CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Nick DeIuliis: No, I mean, it’s all going to be weather dependent. I think up here, peers have been pretty consistent and staying flat. So, we would expect the supply side to remain steady and it’s going to be a demand function. We will see how kind of we get through the winter here the rest of February and March and we will have a better view on that. But we are protecting any scenario with our hedge book. So, we are ready to go for whatever ‘24 brings.

Michael Scialla: Got it. And if I could ask one more, the for this year’s non-drilling CapEx, the $145 million to $175 million you talked about, can you give any rough split on the land, midstream and new tech break out there?

Nick DeIuliis: Yes. The new tech has been in separate bucket. It’s in that discretionary line and that’s pretty de minimis. It’s in that $5 million to $10 million range. But that also includes all of our efforts on ESG reductions. So, there is two kinds of things in that bucket. On the land side, if you are around the $30 million sort of range and the rest is split between water infrastructure and midstream industry structure that kind of keeps up with the field development.

Michael Scialla: Great. Appreciate it.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Jake Roberts with TPH. Please go ahead.

Jake Roberts: Good morning.

Nick DeIuliis: Good morning Jake.

Jake Roberts: We were wondering if you are able to give any insight into the split of the $75 million in new tax in terms of perhaps credits versus private party transactions. And then is there any expectation, given the volatility of those markets in terms of how they will be monetized on our quarterly basis?

Nick DeIuliis: So, as we have said in our prepared commentary, the sources for the cash flow that is coming from the EPS market, there is some of the compliance markets that we are part of and there is some voluntary transactions that we have taken. So, at this point in time, we are making some dynamic decisions on where the opportunity is and where to direct those attributes to, so it’s difficult to provide the split on an ongoing basis. But what I would say is that some of the other transactions on the voluntary side and all that stuff, they are all driven by what the other opportunity costs are. So, the EPS program is probably a good driver for what the realization would be. For some of this stuff and then the variability is going to come from the volume and what’s happening in that market for pricing the EPS market.

Jake Roberts: Okay. I appreciate that. And then my second question at a high level, how are you guys thinking about balancing usage of FCF in the coming years between shareholder returns which have been on a solid pace, potential debt reduction or even maybe how you are planning to handle those maturities in the ‘26/27 timeframe?

Alan Shepard: Yes. So, we have been pretty consistent and kind of meshing through the market. In the longer term, we are looking to de-lever that’s going to occur through kind of absolute debt reduction as well as kind of growth in gas pricing and the new tech revenue side. We are well positioned right now with where the balance sheet sits and where the hedge book sits to have the luxury to basically deploy close to 100% of free cash flow to shareholder returns. It’s an odd kind of a quarter-by-quarter decision though to continue that pace, right. We always talk about following the math and that’s what we do. Right now, we still see a lot of opportunity in the undervalued shares to continue where we are at.

Jake Roberts: Great. Appreciate the time.

Operator: The next question comes from John Abbott with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

John Abbott: Hey, good morning. Hey, Ravi, my questions for you. You talked about those three different opportunities to grow free cash flow on the new technology side. You have talked about these commercial opportunities in bucket number two. Can you provide any more color on what those are approximately, what you are looking at there or do we have to wait and see?

Ravi Srivastava: Look, what I could say is like we have developed a portfolio of IP around opportunities that help reduce costs on the oil and gas flow back completion side of things and reduces emissions on that side of things. It’s very exciting and more to come on that front. I think it’s been in this prototype phase. We have been doing a lot of testing on that, but I think we are at a point where it starts to take some commercial scale. So, stay tuned in the next couple of quarters, we will have much better idea of how that shapes out in the new tech free cash flow in the coming years.