EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Toby Rice: Yes. As it relates to our hitting our production capacity targets by Q3, the thing we’re really looking at is completion efficiencies and really stages per day footage completed per day. And one of the slides we showed how we’ve gotten back to sort of historical performance levels there. So we’ll be watching that, and that will really be the guiding factor on the pace of reaching that target. As it relates to the activity levels relative to toil acquisitions, we were always planning on running this activity level, and we weren’t planning on changing our activities with the Tug Hill transaction that was probably going to be something that would be incorporated in ’24. So we’re executing sort of as we planned, and we’ll adjust when that deal gets closed.

David Deckelbaum: And is the expectation on everything you’re seeing that if this were to close, let’s say, in the end of the year, is $800 million a day, still the right production level. And I assume if it’s not, there would be a purchase price adjustment?

David Khani: Well, yes. So the purchase price was set at midyear last year. And so any change in free cash flow effectively will lower the price each month that will — that this takes to close. So if they change — if they decide to change activity and the response to this marketplace, then whatever impacts to free cash flow that will benefit to us. But we don’t know that they’re changing activity. We do know that they did add hedges at $5 on half of their gas production to lock in that a good portion of the free cash flow. So — and our expectation right now is that this will close midyear.

David Deckelbaum: And just a quick one. Just to confirm, the only difference between your 165 corporate level breakeven this year, and your 30 view just for EQT only longer term or through, I guess, the next several years, is just the benefit of the hedges in ’23, right?

David Khani: Correct, yes, we’re just trying to show that we and a much lower gas price before we don’t generate free cash flow.

Operator: Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann with Truist. Your line is now open.

Neal Dingmann: First, Dave, thanks for all the time, definitely been a great help. And probably my first question is on cost, specifically. What’s your comfort level with — when you see inflation and other potential incremental pressures this year — and just really wondering how sensitive is that to your D&C plan? You mentioned how you potentially would change D&C based on what gas prices. But I’m just wondering how does that relate to what you’re thinking on costs as well.

Toby Rice: Yes. When you look at the sensitivity that you got to look at is what percentage of services we have locked in and what exposure do we have to the spot market. Looking at the big picture items from rigs and frac crews, those are locked in. We have about 100 frac days that would show up in the back half of this year that we’re looking to procure. So there’s a little bit of exposure there to spot, but we’re planning for it — and we’ve got some time to see how the market shakes out before that. On steel, which is another big item for us, we’re pretty good from a procurement perspective through the first half of this year. And we think that the steel markets hopefully are showing some signs of loosening there on price.