Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Leo Mariani with Roth MKM.
Leo Mariani : I wanted to just follow-up a little bit on what you’re thinking on production trajectory for the rest of the year. Obviously, a good start in the first quarter. You mentioned kind of moving some tills back. I mean, normally Range sees kind of higher production in the second half. But maybe this is not happening, maybe 3Q dips a little bit and then 4Q stronger. Just trying to get a high-level sense of how you see production trending over the next handful of quarters?
Dennis Degner : I think when you look at this year it really should look and feel very similar to prior years under this maintenance type profile. The one — a couple of differences maybe this year that you’ll feel when you start to see the numbers quarter-over-quarter. And we’ve somewhat touched on this in prior probably one-on-one conversations but as long lateral development has — long lateral development has continued to materialize for us. And clearly, we talked about that a lot last year. Our original plan was 10,000 feet for an average horizontal. By the end of the year, it was approaching 13,000 feet, took some of our TIL count down while we still had a similar, if not slightly up turned in line footage versus the original plan.
All that starts to influence the production shape throughout and profile, throughout that following program year. So Q4, we saw some of our long laterals turned to sales. They’re demonstrating not only really strong well performance, but they’re also continuing to basically keep parts of the gathering system at a high level of utilization. So all of that to say, maybe in prior years under maintenance where you’ve seen us have a Q1 to Q2 dip in production and then see a stronger ratable increase in the back half of the year, you could see that that shallowing potentially this year, where maybe that Q1 to Q2 time frame is a little bit less and you’re actually going to see something a little flatter. And that kind of makes sense when you look at two flat drilling rig program for the year, very lean with the one completion crew supporting that.
And on top of it, you’re seeing some of this long strong well performance from our long laterals.
Leo Mariani : And then just wanted to touch base on the share buyback. Obviously, you folks haven’t done quite as much over the last few quarters despite pretty robust free cash flow here and a nice cash balance. I get you’ve got the debt maturity coming up in roughly 12 months, but it seems like you could easily refinance that. You’re kind of at your net debt target under $1.5 billion. So maybe just talk about how you’re kind of thinking about the buyback going forward in terms of kind of allocating between debt paydown as well?
Mark Scucchi : Yes, we work our way and have worked our way into the net debt target range. We certainly have a lot more latitude and flexibility. It has been an opportunistic program by design from the very beginning. And one year, two years ago, we repurchase $400 million. The year after, it was something like $19 million. As I mentioned, some shares are repurchased in cash effectively related to equity compensation. So there’s some decent purchases that way. So again, to your point, since we’re in the debt target range, we certainly have a latitude. The debt refinancing again, there’s a lot of choices. That’s been kind of a repetitive theme today is us creating options and choices. We never want to be in a situation where we have to do something.
So with the ability to simply use undrawn revolver in addition to the cash we have on the balance sheet to deal with refinancing, again, that frees us up as we evaluate movements in the market. Certainly, the way I would put it is if we see a pullback in the stock price, we would certainly be more apt to lean in and repurchase more aggressively. In the meantime that certainly remains part of our plans going forward. We have ample capacity under the existing board authorization greater than $1 billion right now. It will be a part of the plan. But again, we’re not locked in on a specific formula. The idea is to not simply execute a procyclical program but to make this an efficient value-generating exercise to maximize returns for the shareholder.
Operator: We’ll now go to Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, for our final questions.
Noel Parks : Just a couple of things. I wondered, just in your broad thoughts about what you’re seeing in the industry. With the lower prices, people probably being a little bit more conservative in spending overall. As far as what you’re seeing from maybe your non-operated partners and other peers. What do you think as far as continue to work on emissions control, just wondering if that’s continuing as it has been or if you’ve seen any shifts in people’s attention to that.
Dennis Degner : Emissions management has not — I’ll just say, philosophically has not changed for Range, and we’ve continued to maintain the same course that we charted a few years ago. At this time, last year, we transitioned over to, as an example, a new facility installations we’re getting — we’re moving away from traditional pneumatic conveyors in for controllers and using basically modern technology. So something that’s more air conveyed and also using nitrogen. We’ve now also gone transitioned to a retrofit program, again, as an example where we’re going back to other sites and making those upgrades as well. Coupling it with, looking at field run time, making sure that we’ve got the best design in the field that’s supporting our overall both economic and operational approach.
