Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NYSE:NOG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Donovan Schafer: Okay. Thank you. That’s very helpful. Just a good touch point for me, kind of driving that point home, so thank you. Good to know. And that’s it for me. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Our next question is from Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers.

Noel Parks: Start with couple of things, was interesting to hear you say that the longer-term outlook is making you see gas assets as very attractive with this pullback and you’re certainly looking at those properties. So I’m just wondering, as you do your evaluation process, how do you sort of weight the issue of getting more concentrated and saying gassy assets incrementally versus infrastructure uncertainty? How do you sort of fit that into your model?

Nick O’Grady: I mean, I think it all goes in there. I mean, the number one we don’t — we certainly don’t pick some esoteric gas price that we think it should go to, to underwrite these things. You have to underwrite them by based on the world you’re living in now, and then stress that further. I’d say that infrastructure is really important. Just using the example, when we underwrote our Appalachian properties. We certainly never model in growth, just given the infrastructure constraints within that base. And then, we ran pretty punitive differential analysis, when we went through that. I’d say basins that were not in, use the Haynesville as an example where, we’ve observed, as it’s grown materially, in the last few years, that infrastructure has gotten really tight.

We also did the same thing when we were looking in the Permian, recognizing the same thing. And so our internal analysis factor in sometimes differentiated views on those things. We’ve suffered through infrastructure constraints and every basin we operate in. And the key thing is to understand what short-term and what’s long-term and what’s going to have a meaningful impact on the actual value of the properties.

Noel Parks: Got you. Fair enough. And just wondering, apologies if you’ve touched on this before. Are you –on the path to maybe going non-consent on more of what gets refers to you in for example, Appalachia or other places weight a little bit gassier.

Chad Allen: Yes. I mean, in Appalachia, the good news is that we have a multi-year program with . And it’s more happenstance than a function of the gas environment, but there are no completions this year. So there’ll be minimal CapEx, we may expend some drilling CapEx as we prepare for the 24 plan at the end of the year, but not a ton.

Nick O’Grady: Yes, it’s much longer term planning. I think we’re going to see the non-consent lever getting pulled or not getting pulled is going to really depend on inflation and how that interacts with commodity prices. And then obviously, depending on who the operators are, because at the end of the day, we’re an IRR, driven shop, right? And so if you have a gap down and commodity pricing, but inflation stays stickies, and there’s going to be things that, may or may not meet our hurdle rate. The good news is that most operators think relatively disciplined in terms of sticking to the core. And so I think you’ve got some buffer in that regard, versus a lot of the science experiments that we’ve seen in cycles past.

Chad Allen: Yes. And just to elaborate on that, Noel, like, as an example. We came into the Permian later where the delineation has been largely made. And so we don’t have a ton of acres in areas that are non-core, we’re going to be really subject to some of those things to my advice, as you see now. And the Williston well because we have a large legacy position, we own a lot of non-core properties to . They’re just not being developed. And so it allows the operators in some ways are doing the work for us.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I’d now like to turn the call back to Nick O’Grady, CEO for closing remarks. Over to you sir.