Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NYSE:NOG) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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There’s kind of the bigger picture macro political stuff. But even anything worth pointing out like even near-term at the regional level, I think some couple of pipelines are coming on in like South and parts of Texas. But like the Williston or Appalachia, anything at the regional or national, but just kind of bigger picture what you pay attention to and what you think could be beneficial from a pipeline infrastructure standpoint?

Nick O’Grady: Well, we do spend a decent amount of time and money on understanding the political land shape and as it pertains to infrastructure. Because as it pertains to traditional energy and oil and gas, the bulk of the impediments to the business have been attacking infrastructure projects in order to choke off supply. And generally, to the detriment of American citizens, that’s a larger conversation. But I tell you as it pertains to the three basins that were active in today, the Williston is candidly oversupplied from a takeaway capacity. You’ve seen that in better pricing over time. And the basin as a whole, while our volumes are set to hit records, the basin as a whole is not growing tremendously. And so, I don’t think we have a ton of concerns in the Williston.

In terms of the Marcellus, while there you have Mountain Valley pipeline and other things that that could potentially change the game there or even LNG expansions. Our base case assumption has been nothing gets better ever. And that’s how we generally underwrite there. That’s generally our view. It’s just been challenged. It’s both political, geographical, all of those things going into above. Do I hold some optimism that at some point, logic will prevail sure, but we’re not counting on it. And in the case of the Permian, you do have a ton of LNG expansions coming on that the gas infrastructure in particular is quite tight right now, and we’ve had that view internally for some time. But those logistical issues are getting solved in real time.

And I have no doubt in my mind that that we we’ve even seen operators find ways around it. As Chad mentioned, rerouting gas especially because the bulk of our Permian assets are in New Mexico, which has more options. And so, money is amazing thing and motivates people to solve problems and where there’s capital. And so, I don’t think we have a ton of long-term worries within the Permian Basin. And I think given its proximity to the Gulf Coast relative to other places where business is largely still open. I think LNG expansion over time will both help ease the glut of natural gas over not necessarily this year or next year, but over a multi year base basis, as well as infrastructure projects getting ahead of it.

Donovan Schafer: Okay. That’s helpful perspectives. It’s good to know you’re not baking anything and that’s a good thing for me to know as I look at things.

Nick O’Grady: Yes. I mean it.

Donovan Schafer: It’s nice to know there’s the conservatism there. I’m optimistic. I mean like, or I’m hopeful, let’s call it, hopeful. But okay, that’s helpful to know at least you’re not baking anything in there, which is good. So I want to ask for the record level of M&A opportunity that – I mean you guys talked a lot about this and you gave out the number, $6 million kind of an opportunity. But I don’t remember getting like a dollar number. Maybe you did and I’m just blanking on it, before like last quarter. So, can you give us a sense like the magnitude of how that’s changed since the last update? Is it — was it $5 billion a quarter ago? Or like what’s been the magnitude change over the kind of near-term or short term time frame?

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