Good day, and welcome. Chord Energy Q4 2022 Earnings Results Call. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Michael Lou, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you, Nick. Good morning, everyone. Today, we are reporting our Q4 2022 Financial and Operational Results. We're delighted to have you on our call. I'm joined today by Danny Brown, Chip Rimer, and other members of the team. Please be advised that our remarks, including the answers to your questions, include statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those currently disclosed in our earnings releases and conference calls. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our earnings releases, as well as in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. During this conference call, we will make reference to non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings releases and on our website. We may also reference our current investor presentation, which you can find on our website. I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Danny Brown. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. I'd like to start off this morning reflecting on an eventful 2022 prior to talking about our Q4 results and ultimately our expectations for 2023. 2022 was a transformational year for our organization as we completed a merger of equals transaction to create Chord Energy, a company with substantial scale in the Williston Basin, and one with an opportunity to create and extract significant value through operational and corporate synergies. Importantly, we executed this transaction while maintaining our commitment to balance sheet strength, capital discipline, and to our shareholders, as we also announced a compelling and peer-leading return of capital framework. In the months leading up to the merger and through the balance of last year, we laid the groundwork and began the process of integration and establishing how we would operate as a new organization. This integration process is now fully underway and for 2023, we are focused on delivering value from the best practices and synergies we've identified. As a reminder, through this process Chord previously announced that we have increased our target annual synergies from the $65 million we originally targeted at the announcement to our current expectation over $100 million per year. We expect to realize over 70% of these targeted synergies by the second half of 2023, with the remainder in 2024 and have incorporated these numbers into our guidance. Taking the time and effort to establish what we believe are the best practices for the go-forward organization, regardless of legacy practice, will make us a stronger company, and I wanna thank the employees of Chord, who through their commitment and dedication have placed us on such strong footing. The integration is going well, and I remain excited about our future. Through the merger we've created a better company with a strong financial outlook capable of supporting high levels of sustainable free cash flow at prices much lower than current market benchmarks. Chord's solid outlook allowed us to enact a progressive shareholder returns framework, which resulted in returning over 75% of Adjusted Free Cash Flow in the second half of 2022 through a combination of base and variable dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. If you examine our program in more detail, you'll see that our annualized base dividend of $5 per share has a yield of 3.8% and represents a 233% cumulative increase over the past two years. A strong base dividend is a core part of a return of capital strategy and is designed to be resilient at low prices and sustainable through commodity cycles. Importantly, we believe our base dividend is very attractive versus both our peer group and the broader market. More broadly, our focus on strong shareholder returns was evident in 2022. On a pro forma basis for the full year, Chord generated approximately $1.3 billion of Adjusted Free Cash Flow and returned over $1.2 billion, or approximately 93%, through dividends, cash merger consideration, and share repurchases. Turning to the Q4, last night we announced our operating and financial results. As noted in the release and our presentation on slide seven, severe winter weather and elevated downtime related to frac protect negatively impacted volume delivery for the company. When combined, these impacts resulted in the delivery of approximately 3,200 barrels of oil per day, less than the midpoint of guidance for the quarter with the lion's share attributable to the severe winter weather in late December. The weather also delayed some of our capital activity and shifted completions into 2023 resulting in us investing about $21 million less in the Q4 than originally planned. Correspondingly, this reduced capital investment resulted in delivering higher free cash flow than anticipated for the quarter. Most importantly, we continue to be very pleased with the underlying well performance as our development program continues to deliver above expectations as can be seen on slide 10 in our investor deck, which is partially attributed to our practice of wider well spacing, which we believe improves per well recoveries and reduces variability of performance across the asset. From a return of capital perspective, in the Q4 we repurchased $27 million worth of stock at an average price of $133.30 per share. This means that over the course of 2022 we've repurchased about $152 million for an average price of $110.24 per share, and currently have $273 million remaining on our $300 million share repurchase authorization. Given this level of share repurchases and the Adjusted Free Cash Flow generated during the quarter, for the Q4 of 2022, we have declared a variable dividend of $3.55 per share. When combined with the base dividend of $1.25 per share, this yields a total quarterly dividend of $4.80 per share. Turning to 2023. On a full year basis, we are expecting to deliver slight oil volume growth in line with consensus estimates. At a program level, Chord plans to complete and deliver 90-94 gross operated wells in 2023 with an average working interest of approximately 73%. Completions activity is concentrated in the Q2 and Q3 of 2023, with over 2/3 of our turning lines, or TILs, expected during these quarters. The Q1 is expected to have only 13 back-end weighted TILs. Volumes are affected by this completion timing, as well as the lingering weather downtime we saw in January. Production is expected to increase sequentially each quarter, with Q4 of 2023 volumes being the highest of the year. I mentioned downtime due to frac protect a little earlier on the call and wanted to spend a moment discussing its impact on 2022 and our expectations for 2023, which is detailed on slide seven of our investor deck. As we previously discussed, delayed completions activity, whether due to inclement weather conditions or mechanical issues, impacts the volume delivery of not just those wells that are delayed, but also those surrounding wells that are shut in from a precautionary standpoint until nearby completions activities has concluded. In 2022, mechanical issues and weather delays, while developing in densely developed areas like Indian Hills, FBIR, and Sanish, led to very high and extended frac protect downtime. For the 2023 program, completions are concentrated in relatively less congested areas, which makes frac protect less of an issue year-over-year. Additionally, we expect downtime related to artificial lift to improve over the year and into 2024, as we are implementing best practices from the merger. As we look at the capital investment landscape for 2023, there is obviously uncertainty related to service prices, which are dependent on various supply and demand variables that I won't discuss in depth on this call. While there are some signs that pricing has plateaued in certain areas, I would note equipment utilization remains high and pricing remains elevated. Taking our best view, which does incorporate significant year-on-year inflation that we've experienced we expect to invest approximately $825- $865 million of capital in 2023, which is in line with consensus once accounting for the roughly $20 million of capital pushed from the Q4 of last year, which I discussed previously. Importantly, Chord's program focuses on operational efficiency and consistency, which we believe not only supports cost-effective operations but also supports safer operations. This operational efficiency is also supported by synergies derived from the merger and our development strategy. Three-mile laterals are a big part of the 2023 story, as we're expecting three-milers to comprise approximately 50% of TILs in 2023. We brought online our first three-mile laterals in the second half of last year in Indian Hills, and they are performing nicely. Slide nine illustrates what we are seeing with three-mile performance and culminates in an economic uplift of about 25 points when going from two miles to three miles. In total, Chord's 2023 program is expected to result in a reinvestment rate of around 50% at $75 WTI. Finally, I wanna spend a moment on ESG and sustainability before passing it over to Michael. Following the closing of the merger, we posted a letter to our shareholders, along with pro forma ESG metrics for the combined company. We provided this information in the interest of transparency and to remind the market we are dedicated to providing robust disclosure and improving our performance in these areas. In 2023, we plan to resume publishing a full sustainability report. Chord continues to have strong performance in GHG intensity, and we see opportunities for further improvement. Additionally, Chord has improved freshwater intensity and remains focused on the safety of our employees and contractors and maintaining strong corporate governance. In short, over time you will continue to see our disclosure grow with a continued focus on improving performance across the board. I'll now turn it over to Michael for some additional updates. Thanks, Danny. I'll highlight a handful of key operating items for the Q4 and also discuss a few of our 2023 guidance items. Crude realizations remain at a premium to WTI, and our pricing averaged $0.99 premium to the benchmark over the quarter. While this was slightly below Q4 midpoint guidance, pricing has been strong, and we continued to expect that in 2023. NGL and residual gas pricing deteriorated sequentially reflecting falling benchmark pricing. NGL prices fell more than WTI sequentially, which resulted in lower NGL realizations as a percent of crude. Residual gas pricing was weaker than expected, primarily reflecting increased regional gas competition resulting from a warm start to the winter. LOE averaged $9.87 per BOE for the Q4, toward the high end of our guidance, as the volume disruptions increased per unit costs. For full year 2023, we baked in some of the inflation that we saw on the production side in 2022 into our guidance. Production taxes were approximately 8% of oil and gas revenue in line with guidance. In 2023, we expect this to go down modestly reflecting lower trailing WTI pricing, which recently lowered the North Dakota oil tax rate back to early 2022 levels. Chord cash G&A expense was $22.4 million in the Q4, which was a little higher than expected due to conforming the two companies' accounting policies. The number excludes about $12 million of cash costs associated with the merger. Chord excludes these charges in calculating Adjusted Free Cash Flow for the return of capital program, as they are viewed as one-time costs associated with integrating the merger. At this juncture we believe the majority of merger-related expenses have been taken in the second half of 2022. Although we expect about $9 million of merger-related expenses to hit 2023 for things like relocation and severance. Our 2023 cash G&A guidance of $68 million reflects recurring operations only. Chord Energy paid about approximately $10 million in cash taxes in the Q4 associated with the September monetization of 16 million Crestwood units. These cash taxes were excluded from our Adjusted Free Cash Flow calculation given they are not associated with continuing operations. In 2023, we estimate no cash taxes in the Q1, and for subsequent quarters, we're expecting about 2%-8% of EBITDA at oil prices of $70-$90. Turning to liquidity, Chord has nothing drawn on its $2.75 billion borrowing base, which has elected commitments of $1 billion. Cash was approximately $593 million as of December 31st as well. In closing, Chord is generating strong returns, which supports our sustainable free cash flow profile and feeds our robust return of capital program. We demonstrated this with approximately $1.3 billion of free cash flow in 2022 and over $1.2 billion returned to shareholders. Our operations team continues to improve the asset base demonstrably through spacing and longer laterals, which drives a longer, more predictable and more economic inventory life. To close, we are incredibly proud to be a safe and responsible low-cost provider of energy, which fuels a better world and we are also proud of the entire Chord team who has come together and chooses to do the right, what is right for each other, the company, and our communities. With that, I'll hand the call over to Nick to open the line for questions. Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. First question will be from Derrick Whitfield of Stifel. Please go ahead. Thanks, Ken. Good morning, all. Morning. Perhaps for Danny or Chip. As you evaluate your inventory and three-mile lateral results to date, how are you thinking about the implementation of three-mile laterals over the next several years? With the understanding that you're meaningfully stepping up activity in 2023, could we see even a higher percentage of three-mile lateral activity in 2024? Thanks for the question, Derrick. I'll start off and then ask Chip to jump in with some additional color commentary. I think when you look at the total amount of inventory we have as an organization that we associate with three-mile laterals, it's roughly 50%-60% of that of our inventory that's left. We'll do, you know, maybe on the low end of that in 2023 at about 50%. You might see it increase a little bit just because it comprises a slightly higher percentage of our total inventory that's left as we move forward. I think it really will be a little bit dependent upon our development plans for the year, the specific areas they're at, the lease geometry that we're developing in, you know, and the infrastructure that is available to us at the time. You know, I think that 2023 plan is, at 50% is probably about what we'll be doing as we move forward, maybe slightly higher in some points versus another, but I'll ask Chip to maybe provide some more commentary. Hey, appreciate the question. Yeah, Danny, you're right. You know, you look at it, what we're drilling versus what we're TILs this year will be slightly higher than that, so we'll be a little bit above that number. We'll be going across all parts of the basin there. Really looking forward to taking that capital efficiency that we've seen, you know, that we're seeing right now and use that across the entire basin to really add value for the company. Terrific. For my follow-up, staying broadly on inventory, the focus of your communication has generally been on new wells. In thinking about the productivity some of your peers are experiencing with refracs, what are your thoughts on how investments in refracs in Sanish, let's say an area where the play was clearly developed in early times, how would that compare versus new development in other areas? Particularly if you were to couple new development with recompletes, which would also give you the benefit of frac protect? Yeah, great question. Yeah, we're definitely looking into that. We've already challenged ourselves a little bit in the Sanish area doing some of those things. I think with some of the new technologies with the coil drill outs, the hydro lift systems, the mud systems are really allowing us to potentially look and gain some value on the refracs in the Sanish area, but also other areas that were probably completed, you know, back in the, 10 years ago, not with the completions that we have today. I think there's huge value. We'll compare those compared to our entire inventory, but I'm excited where that potentially could go for the basin. Very helpful. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Derrick. Thank you. Next question will be from Neil Dingmann, Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Morning, all. My first question is on the Bakken takeaways. Physically, you know, talking to you guys, it seems the diffs now have been quite good now for some time. I'm just wondering, is this more a result of just the takeaway contracts? Really just curious if there's been any change to your marketing group, 'cause you all have done an excellent job there. Thanks, Neil. I think on the marketing side, differentials have been strong in the basin. We think they will continue to. We've got a large takeaway capacity, and we're not filling that as a basin. Really there's a lot of competition. That crude market is pretty robust on the back-end side. I think Bakken crude is really bid up because it is a great barrel for the refineries. With all of that combined, strong takeaway, not, you know, way more supply or way more capacity than what we're supplying right now, that all leads to kind of a really nice setup on the crude side. I think we will see continued crude realizations that are strong for a while. Great to hear. Just second one on the operating plan. Can you give some color just on the regional operating plans? I'm just wondering how concentrated the drilling might be or, you know, what you consider sort of the optimal pad size? Yeah. Optimal pad size for us is typically, you know, a couple wells to four wells a pad. We're gonna be spread out through the entire basin. I think we are being concentrated in certain areas causes some frac protect things that Danny was talking about that I think we can spread this year. We're looking at to till our wells, you know, in the Q2 and Q3, which is a good time of the year with weather situations. We're gonna be across the entire basin spreading our work. That's the nice thing about being, you know, bringing two companies together in Synergy's core is you have that ability to do those things. Thanks for the details, guys. Thanks, Neil. Thank you. Next question will be from Phillips Johnston, Capital One. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Thanks. The return of capital remains high and impressive. My question's on the mix. The Q4 return included $27 million of buybacks out of the $227 million total. Relatively light mix despite what many would probably agree that's a cheap stock. I think the opportunistic approach is the right one, but I'm just wondering how you're thinking about the mix going forward and what it might take to sort of get more aggressive on the buyback. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Phillips. You know, I'd say just broadly speaking, you know, we try to learn some from the lessons of the past, one of those clearly is to avoid procyclical buybacks. That certainly goes into our thinking. We've got a pretty disciplined view on how we think about share repurchases. As you noted, I think importantly, we view them opportunistically, not really programmatically. I'd say we would define that out opportunity as a combination of when our shares, you know, are trading under what we think our intrinsic value is at conservative pricing and when we're trading at a discount to our peers. We're really looking at dislocations on both of those items, not just a single item. When we see that, you know, depending upon the magnitude of those dislocations, I think you'll see us be pretty aggressive. Certainly, there was an example of that last summer. Really it's not just the discount to our intrinsic value, but also how we're trading relative to peers. Okay. Makes sense. Then maybe a question for Michael. You referenced the wide gas differentials embedded in the 2023 guidance. I think you said that's a result of gas-on-gas competition in the basin. I was wondering if you could maybe give us a little bit more insight as to what the drivers are there and what's different about this year versus the past few years. I recognize there's a, you know, fixed cost component that's coming into play relative to lower NYMEX prices, but the 40%- 50% of NYMEX realization seems pretty low considering that production in the basin hasn't really been growing. Yeah. That's a great question, Phillips, and I think you hit on both of them. One, there is some kind of regional competition with Canadian Gas for the Bakken that we experienced there in the Q4. Then, on top of that, it does have to do with that fixed component, that fixed cost component that you're talking about. As you think about it, in higher gas price environments, you're gonna have a larger piece of that kind a go into that differential to hub. In lower gas price environments, it's gonna be a little bit lower realization because of that fixed component. There's gonna be some of it has to do with kind of where we are on the actual gas price. It's lower today and t he strip has it at a lower level. That means that the realizations are gonna be lower as well. The historical periods aren't comparable, just given the fact that we just switched from two-stream to three-stream. There's just a little bit of a nuance from what you've seen from the companies in the past to where we are today. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Thanks. Thanks, Phillips. Thank you. Next question will be from John Abbott, Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning. Thank Thank you for taking our questions. Good morning, John. Yeah, the first question is on your outlook. Looking to 2023, you know, it looks like production is gonna grow steadily up to the Q4, looking at slide 11. With the move to more three-mile laterals, how are you looking at oil in 2024 potentially? How does the move towards more three-mile laterals potentially impact your underlying decline rate? Great question, John. As we think about, as we think about the impact of the three-mile laterals and oil delivery in the basin, I'd say it's not just about the length of the wells, but also about where we're drilling within the basin. An important sort of overlying factor is the fact that we're moving into oilier areas of the basin generally. We're anticipating that our oil cut as a percentage of our, of our new wedge production is probably gonna be a little higher than it has been historically. You know, you've got the broad broad basin in our historic legacy development where our GORs are increasing slightly, and then that's being offset with a wedge program that's delivering slightly more oil than we would have delivered historically. That, that's going on in the backdrop, and gonna affect the entire field level production. At a three-mile lateral level, you know, what we would typically anticipate from a three-mile lateral relative to a two-mile lateral from a production delivery standpoint would be sort of similar production over early time. We don't really upsize the facilities. We don't pull those wells a whole lot harder than we do two-mile laterals. What we see is that they run flat for a longer period of time, before they start to decline. Those decline rates are a little shallower because you have a longer lateral feeding into the wellbore. Just the overall decline profile does change as you move from two miles to three miles. There's other impacts of the field development that will also, you know, impact what we deliver as far as a, as a commodity mix. I'll ask Chip to weigh in with any additional color. No, I mean, you're exactly right, Danny, and I appreciate the question. It's whether it's a two-miler or three-miler, we don't overbuild our facilities. Then we flow 'em back. We wanna make sure we have sand maintenance and those kind of things that we flow back, choke 'em back in the right level, and they tend to stay flatter for longer. That's what we see. You'll see that three-miler stay out there for a lot longer than you would on a two-miler. Appreciate it. For our second question, what are you seeing in terms of potential bolt-on? How would you describe the potential bolt-on opportunity market at this point in time in the Bakken? From a bolt-on opportunities, we continue to see a mix of different opportunities in the basin, whether it be, you know, small asset packages, potentially larger asset packages, private organizations, et cetera. It's really a mix. There is a, there is an opportunity set, and as you could, as you would expect with our footprint within the basin that is something we follow pretty, that we follow pretty closely. If we see opportunities to do accretive bolt-ons that make us a better organization, that's certainly something we're gonna look at. Appreciate it. Thank you for taking our questions. Thanks, John. Thank you. Next question will be from Paul Diamond in the Citi. Please go ahead. Good morning, all. Thanks for taking my call. Just a quick shift of conversation here to a bit more of the longer term development plan. Slide six, you referenced some, you know, kind of areas that are more in the longer term upside for optionality and development. Just wanna get your ideas of how you guys think about those as far as priorities and, you know, in current and current volatile pricing environment and kind a how we should look about those going forward. Yeah, I think as we think about those areas that are largely on the, you know, on the slide highlighted in blue, we really do see those as long-term upside for us. They don't play a role in our current development plan. We are typically looking at investing in our, one, opportunities that are near infrastructure, and then two, opportunities that deliver the highest returns to us. We view those as upside. We're gonna monitor development in those areas that we see others doing i t'll help inform our views moving forward. We really do look at that as long-term upside, and that's not part of our near-term development plan. I'd also say, Danny, gas capture is important to us and so, you know, we stay in the core areas where we take away on those kind of things on the gas capture side. They may be a little more limited on those other areas. Understood. Thank you. Just for a quick follow-up. On slide seven, you guys detail your kind a cadence of your till timing coming into 2023. Just curious if there was a kind of the rationale for the or the year-over-year difference in Q4 2022 versus Q4 2023. Is that just operational planning or is that trying to, you know, avoid, you know, another weather incident or kind a just the thought process behind that? I'd say if you think about the 2022 plan, the 2022 plan was really a continuation of the legacy plans between both legacy organizations. You know, both legacy organizations had a bit of a back-end-weighted program, when you combine the two companies, that, those plans, which is where we had permits, we had rig contracts, we had completion crew contracts, that really just sort of perpetuated through the balance of the year, leading to the sort of the timing that you see noted. As we were able to take a view, an integrated view as an organization about how we really wanted to develop the asset moving forward, I think this timing of doing completions more toward the middle of the year, concentrated in the middle of the year, just makes a little more sense from an operational perspective. As Chip noted, the weather is better during that timeframe. We're able to get a solid frac crew during that timeframe, which we know delivers efficiencies. You'll see that program's a little bit different than it was last year, but it's really just it's a product of us being able to sit down as a combined larger organization and put together a schedule that makes sense for us relative to schedules that made sense for the two legacy companies independently. Understood. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Paul. Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Danny Brown, Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks. Thank you, Nick. To close out, we remain committed to our core strategy, which revolves around being strong capital allocators, retaining financial flexibility, exploring opportunities to continue to consolidate, and having a robust return of capital program. We are doing this with a focus on sustainability and drive for further improvement across every aspect of our business. We are now over six months into the integration and remain as excited as ever about the opportunities in front of us for our shareholders, employees, communities, and other stakeholders. Thank you again to our people for driving this progress and making it happen. Your efforts are sincerely appreciated. With that, I'll conclude by also saying thank you to those joining our call. Conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.