And when that well was ready to come on, there’d be pipe waiting there to take it to market. Now it’s had additional benefit because of changes in the environmental regulations so that we’re not flaring. And over the past four years, we cut our emissions by 55%, which is partly enabled by having our own pipelines to carry away the water and where we’re not having to flare and we’re not trucking the oil and gas and creating that environmental problem. But virtually, all of our oil is on top. So it’s something, I think, that adds value. But it also is very useful to our day-to-day operations. And I think, in time, people will see that. And as a public company, we play a straight game. If somebody comes in with a serious offer or a serious proposal in some way to work with us on our pipeline, or as I said, even to acquire it, we’ll give it serious consideration.
But right now, we can find plenty of use for it in getting our oil and gas and water taken away as needed, and is helpful.
Tim Rezvan: Thank you.
Joe Foran: Thank you, Tim.
Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Neal Dingmann: Good morning, guys. Thanks for the time and Joe and team, nice quarter. Joe, my first question just on all services, maybe ask this a little bit different. Joe, I know you’ve got great contacts and relationships there. I’m just wondering — I’ve heard more about like what is your thoughts these days, you and the team, about sort of bundling versus debundling when it comes to services? Because I guess, where I’m going with that, it’s heard as of late, there’s been sort of pass-through in different costs that have gotten cheaper. So I’m just wondering, when you think about oilfield services, how do you all — do you have a preference when it comes to bundling or debundling of the sand, the chems and other things around?
Joe Foran: Neal, yeah, first, I’m just going to thank our service providers. They’ve done a terrific job of being there when needed and their efficiency and everything else. Great relationships and really appreciate the extra effort that we’ve gotten through them. And it’s been a team effort. So it’s not just us that has gotten things there on time and had the success in the field. They’ve participated and they’ve been great to work with. But on — specific answer to your question, I want to turn to Chris, and he can tell you how — his thoughts on bundling.
Chris Calvert: Yeah. Hi, Neal. It’s Chris Calvert, EVP, COO. It’s a great topic. And I think one thing that we do like to highlight into is the partnership that we have with Patterson. And really, if you want to call it bundling from a drilling and pressure pumping perspective, that is, I guess, what you would call bundling. We use two of the largest cost centers that are provided by one parent umbrella company, that is Patterson-UTI. They have Universal Pressure Pumping that merged with NexTier. And so that is really kind of the bundling of two of our largest cost centers. And we feel that that is a huge benefit. When this transaction took place for the merger between UPP and NexTier, the services that we were used to with Patterson as far as quality of crews that carried over.
And so, we look at things to where that is really kind of a bundled package within our drilling contractor and our pressure pumping provider. On — you mentioned sand and pressure pumping, similar to our drilling contract, similar to gas takeaway, we always value optionality here as something that we’re always going to prioritize. And so when you think of sand bundling, whether it is provided by the pressure pumping company or self-sourced through a third party, we continue to look at optionality and the best way to optimize any sort of difference or delta in between contracted volumes from a sand contractor, excuse me, from the pressure pumping provider, or a spot rate that could be a little bit better at any given time. And so the value of the optionality between those two services is something that we always look at, but we do bundle that as well at times.
And so it is something that we are always looking at. And so those, I think, cover really two of the largest cost centers that we talk to. And that’s really kind of how we see these things. There are advantages to bundling. And then also it makes sense sometimes to have optionality to where you’re not tied to a specific provider.
Neal Dingmann: That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the details. And then just a quick follow-up on Midstream. With the connections in place now, flow assurance seems like everything is really going your way on that. Do you all anticipate more sort of third-party going through that or should we expect that anytime soon?
Joe Foran: Yes, Neal, we’re developing third-party relations on a constant basis. Our guys are out there meeting and want everybody to know we run a straight game. And one interesting thing that occurred, and Gregg Krug, who’s Head of our Marketing and Midstream, can elaborate on it. But one of those third parties said I’m very comfortable having you take away the gas and pipeline because I know that if you’re flowing, I’m going to be flowing, and I won’t be shut in. So, that if you’re moving your gas, you got to be moving my gas too. So we appreciate that perspective, even that’s true. And we are proud of our third-party people selling the gas, and we try to give them the exact same service that our people get. And feel so far, they’ve been most helpful in getting other people to call us to see if we can make a deal on being a reference for us that they’ve been real pleased with our service and work. But, Gregg?
Gregg Krug: Yeah. This is Gregg again. I echo what Joe just said as far as we definitely do not play favorites when it comes to Matador gas over our third party that we have out there. And I think that’s critical that we do that. We want to stay credible and we don’t — that’s not the way to treat your third party whenever you’ve got them on your system. So we definitely try to treat them the same as the Matador gas. And it is a comfort, I think, to some of them as far as — and that’s one thing we have heard as far as that we’re going to go the extra effort to make sure gas flows during bad storms. Joe just talked about Winter Storm Uri. That’s a good example of that. We — our folks were out there day and night, and I mean nighttime, too, actually working during sub-freezing weather.
And, I can’t say that necessarily about some of the other folks out there as far as the other midstream companies and so forth, because we did have some shut-ins on some of the wells. We had connected to other places. So that is — I feel like there’s some assurance there for third parties.
