Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Roger Jenkins: Thanks for that question, Neil. Of course, your company covers all these drillers and everything our friends. We — when you’re in the business like we have been, today, we have 2 drillships in the Gulf. We recently had 3 floating rigs in Mexico in the Gulf. We’re an active player, and we have a program when you’re an active player, you’ll have the lower or middle part of the market and a bit of the high end. If you’re constantly in the business, you very rarely pick up all on the high end. So I’d say that high-fare program today is at the lower end of rates in the 300 Max — and we have some at the 400 level, which is the market today. It’s kind of possible not to have something at the market unless you really contract for a long time.

So we feel well positioned. Other inflationary things are really around people costs, and we’ve talked about this before. There’s really not a big increase in rig count in the Gulf of Mexico, which keeps the inflation at bay a little bit on other services. Of course, in the onshore post-COVID, it went up from all the way to 700-something rigs. So the rig count is increasing and the DUCs are increasing the frac pressures more than we see offshore. But really, in our business, Neil, it’s about days on location and executing because you’ll have every kind of rate there is if you’re in this business for a long time.

Neil Mehta: All right. That’s great color, Roger.

Roger Jenkins: Thank you, Neil.

Operator: Your next question comes from Jose from Daniel Energy Partners.

Unidentified Analyst: Just real quick for me. So in the Eagle Ford, I was just wondering how the case of activity is going to play out for the year. Obviously, you guys were rough numbers around 2 rigs pretty much every quarter last year with the third rig in the fourth quarter. Given how the CapEx is going to tail in 2023, I was just kind of wondering what you suspect what you thought your cases and activity would look like for the rest of the year in the Eagle Ford.

Roger Jenkins: I have Eric answer that fares right away here.

Eric Hambly: Yes. We have a slide number 22, which shows the cadence of our onshore program. We detailed the Eagle Ford program as well as our Tupper Montney program there, both operated and non-operated. So you can see that it’s 10 Karnes wells come online in the first quarter. And then the second quarter is our biggest quarter from Eagle Ford activity with the third quarter contributing kind of similar level of the first quarter.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. But I mean — so I guess my question really is, are you going to sustain a 3-rig program for the remainder of the year in Eagle Ford? Or will that drop down to 2 at some point? Or sort of how you see that program flexing.

Eric Hambly: Yes. So in terms of drilling activity, we have 4 rigs working right now, 2 in Tupper and 2 in the Eagle Ford, and they will all be out of work on the third quarter.

Unidentified Analyst: That clarifies it. Appreciate it.

Operator: And there are no further questions from our form lines. I would now like to turn the call back over to Roger Jenkins for any closing remarks.

Roger Jenkins: Appreciate everyone focusing on our call today and asking good questions. We appreciate that way to talk about our company in a great year ahead. Any questions you have, please get with our IR team here. And we look forward to seeing you in our next quarter, and I appreciate all the help. Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

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