Neal Dingmann: Now, that all make sense. I’ll let the details. And then, Joe, maybe a question for you, Brian, just around my second question. Noting that you don’t have 2024 specific guidance that you mentioned potential higher production. And I’m just wondering, given the higher production, but in the release, you guys talked about the better than expected. Do you see any capital expenditures and midstream expenditures. I’m just wondering, are you able to give some maybe goalposts or some just broader issues around what maybe the spend might look like next year if you add that A3.
A – Joe Foran: Well, I’d just say Neal, in February, we’ve announced that we’ll be giving you this detail. And if it comes together earlier, we’ll be happy to share it with you.
Neal Dingmann: Okay. Okay. I was just curious, given how good the DC and sounds like it’s continuing to go
Operator: Thank you. Please stand by for our next question, which comes from the line of Tim Rezvan of KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Tim Rezvan: Good morning, folks. I wanted to circle back on gas processing one more time and try to sort of tie above on the issue for 2024 because it’s a big debate point in the marketplace. You’re ending the year with 47 wells in progress. You’ve committed to eight rigs, and we don’t expect to see a new plant operational before 2025. So as you build out your drill schedule, what level of confidence do you have that every single well you’re going to bring online, you will have either in-house or third-party processes. Just trying to understand will that be a constraint on the program next year.
A – Glenn Stetson: Hi, Tim, this is Glenn Stetson, EVP production. I would say very confident. We have — the way that these two businesses have worked together well its three businesses now with Pronto — between the midstream and the upstream side of the business, we are constantly talking to each other about our development plans and looking for — looking into the future to make sure that we have adequate capacity. So, — and there’s obviously multiple variables that account for that. The gathering is one. The processing is another. And then how do we get gas out of the basin. And so we pride ourselves in having optionality, we pride ourselves on having multiple options when it comes to getting our gas out of the basin and having different options for gathering and processing.
And so we have redundancy in a lot of cases at some of our more prolific facilities where we can go — we actually have options for our gas. And so Greg and Joe highlighted it earlier, as we look into 2024, something that will provide some more capacity for us is this connection down to the advanced properties in Southern Ranger and then over to — from Pronto to San Mateo to swing gas there. So, we are aware of all the activity that’s going on in the basin, and again, are preparing ourselves for as many different scenarios as possible. But again, the strategic nature of having your midstream businesses that provide flow assurance for the Upstream business, I think, is unique to Matador. And certainly, as somebody who’s really in charge of production, it gives me a lot of comfort.
And again, confidence in our ability to execute on the plans that we put out.
Tim Rezvan: I appreciate the comprehensive answer to the question. And then as a follow-up, I remember in the past, as it related to 2023, management had talked about it as a pass the ball around year in terms of rigs being spread across your footprint. How do you think about rig allocation in 2024, given the really high oil cuts in Ranger, but possible gathering there? Thank you.
Tom Elsener: Hey Tim, this is Tom Elsener again. I guess the way we think about it is all the different asset areas have contributed in a very meaningful way. We’ve certainly — the Ranger wells, as we’ve talked about a little bit today, is very proud of. We have a big actual wells coming online in Arrowhead here in the fourth quarter. And we’ve been in Antelope Ridge for many, many years. These new core shoe wells under the Wolfe area, where our teams are very proud of those. Rustler Breaks has been making some great strides in creating two-mile laterals out of some of the shallower targets and reusing some of the same drilling pads and infrastructure over the last several years. And so I do think we’ll probably spread the ball around. But it’s too early really to get into those details today. But certainly, all of our teams are contributing in a very meaningful way.
Joe Foran: Yes. And I just would add that I understand you’d like to have all these numbers in detail today, but it’s not in our best interest to do so with all the volatility and the options that are, we’ll have them for you, it’s just the timing it didn’t fall on today. We may have them by the end of the year. But as things come together, but you want to see is Congress going to come to agreement, you like to think they are, but you don’t — you’d rather see it happen in the same thing. You’d like to see them resolve the problems in the Mid East, but until they’re resolved a little bit or truss or something, you’re not sure what’s going to happen, and we’re better off to do those things that we know we’re going to do and plan to do them and plan to have growth, plan to meet the targets that we’ve already announced to you like the 150,000.
But going beyond that is probably not prudent and get fixed to a plan that circumstances may necessitate a change. So the outlook is very positive. And that as good as 2023 is, we feel 2024 is going to be even better in 2025 is shaping up. So I wouldn’t get lost in the forest for the trees and realize that whatever is happening, we’ve got plenty of optionality and that we have — we’re going to have production growth. We’re going to continue to reduce debt, and we’re going to have plenty of free cash flow to use as the year suggest it’s best use. So I just encourage all of you to look at the picture and look at our record for performance and see that we’ve made a lot of great strides in good times and in bad times, and we’ll be ready for whichever environment that we have.
And so I think those — to do so, we’ll see this as a good buying opportunity, and thanks are headed in the right direction. Our leverage ratio is less than one. So there’s plenty of financial strength between whatever decision that we make on rigs. And you talk about prices falling out, but you could have vendor costs come down dramatically. So you even improve on what we did this year. So I think the team has proven itself and give us some time and opportunity to show how we’ll make the most of these uncertain times.
Tim Rezvan: Okay. [Technical Difficulty] Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Leo Mariani of Roth MKM.
Leo Mariani: Hey, guys. I wanted to touch base on a couple of numbers here. You guys are guiding to kind of higher fourth quarter LOE. Just wanted to get a sense what was sort of driving that? I’m thinking maybe that you guys are trying to finish with some of your midstream connections and kind of finish replumbing some of the advanced properties. So I just wanted to get a sense if that kind of comes down when that work is finished. And on cash taxes, you’ll talk to 1% of pre-tax income in 2023. I wanted to get a sense if you guys had a ballpark estimate on that for 2024?
Glenn Stetson: Hey, Leo. This is Glenn. I’ll take the first one, and I’ll let Rob take the second one on cash taxes. So on LOE, yes, we did guide slightly higher for Q4. Really, Leo the bulk of the work that we did in order to integrate the advanced assets is mostly complete. We do expect to see those efficiencies really going into 2024. Really, Lea County in general has some higher OpEx because it’s effectively where kind of San Mateo isn’t. And so — and then also the fact that really Advance had some higher LOE costs. So we have really seen those – the LOE on a per unit basis has flattened and kind of we’ll see how things shake out with commodity prices and oil field service costs into 2024, but feel really good about 2023.
