Earthstone Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ESTE) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Charles Meade: That is a helpful elaboration, Mark. Thank you for that. And then my follow-up, and perhaps this is for Robert or Steve, I’m curious about the Wolfcamp D results. And there’s two things that are — at least two things that are notable to me. But I wonder if you could just give us a bigger context. One, it’s a high oil cut, at least we don’t have a lot of Wolfcamp D results to look at in the industry, but my recollection, that’s a higher oil cut than what we’ve seen from some other results in Midland County. And then the second piece, if you could kind of put into context the rate, which isn’t a — it doesn’t seem like a bar and burner rate to just on the face of it, but that — it’s not an artificial lift and maybe — what — and I recognize you want to keep them off you’d like to have it flow naturally. But at some point, when you put it on artificial lift, where might that rate go?

Robert Anderson: Okay. Let me start by giving you just a little bit of info on the Wolfcamp D. So — if you’ll recall, our first deal in the basin, we bought Lynden Energy private — a public company that operated by CrownQuest. We participated with CrownQuest and Wolfcamp D wells, primarily in Howard County. This was several years ago, really good results. Since then, CrownQuest has drilled a lot of Wolfcamp D wells both in Midland County and on the Midland Glasscock County Line. And so this was an easy initial development for us being in the right area. We’ve since seen good Wolfcamp D development for initial development in Reagan and Upton Counties. And some of it has been there for a while, a very large operator in the basin, drilled a three-well Wolfcamp D pad in Reagan County several years ago.

And now there’s been some privates both in Upton and Reagan who have developed the D. So we see it in lots of places. We’re going to continue to watch what these private operators’ results will be in these 2 areas up in an rated, and we see that as an opportunity to add some additional development for us in the Wolfcamp B — it’s just at this point, ours haven’t been on long enough to see meaningful amounts of gas. We’re not exactly sure where that’s going to head on this block of acreage. But we’ve got plenty of data to compare this versus other Wolfcamp D developments, and we’re pretty pleased. Steve, you can talk about the artificial lift side of it and what happens when we go on lift. I think it’s going up, but…

Steven Collins: Yes, it’s going up, I can’t tell you how much. It’s going to go up and the pumps are going to be big enough to handle quite a bit of fluid. Those pumps are ready to go. We started out about 2,000 pounds of flowing pressure here, and we’re down to about $750 million — so they’re coming close. I’m going to think that in the next 3 or 4 weeks, we’ll be — all it’s got to do a stumble a little bit if it heads 3 times, I wouldn’t a pump in it. So we’re ready to go. I had that conversation before I walked in here. But yes, it’s high oil cut, but that’s also good because those ASPs are going to be even that more efficient. So I’m looking forward to doing it.

Q – Charles Meade: Right. Well, I’ll stay tuned on that. It will be interesting. Thanks for the details.

Steven Collins: Thanks, Charles.

Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Michael Scialla with Stephens. Please proceed with your questions.

Michael Scialla: Robert, you said you plan to stay at the 5-rig program for next year. And Mark, you said that you expect production to decline in the first half from fourth quarter level than plateau, I guess, in the second half. And it sounds like that would result in less CapEx this year given the lower contracted prices. you’re getting on your rigs and other deflation — do you have a sense of what you’d need to spend to keep production flat? And do you have any desire to do that?

Robert Anderson: I’ll tell you what, Michael, one thing we don’t do is buy these high declining private equity-backed companies and try and keep production at the peak. Novo and Titus are 2 examples of those and great examples, and we don’t mind letting those come down and we’ll fix the right capital plan for us and develop the asset. So like we’ve said, and Mark did a good job after we bought Titus, we let it come down, and we’ve had 3 quarters of 105,000 BOE a day and if we hadn’t done Novo, I think we’ve been pretty consistent in our message that we keep production flat with our rig count at the time and our capital at the time. So I think that stays kind of the same thing here once we get to flush out of the Novo asset.

Michael Scialla: That makes sense. So the 5-rig program seems like operationally where you want to be right now?

Robert Anderson: For now, that’s right. Yes. Works really well to have four rigs for us running in New Mexico.