders. I would say, in general, people see the long-term value proposition very clearly here. And I think they see it as a combined company that is stronger and one that is set up to be stronger for longer with the ability to really sustain cash distributions to shareholders in a very consistent, predictable and durable fashion long into the future. And so that is – there’s no doubt about that. Some of the questions, on the one side, did you get a high enough price? On the other side, did you pay too much, right?
So there was tension in the – in that, to be honest, during the negotiation. It was – as we mentioned, this has been going on for some time. And John and I have been looking for a way to do a deal that is actually one that’s good for both sets of shareholders and not easy because it’s a great asset and the market recognizes that value. And so I think you can find nuances from people who either held one of the stocks or the other for certain reasons. And maybe this wasn’t exactly what they expected. But broadly speaking, I would say people see the long-term value creation. They see the transparency to resource depth, to production growth. The fact that you now have – with Hess, you’ve got a much more diversified set of assets attached to their portfolio, which derisks any one of those assets.
And it brings forward cash distributions to their shareholders meaningfully that would have still been several years into the future. For the Chevron shareholders, who were wondering what comes next after what they can currently see over the next several years in our portfolio, rather than us pointing to a range of potential answers to that and say, “We’ll do the best of these,” and we’ve got plenty of organic investment opportunities we’re working on, I think it gives some confidence and certainty of what underpins that for the future. And so broadly speaking, those are the kinds of discussions that we’ve had.
Bob Brackett: Very quick. Thanks.
Operator: We’ll go next to Neal Dingmann with Truist Securities.
Neal Dingmann: Good morning, guys. Thanks for the time. My question, Mike, is more on your shareholder return. You continue to have great financials and the shareholder return, both on the dividend and the buyback side, continues to be quite high, paying out a bit over 100% of your free cash flow. I’m just wondering, as you continue to have the growth opportunities ahead you do, do you see any change in that shareholder return, particularly on the share buyback or you continue to try to balance kind of the growth and buyback programs you have now?
Michael Wirth: Yes. We’ve had a very consistent set of financial priorities for many, many years. The first of which is to sustain and grow the dividend, 36 consecutive years now of per share dividend payouts for the last five years has been a 6% CAGR. Actually, I think the last 15 years have been a 6% CAGR and an announcement of 8% early next year, subject to Board approval. I think there’s a strong track record there you can expect to continue. Second is to be disciplined in organic reinvestment into the business to grow those cash flows. You can be confident that we will continue to be disciplined in that reinvestment to drive returns and value. Number three is a strong balance sheet. Pierre mentioned we’re single-digit net debt ratio today.
