Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:MGY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Zach Parham: Got it. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Brian.

Operator: The next question comes from Tim Rezvan of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Tim Rezvan: Good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. I’d like to start on repurchases first. Just trying to understand if we sort of back into like a repurchase amount based on your 1Q shares outstanding kind of information, it suggests maybe a little lower than that $50 million-ish range that you’ve run. Do you think about it as not wanting to have a free cash flow deficit in the quarter? Just trying to understand, kind of, you’ve been pretty methodical with the repurchases. Is anything changing, or is it just because of heavy first quarter CapEx that maybe you’re pulling back a bit?

Chris Stavros: Well, we are not forecasting the share repurchases, really. I mean, I think, if I recall, I think we bought in 2.5 million shares exactly in the fourth quarter, and I think that was about the same, if not exactly the same, as the third quarter. So sequentially, the amount of shares repurchased was the same. The dollar amount might have been a little different because the shares might have been bought in a little bit less expensively, which is fine. I look at the share repurchase, I mean, just a broad comment. I look at the share repurchase program is sort of ongoing and opportunistic, and there might be some shares that come available in the market, and not that I know anything, but if that were to happen, we could certainly lean in.

If I feel as if there’s a disconnect in terms of perceived value, we could lean in. The share repurchase and the dividend are sort of symbiotic in a way. There’s an integral relationship for us with that. The more shares I buy in, the more it supports our dividend payout per share capacity. So that’s sort of how I think about it.

Tim Rezvan: Okay. If you do the math on that 205 million for the first quarter, it seemed a little light. That’s why I was just trying to understand if there’s something there, and I guess there’s not. So thanks, Chris. I appreciate that. And as my follow-up, I thought it was interesting you said you should have a similar oil cut going through 2024. If we look at the Giddings asset in general, you’ve seen oil cuts, call it kind of mid-30s. Is your confidence that you have enough well control in Giddings that you’re confident of the oil views you’re going to be getting from the 2024 program? Is that what sort of gives you confidence in sort of that oil cut staying where it is?

Chris Stavros: Yeah. No, Tim, thanks. I’m pretty confident with this year’s program on the oil volumes if you will. I think we ran in the 41%, 42% mix of oil for the fourth quarter right in that range. If I had to take a view, I think it’ll be somewhat similar through the year. Maybe a little movement, but not all that much. The oil volumes, they’ll grow, as I said, they’ll grow year-on-year for each quarter, and they’ll grow on a similar basis to the overall BOE volume. So I’m pretty confident with that. That’s what the program is designed to deliver, and it’s just in terms of the well control and the confidence in Giddings. Yes, that’s how I feel.

Tim Rezvan: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Paul Diamond of Citi. Please go ahead.

Paul Diamond: Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just one quick one for you. As you guys think about Giddings going forward, as far as just the addressable — total addressable acreage and kind of your progress to that, what you see as the right size level you want to be at? Or is that something we should think about as like a single-year effort, or is that more kind of multi-year goal?

Chris Stavros: I see this evolving over the years. I don’t see it necessarily all occurring at once or in a shorter term. The amount of learning that we picked up and experience has been over this five, six-year period, it’s not all going to come at once here for us as a result. So we are still — we have a large position that will — where we’ll continue to learn through our own activity and as an extension of that, we could and likely will pursue some other small opportunities that make sense.

Paul Diamond: Understood. And do you think those smaller opportunities are more kind of blocking out existing acreage? Or are there more kind of further flung areas that you guys are really interested in exploring up there?

Chris Stavros: Mainly the former filling in.

Paul Diamond: Understood. I’ll leave it there. Thanks for your time.

Chris Stavros: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. The conference has now also concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation, and you may now disconnect.

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