Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:MGY) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And I think there’s some things that we can do around that. But I wouldn’t expect or anticipate that you’re going to see something very large from us right now. I just don’t see that. But I think there’s some things that, like I said, more single type opportunities. So, that’s – we’re happy with the cash balance. We don’t want to squander it. We want to use it in a good way because things are more challenging now than they were just a few months ago.

Neal Dingmann: Yes. I really like your optionality. I’m glad you guys have been methodical with that. And my follow-up is just on prospective locations. Are you able to give an idea of the number of top tier locations you believe you still have, I mean, getting to obviously a big, big area and then maybe what you have in Karnes or I don’t need exact details, maybe just on broader color around sort of how you’re seeing each of these assets sit today?

Chris Stavros: Yes. It’s an interesting question. I mean especially as we come up on Magnolia’s 5-year anniversary this year, 5 years ago, we talked about a planning process that incorporates sort of 5 years of activity. And here we are 5 years after the fact. And I would tell you, we’re still talking about 5 years of activity. We have lots of things to keep us busy, lots of things to work on. And so I don’t see this as any issue around inventory or whatnot. So we’ll be able to sort of keep our two rigs busy for a while.

Neal Dingmann: Thank you so much.

Operator: Thank you. And the next question will be from Umang Choudhary of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, sir.

Umang Choudhary: Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. My first question was on your updated guidance. I mean, a lot of moving pieces that you highlighted plans to defer completions, also things that benefit from service cost deflation and ongoing Giddings efficiencies. Can you help us unpack these points from a modeling perspective? Like how many plans – how many wells are you planning to defer? And any color you can give us on the cost trend, trying to understand the cadence of production and completions this year?

Chris Stavros: Yes. I mean on the material side, we’re seeing costs come down for most of our materials, some of our services well, but certainly a lot on the material side, steel, OCTG, tubular goods, valves, fluids, granular completion materials, otherwise known as sand, pressure pumping. So everything is coming down. Some things may be a little bit more stickier than others, some labor-related items, some service-related items. But in this environment, I would anticipate them continuing to see declines over time. And it certainly lines up better for the second half of the year. Not to mention the next thing on tap for us to go after and address is our field expenses, lifting costs, LOE. And so my belief is that we’ll be able to make some progress there in the back half of the year, too. So that’s sort of how I would see it. In terms of the wells, it amounts to just a few wells. You’re just looking at some deferred completions, that’s about it.

Umang Choudhary: And this deferred completions, is it more in Q2? Because if you look at the way the contango is there on the gas curve, it would probably imply a more pronounced weakness in Q2 and a little bit better pricing in the back half of this year?