PDC Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PDCE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Nicholas Pope: Got it. It should be fun to watch four-mile lateral. So the €“ kind of as a follow-up here, Looking at kind of this mix of the subsurface that you all broke out. Just kind of curious where things stand right now with kind of gas processing, NGL capacity to kind of handle maybe a slight uptick in gas weighting here in the near term. And I just haven’t heard much worry about that lately.

Lance Lauck: Yes.

Bart Brookman: Yes, Lance will go with this.

Lance Lauck: Yes. No, Nick. Yes, very good. I appreciate it. And good question. And I’ll €“ because we are moving into the CAP area, it’s a higher GOR, very valuable wells. So what we’ve done is, we spent a lot of time working kind of side-by-side with DCP Midstream discussing the growth from our overall basin and working with them. And they’ve done a wonderful job of both with compression in the field and with plans to continue to expand their infrastructure in order to utilize and capture, if you will, all of the growth that we have from our production. And so the good news is that where we sit today, the line pressures are good, things are very solid in the field. And as we project out five years even and provide them some really long-term forecast, we are working very closely with them.

And they have various infrastructure expansions in mind in order to meet the growth of our production from the field. So, I would classify that as working very well for the company, and we have good long-term plans there. As far as takeaway out of the basin, there is more than ample takeaway for natural gas as well as NGLs out of the basin. That’s another part of the chain, if you will, that we stay close to them with. And so we’re thankful for how that works and all the way down to the Gulf Coast for frac space and all for our NGLs also. So from the field, all the way down to the market, we feel we’re in a pretty good spot to where that sits. More to go, but we’re staying right in lockstep with them and sharing our plans so that they can be prepared.

Nicholas Pope: All right. That’s great. Well, thanks everyone for the time. I really appreciate it.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from John Abbott of Bank of America. Your line is open.

John Abbott: Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. Just a few quick ones from me. How are you sort of thinking about hedging now into 2024?

Scott Meyers: We really don’t change our philosophy. Again, we look to protect the company from the downside case. We’re really trying to protect the cash flows. And our percentage that we actually hedge moderates with the amount of debt that we have on the book. So, I would just say, generally speaking, we continue to layer in some hedges over time. But at the same time, with our debt balance coming down, we don’t feel like we have to be hedged nearly as much as we were prior year. So from a percentage standpoint, I would say, look for us to be a little bit less hedged than we were in the prior years, but we’ll continue opportunistically to layer some in and make sure we’re protecting the balance sheet in 2024 and 2025.

John Abbott: Appreciate that. And then for our follow-up question, it’s not your plan as you do pursue growth, but where do you see long-term maintenance CapEx in the DJ?

Bart Brookman: Long-term maintenance CapEx is €“ it’s…

Scott Meyers: $1 billion? $1.1 billion?

Bart Brookman: Yes. Yes.

Scott Meyers: Somewhere around there? I mean we’re growing 3% to 5% now as a company. So, I mean, we’re not that far away, but my best estimate is, as you’re going through this, would be somewhere between that $1 billion to $1.1 billion was probably my guess.