Look, as we wrap that up and those thoughts with the Board in the coming months and kind of roll out guidance for next year, we’ll think about how that impacts, kind of broader production growth just on an absolute basis, but I think it’s really around free cash flow generation in the near term.
Michael Scialla: Got it. Okay. And I guess on your production, I realize the fourth quarter is impacted by nonoperated wells. Just wanted to get some more color on that, if I could. Is that intervention that the operator is talking about there? Is that something that’s fairly routine? Or do you see that as carrying some risk that could affect that welcome back online in the first quarter of ’24?
Timothy Duncan: Look, it’s fairly routine. I mean you have these big wells and these big completions and from time to time, you might have something happen downhole that requires either repair obviously, a little different because you got to recycle that planning. If that happened in shallow water, if that happened in onshore, you can get on that pretty quick. It’s pretty easy to move around resources and do that. When you do it in deepwater, it’s just a different planning exercise. It takes more time. You’ve got to figure out how that typically fits in an intervention vessel or the rig you’re using. So it’s just a different dynamic. But the idea that, hey, look, we got a large resource base and we want to either repair a well or cycle well, look, that happens, I think, in everyone’s portfolio through the course of the year.
And so I think we’re fully confident that comes back online. But Mike, part of the guide on the fourth quarter, and we could have — we probably should have been a little more specific about this was when we looked at bringing on Venice and Lime Rock in the first quarter, there’s downtime related to ramp power to get those wells online. We’re trying to accelerate that. We’re actually seeing if there’s a possibility we can sneak a little bit of that into the last parts of this year, which then pushes that downtime into this quarter. So there’s a little bit certainly a non-op well that we want to get back online. There’s 1.2 million, 1.3 million barrels a day, net to our interest on a full quarter run rate there, and then there’s some downtime related to ramp out that if we can push that really early into 2024, push that production sneak a little bit into the exit rate, that downtime shifts into fourth quarter.
Michael Scialla: Okay. That’s helpful. And I wanted to just ask one last one on Zama. Where do you stand with the FEED work there now? And I know at one point, you were debating between the FPSO and fixed platform, where’s the — how does that look at this point?
Timothy Duncan: Yes. Look, it’s an active discussion. I mean, I think part of the challenge in this has been time was lost and it’s unfortunate. And the struggles around the initial formation of the unit. Our views on that, obviously, fairly well documented frustration that we were giving up operatorship and then how do we kind of claw that back into the partnership to where we can build and build an integrated project team. And again, we’ve talked about that. Keep in mind, when we were operator, we had a different development plan that Pemex was proposing when they took over operatorship and they had to come up with a blend of that. Ultimately, the government reviewed that, and they approved the new blended plan, but there’s some engineering details that underneath that, that we had to start over with.
And so part of the pulling in the full unit and going through the process, ultimately led to changes in the design and some of that has to be kind of brought through the feed. And then now it has to be thought through as we think about total capital and financing. So some time was lost there, frustrated around that, happy though that we’re back on track, happy to have Carson. I think we’re probably at a better place with that asset and with that partnership that we’ve ever been. Certainly, some of the debates and some of the frustration is behind us. And so now it’s really more about a key focus on what do we need to do to wrap up. So still a little work there. Look, next year is an important year for that asset. It’s been certainly been long enough.
It’s time to kind of get that thing to FID. It’s time to get the ball moving on that. It’s important to a lot of stakeholders and support to our shareholders. We’re glad we’ve been able to monetize and realize some value. But we’ve you’ve got some work to do to get that kind of in the right spot. And again, I think we’re in a better place with that asset than we’ve been over the last couple of years.
Operator: The next question comes from Subasish Chandra from the Benchmark Company.
Subhasish Chandra: Just curious, as you have these 4Q events, these wells plus, of course, Lime Rock, Venice. What do you sort of anticipate as a base level of production one that might not be subject to downtime, some of the 3Q hurricane effects, et cetera. But is sort of a number that you might bounce around offloads?
Timothy Duncan: Well, Subasish, thanks for calling. It’s — look, it’s difficult to always find that perfect run rate in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve always kind of said in the past, there’s — it’s a basin where just by the nature of, and we answered in the last kind of question a little bit, you have something that when you have downtime, the ability to bring that back online isn’t as quick as you see with some of the onshore operations or even back 20 years ago and kind of the predominant around our portfolio was in shallow water. So it’s a little bit kind of tough to answer. Obviously, second quarter was a cleaner quarter. We were in the 70s there. And so good weather and typically a little cleaner. So I think we know what a clean quarter looks like.
I think we know what projects we’re trying to add on and then you kind of have these downtimes. So sometimes that downtime can be 2%, 3% in a quarter, sometimes it can be 10% in the quarter. The third quarter is always tricky. And what we’re learning is loop currents, which generally around El Nino, that’s now going to be forecasted into weather-related downtime. And so I think the second quarter was a relatively clean quarter. It’s a good way to anchor things, and then you have kind of what’s the decline and then how do you stack on there. And again, we have some things we’re stacking on in the near term, more than just Venice and Lime Rock. The reason we put in some of those nonops smaller impact, smaller working interest, but we have 3 or 4 different operators out there actively in these activities.
We had a nice little development well work over the weekend that also stack on into ’24, which is another reason why we think we should focus on free cash flow generation and don’t feel compelled to have to go at the pace we’ve been going at for the last 2 quarters in the first half of next year. But I think second quarter was a good place to start. And then it’s really what are we adding on in the next, what I would call 3 or 4 months. But as we look out in the total year, as we pull CapEx down next year, it may change how we think about the full year outlook, but we got to really ramp up that program.
Subhasish Chandra: Right. So as you — I guess, the outlook for substantially lower CapEx, is that sort of an upstream comment that might be partly offset by a CCS spend? Or is that an enterprise comment?
Timothy Duncan: I think more — look, I think more of an enterprise comment. I mean, look, I think this year, as we — last year of 2022, we generated a significant amount of free cash flow, paid down our debt close to $4, $5 of share or something of that nature. This year, we knew we’re going to generate as much as we really focus the capital program on putting some things online. And then we saw a little bit of a bubble in P&A with some non-op related stuff kind of associated with some bankruptcies. And so when you have a year, which I think we’ve done a pretty good job managing expenses and a pretty good job managing capital. So I want to make sure I make that point. But when you have a year where you’re not generating as much free cash flow, you want to see yourself go back to that.
