Nitin Kumar: Great. And I just wanted to touch on the hedging noticed that you had added some gas hedges to your portfolio in 2025. They’re pretty wide collars. But just to the thought process behind hedging some of the gas exposure. It’s not like you have much of it anyway, but just any thoughts there?
Patrick Wagner: This is Pat. I’ll take that one. I think we’ve covered our hedging strategy in the past. And we — as you said, gas is not a big component of our revenue, but we did see a unique opportunity in the market for next year. Maybe seen weakness in the — this year. And so we saw some really nice hedges available on a 2-way collar last setting at a 250 floor. So we went ahead and took that. I mean, hedging is a part of how we manage our commodity risk. We have a strong balance sheet, very low breakevens. We’re in a good position. So we don’t need to go into the market to protect our capital program. But when we see an opportunity like that, we’ll do that. We need regularly to look at those opportunities, and we’re always ready to capitalize when we see them.
Operator: The next question comes from Matt Portillo from TPH.
Matthew Portillo: Just maybe a follow-up to Nitin’s question on the 3-mile laterals. I was actually curious on Ajax specifically seeing some strong results there with the lighter spacing and the 3-mile lateral development Wondering if you might be able to just speak to the return profile you’re seeing at Ajax versus maybe the development program that’s a bit more focused on Vector over the last year or so?
Michael Henderson: It’s — Matt, it’s Mike here. It’s certainly getting it more competitive. But as you know, we’ve had a pretty successful program there with wells brought online between the fourth quarter of last year, first quarter of this year. We covered it in the prepared comments, over 20% reduction in PwC per foot savings. And you couple that with the solid initial production, it was very consistent with our expectations. Now what I would say is we probably do need to more on the longer-term production just to make sure that the shallower declines that we’re expecting actually come to fruition. But with the enhanced capital efficiency that we expect is going to come from it, I’d certainly hope that the Ajax portfolio is going to get more competitive.
Matthew Portillo: Great. And then maybe just a high-level question. Curious if you might be able to speak to maybe the drilling and completion efficiency gains you’ve seen this year? I know that was a big theme for you all last year, but it seems like you’re continuing to see success on that front, both on the drill bit and on the frac side. And what that may mean I guess, as we think about the guidance range for the wells to sales, it’s a little bit early, but should we be thinking about biasing our expectations towards the higher end of the range if you guys continue to see success on efficiency gains.
Michael Henderson: No, you shouldn’t expect much of a change in terms of wells to sales. It’s really just a phasing within the year, Matt, is how I describe it.
Lee Tillman: Yes. I think just on your specific question, I think Mike you had on a little bit of this in his opening comments. But on the D and the C side, we’ve definitely seen improvements in rate of penetration. Certainly, Eagle Ford was a bit of a standout there on the drilling side. I mean we continue to find ways to drive execution and efficiency there. And even on the frac side as well, I think we’re continuing to see in terms of stages per day and hours — pump hours see improvements there. And I don’t know, Mike, do you want to quantify that.
Michael Henderson: Yes. I think we touched on the Eagle Ford and the Bakken. I think Bakken despite the winter weather challenges that we had in the first quarter, we held on a lot of the efficiencies that we secured the second half of last year. That obviously bodes really well for future quarters. Interestingly, in Permian, that first quarter 3-mile Wolfcamp program, when we look at peer data, it looks like we drilled those wells 40% faster than the peer average. We’re also just completing of the drilling of the Texas, Delaware multi-well pad looking at some of the numbers there, our ROP 25% faster than the last time. We were drilling wells there. Yes, I think there’s a lot going into that. We certainly took advantage of the improved market situation towards the Bakken last year for a coordinated sense.
We’ve high graded in certain areas of the business. I think you’re seeing the benefits of that in the performance. A lot of effort is going into the preplanning side of things. We actually brought on a couple of new rigs as you go for it at the beginning of the year, and we have not missed a beat there. They very quickly got up to the expected pace. And then just continuing to work with the longer-term program contracts implementing a lot of changes with them we’re drilling these extended laterals. What we’re finding, we’re drilling a lot more of these laterals with a single trip, and that includes some of the 3 miles that we’ve recently drilled and a little bit of a balancing act, but we’ve had some success there just in terms of trying to get a little bit more probabilistic in terms of how we should manage the directional plan.
So a lot going on in the execution space, but great to be off to such a solid start at the beginning of the year, and I think it bodes well for the rest of the year.
Lee Tillman: And I think at the end of the day, it provides us very high confidence in delivery of our full year guidance is more of a timing question, as Mike said, is pulling forward a little bit of activity, and that just enhances our confidence in overall delivery on both our financial and operating commitments this year.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Lee Tillman for closing remarks.
Lee Tillman: Thank you for your interest in Marathon Oil, and I’d like to close by again recognizing all our dedicated employees and contractors for their commitment safely and responsibly deliver the energy the world needs now more than ever. And let me end also by just thanking Dane once again for his commitment as well to Marathon Oil. So thank you, and that concludes our call.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
