Ladies and gentlemen, greetings, and welcome to the Crescent Energy Company First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone requires operator assistance during the conference call, press zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Reid Gallagher from Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Crescent Energy Company’s First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Today’s prepared remarks will come from our CEO, David Rockecharlie, and our CFO, Brandi Kendall. Our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Investments will also be available during Q&A. Today’s call may contain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including commodity price volatility, global geopolitical conflict, our business strategies, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in these statements and our other disclosures. We have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after today’s call. In addition, today’s discussion may include disclosure regarding non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliation of historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please reference our 10-Q and earnings press release available under the Investors section on our website. With that, I will hand it over to David.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. First, I would like to say thank you to all of our investors, our talented colleagues, and everyone who has been part of our journey as the Crescent Energy Company team. Together, we have executed a consistent strategy, uniquely combining investing and operating expertise to deliver better returns, more free cash flow, and profitable growth. Today, Crescent Energy Company is a top 10 U.S. independent oil and gas producer with more scale, more focus, and more opportunity than ever before. On this solid foundation, we will continue to build tremendous value in the months and years ahead. And our update today gives us great confidence in Crescent’s future. Crescent delivered another strong quarter. We outperformed on production, generated meaningful free cash flow, and made significant progress integrating our Permian assets. As always, I want to begin with three key takeaways. First, strong execution drove outperformance. We exceeded production expectations driven by faster cycle times and some key steps in optimization of our producing base. We further increased free cash flow through an opportunistic refinancing, lowering our cost of capital. Second, we are thrilled with our Permian acquisition, where our integration is ahead of plan, and we see meaningfully more upside every day. We have already exceeded our initial synergy target, capturing $120 million to date, and we are seeing early improvements in both well costs and production. And third, our differentiated combination of investing and operating expertise continues to deliver significant free cash flow both in the quarter and in our future outlook. Let me now discuss the quarter in more detail. We produced a record 341 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day for the quarter, including 140 thousand barrels of oil per day, and generated $192 million of levered free cash flow. Importantly, first-quarter production was above expectations on both total equivalent volumes and oil volumes, driven largely by base production outperformance and acceleration in the Permian from improved cycle times. While our development plan remains fundamentally unchanged, we are selectively accelerating volumes to capture higher near-term returns while continuing to drive operational efficiencies and lower well costs across our asset base. In the Eagle Ford, we continue to see steady efficiency gains. We continue to increase our use of simul-frac completions across our development, which is reducing costs and accelerating volumes. At the same time, we have strengthened our 2026 development program through an active ground game, increasing lateral lengths and working interests. In the Permian, we are off to a strong start and capturing early wins. The initial phase of our integration focused on stabilizing the assets. We have right-sized capital intensity and implemented our returns-driven operating approach. We are now focused on optimization and have seen impressive early results, with $120 million in synergies captured to date, already exceeding our original target. To provide a few examples, we have improved the operational planning around our development program, efficiently increasing wells per pad and adding roughly 100 thousand incremental lateral feet to our 2026 plan through offset acreage trades and land optimization. We have accelerated cycle times in our 2026 development plan, and we are already having success reducing well costs. From rebidding service contracts to changing fuel usage and facility design, we have achieved over $500 thousand of savings per well versus the prior operator. These are not one-off wins. They reflect Crescent’s operating model and our track record of buying assets and making them better. And importantly, we still see meaningful upside from here. In the Uinta, we have had strong execution, with well costs down roughly 20% year over year as we implement the same proven approach you have seen from us in the Eagle Ford. Implementing simul-frac, increasing efficiency, and extending laterals are just a few of the tools we have brought to the basin to optimize the capital program and increase well returns. Activity this year remains focused on our core Utelem Butte development. Additionally, after strong results in additional formations across the basin and on our acreage, we are investing more capital towards the prudent delineation of our broader resource opportunity. With our meaningful cost improvements and the tremendous stacked resource potential across our position, we see significant opportunity for value creation ahead of us in the Uinta. Our minerals and royalties business has shown similar strong performance. Our portfolio of world-class resource and high-margin cash flow provides valuable exposure to cost-free organic growth. And at current prices, we expect the portfolio to generate approximately $200 million of EBITDA this year, representing a meaningful increase versus our original guidance. Across the portfolio, the results are clear. We are executing well, improving our assets, and generating strong returns and significant cash flow. Our unique combination of investing and operating skills delivered this quarter, and Crescent Energy Company is better positioned than ever before to continue delivering impressive results and long-term value for investors. With that, I will turn the call over to Brandi.

Thanks, David. Crescent Energy Company delivered another quarter of strong financial results, generating approximately $690 million of adjusted EBITDA and approximately $192 million of levered free cash flow. These results reflect both strong execution and a portfolio built to generate outsized free cash flow. During the quarter, we also improved our cost of capital with an opportunistic refinancing. We reduced interest expense, extended maturities, and further strengthened the balance sheet, all of which support higher free cash flow going forward. Our capital allocation framework remains consistent and disciplined. First, the dividend. We declared a $0.12 per share dividend for the quarter, continuing our long history of returning cash to shareholders. Second, we remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $2 billion of liquidity, no near-term debt maturities, and a clear pathway to lower absolute leverage over time. And third, our free cash flow provides significant flexibility. At current prices, we expect to generate approximately $1 billion of levered free cash flow in 2026, which gives us the ability to reduce debt, fund accretive M&A, and repurchase shares when appropriate. Our focus remains on long-term per-share value creation, and our scale, cash flow profile, and balance sheet strength give us multiple ways to achieve that. With that, I will turn the call back to David.

Thanks, Brandi. Before we open the call for Q&A, I want to reiterate our key messages. First, our base business continues to outperform. We exceeded expectations on production, delivered strong financial results, and continued to improve the efficiency of our operations. Second, our Permian integration is ahead of plan. We have already exceeded our initial synergy target and see further upside ahead. And third, our differentiated combination of investing and operating expertise continues to deliver strong returns and significant free cash flow. Not long ago, Crescent Energy Company was a new public company producing just over 100 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. Since then, we have driven profitable growth, significant free cash flow, and meaningful operating efficiencies to create a top 10 U.S. independent oil and gas producer, delivering impressive results like you have seen today. Our strategy remains consistent and, with more scale, more focus, and more opportunity than ever before, we believe Crescent Energy Company has never been better positioned to deliver impressive performance and long-term value in the months and years ahead. We will now open the call for questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. You may press star and 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. We will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. We take the first question from the line of Neal Dingmann from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Morning. Nice quarter. David, my first question is just on your operational efficiency. Specifically, how much upside are you already seeing on the Vital assets? It seems like you are already very quickly seeing some upside there. Would love to hear color.

Hey, Neal. We have really hit the ground running. The way I like to describe how we have attacked this is taking our integration capabilities and moving from a defensive position to an offensive position as quickly as we can. I really like the way slide seven frames it. We wanted to stabilize as quickly as we could. Slowing down the activity helped. I liken it to football: slowing the game down helped us immensely. And we have quickly moved into the optimization process. Some of the first things that we did was rebid our services, which was incredibly timely because we had some 100% diesel fleets out there operating and we were able, through the bidding process, to find dynamically gas-blending fleets, DGB fleets. If I were to talk about one lever, that would be the biggest one that we have really hit to reduce our cost because displacing 55% to 75% of the diesel, particularly in light of diesel costs currently and also with the gas prices that we are getting in the Permian, it was just a huge win, and you can see the impact of that on slide 12, which I really like as well, being able to get $25 per foot reduction. So that was a big one. Some of the things that are coming down the pike are similar: larger pads, implementing simul-frac. The previous operator had maybe done one or two pads towards the end, and we are doing as many pads as we can. I think we are going to be approaching 50% of our wells this year with simul-frac. And then just doing the things that we do: reducing cycle time, right-sizing artificial lift, reducing facility sizes. The opportunities are plentiful, and I am really proud of how well the team has hit the ground running.

Great. And then secondly, wondering—you saw, for instance, Diamondback boost activity. What would it take for you all to do something similar, maybe a rig or two?

Hey, Neal. I will just start by taking a quick step back and reiterating why we talk so much about investing and operating. Deployment of capital is investing. We are really pleased with the M&A that has taken place over the last three years. That is dollars in the ground in a $60 oil price environment, and we think in today’s environment we should be grabbing as much cash flow as we can for the benefit of investors. So we do not see increasing rig activity into a higher price environment. We see producing barrels at really high margin and returning cash to the balance sheet and investors.

We take the next question from the line of Zach Parham from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Yes, thanks for taking my question. First, just wanted to ask in the Permian—Waha spot today is around negative $4. Futures indicate that it gets quite a bit better later this year with new pipes coming online. I think Vital had quite a bit of Waha exposure, so I am assuming that is still the case with your Permian asset. How do you factor that into your operations? Do you think about holding back the timing of some turn-in-lines or shutting in some higher GOR wells in the basin with where Waha is today?

Hey, Zach. As we sit here today, we are very well hedged from a Waha standpoint over the next 24 months in the mid $2s. I feel like we have a lot of protection there.

Okay. Thanks. And then, David, maybe just following up on one thing you said in your prepared remarks, talking about the delineation of broader resource opportunity in the Uinta. Could you just unpack that a little bit more? What other zones do you plan to test in the near term? What is the timeline there? Just curious for some more color there.

Hey. It is Clay. As we mentioned in the remarks, early in the year we have been focused on the Butte. As we get into the back half of the year, you will see us continue to drill with confidence but take passive delineation opportunities. We mentioned a JV we had on the northeastern side of our acreage that we felt really good about and continue to lean into that. If you think about where we are focused, you can see more of the same as you think about the upper cube. You see activity in the upper cube across the play and then the results we have seen early on our asset that we are really excited about. More to come about the opportunity set for us.

We take the next question from the line of John Freeman from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks. When I look at the nice first-quarter beat, even though you have not officially changed your full-year production guidance, given the strong first-quarter beat and the extra footage that you all are adding, it seems likely that you are going to do better than that original guide. But when I break down the drivers of this outperformance between the faster cycle times that you all are mentioning in the Permian and then the base outperformance, which I assume is your waves of this optimized workover program, is there any way you can flush that out between how much of this—at least of the first-quarter upside—was driven by the base outperformance relative to the improved cycle times?

Hi, John. I would say it is roughly 50/50—better cycle times in the Permian and then optimizing the base.

Perfect. And then just the follow-up for me: as you have continued to provide more details about Crescent Royalties the last few quarters and continue to build out that business, when you look at the leverage on Crescent Royalties—obviously with Crescent E&P you have stated leverage targets and things like that—I know Royalties right now is about 1.9 times. Is that sort of the right zip code for that type of business? Is there any sort of targets that we should be thinking about with that business, similar to how we think about the E&P?

I will take this. We would expect to be 1.5 times or below on the minerals business as we exit the year. The asset base, as we flag in the materials at today’s commodity prices, is generating close to $200 million of free cash flow. So that free cash flow will go to the balance sheet there. But I think similar zip code as we think about the working interest business from a leverage perspective.

We take the next question from the line of Michael Furrow from Pickering Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Wanted to touch on the improved cycle times again and what they could mean for the overall broader business. The efficiency gains are clearly positive, especially at current oil prices. But one caveat is that accelerated activity could put some pressure on the corporate decline rate. That said, it looks like the base production appears to be performing well. Can you walk us through some of the key drivers behind the base business outperformance and how you are thinking about further optimizing that decline rate from here?

Yes. Hey, it is David. I will just start with better performance is better performance, so we feel great about how things are going. And to your point, getting some barrels sooner is not going to fundamentally change decline rate. We really focus on that as a business, as you know, and so I think we feel very comfortable with what I will call the capital discipline and our ability to maintain the production base where we want it. I will turn it to Joey to give some perspective on further outlook there, but the punch line for me is that we have been able to integrate the business faster and make change sooner, and that is just getting us more value, quite simply, sooner.

Michael, I get your question that whenever you get faster cycle times, you have the opportunity to bring more activity in and how does that impact capital. The other thing I would point to is the significant reduction that we are demonstrating on our well costs. So a lot of this increased activity we are paying for—we have indicated even on the West Texas asset a $500 thousand per well reduction in well cost. That will go a long way toward adding a little bit of activity. The other things we have talked about through acreage trades—adding 100 thousand extra feet, not leaving stranded resource—all those things. At the end of the day, I like the way David said it. Efficiency gains are definitely a positive, and then we just balance how the rest of the year plays out by doing everything we can to keep our well costs down.

Thanks for that. David, I agree with your statement about performance, and it looks like the market is agreeing with that as well. As a follow-up, building off the same subject—the improved cycle times and efficiency gains—you previously mentioned that maximizing cash flows is the objective. Looking later in the year, in the event that operations continue at this pace and the company is faced with a decision on whether to reach or extend the planned number of wells or capital for the year, do you think you will maintain this operational cadence and efficiencies by seeing both production and CapEx higher, or will activity and spending be the governor here?

Short answer is that our focus on the corporate targets of decline rate, reinvestment rate, and returns are always going to drive everything there. As you also know, given the new assets we brought in, we have guided to the ability to move up or down one rig throughout the year across the whole portfolio. So the long story short: the activity levels and the business plan are generally already baked in, and a higher price environment just means more cash flow. I do not think you will see us change fundamentally anything as it relates to that, given the flexibility we have already got at the margin.

And, Michael, maybe what I would add: no formal change to production or capital guidance for the full year. But given performance to date and, to David’s point, given where commodity prices are, we would expect to be between the mid and the high point on both production and capital.

We take the next question from the line of Oliver Huang from TPH. Please go ahead.

Good morning, all, and thanks for taking our questions. Just wanted to start out on the synergy side. Great to see you all exceeding the initial target already. But as we look forward, could you provide a composition of what remains to be achieved to hit the updated target from last quarter—just trying to get some better insight to the line of sight there?

Hey, Oliver. What we have captured to date is largely overhead, cost of capital, and starting to bring forward the operational synergies. I would say what is left for us: I think there is additional room for us to improve cost of capital. I will let Joey talk about what we are focused on from an ops standpoint, but I think there are also opportunities to further optimize our marketing efforts—not just in the Permian, but across our portfolio.

Good morning, Oliver. We have already talked about some of the capital opportunities that we have identified, particularly with DGB fleets and reducing our diesel usage. Same points on larger pads, implementing simul-frac, reducing cycle times, and increasing our capital efficiency. Maybe a specific example of the way that we are looking at things differently—focusing on value versus chasing volumes. Artificial lift is a perfect example where, different to prior operators, rather than put in the largest ESP that we can to chase a high volume, we would favor putting in an appropriately sized ESP that will last longer, maybe all the way up until its next conversion, so you eliminate a workover and a changeout of an ESP that could cost as much as $250 thousand. And then you are just not chasing those peak volumes. The other thing that allows you to do, because you are not chasing those peak volumes, is reduce your facility size—again reducing CapEx. Some of the other things that we have identified are the number of failures that we can eliminate that reduces our workover activity significantly because we had seen a tendency to work over some of the wells multiple times, and we are focused on how we can get rid of those capital workovers. And then doing everything we can to attack LOE as well, and the opportunities there are pretty plentiful. We are looking forward to continuing the pace that we started at the beginning and continuing that through the year.

Okay, awesome. That is helpful color. Maybe just for a second question, to stick with the Permian: could you please remind us when we might expect to see the first start-to-finish Crescent-designed well, given all the progress on the integration front? And just trying to get a sense for how much of all this that you have talked through is being reflected in the well cost slides with respect to larger pad sizes, longer laterals, simul-frac usage?

I would say it is going to be a little bit of a journey. Obviously, we inherited a drill schedule. We have had the opportunity to make some modifications. But on the front end of this, it has been primarily just what can we do operationally to reduce the cost of what we have. The increased pad size and longer laterals—those are things that are going to start to play out in the latter part of the year and into early next year. What is encouraging is we have had so much success early term on just hitting our operational efficiencies and reducing costs through some pretty simple changes, which keeps me optimistic that some of these other things that are going to be coming with time are going to keep the journey going. But it is going to take a little bit of time for us to have our development plan fully implemented toward the end of the year into next year.

And maybe just to add, we think there is outperformance to the $500 thousand reduction in well cost that we have captured.

We take the next question from the line of Phil Jungwirth from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is Ajay Bhukshani on for Phil. Great quarter, and thanks for taking our question. I know it is early with the integration, and although you have already achieved quite a bit, can you talk about your initial assessment around Vital inventory in terms of low risk versus total locations? How close are you to having a Crescent view of total inventory, and how are you viewing upside to Permian low-risk locations and moving more wells to this category?

It is Clay. As you just heard from Joey, we are really excited about where we are today. The focus on operational execution and the ability to put points on the board there is real—what you have heard from us. We continue to be excited about the overall inventory opportunity. You heard in David’s prepared remarks our excitement about the acquisition overall and where we sit today, but we have got a lot ahead of us there. I think it will be an ongoing evolution, but if you look at where we sat when we announced the acquisition, we are more encouraged on all fronts, including the inventory side.

Great, thanks. And for my next one, just wondering, how has the stronger commodity environment changed, if at all, how you approach the A&D market with Crescent Royalties? I bet you guys got those two deals off before the run-up. If you could also just touch on how you are viewing A&D for Crescent E&P in this market as well, that would be great. Thanks.

You mentioned it. We are really excited about what we accomplished across the business. If you look at it over the last couple of years into a very different macro environment, we were able to meaningfully scale the business accretively and expand the opportunity set—obviously with the royalties business and with the scale Permian entry, but also meaningfully scaling our Eagle Ford business where we are the third-largest producer today. When we think about going forward, you have heard from us that the opportunity set we see internally for the business has never been greater. So we have a ton of value-creation opportunity under our control. When we look at the A&D market—obviously a lot of volatility on the commodity side—you have not seen an oil-weighted transaction get announced since the start of the conflict in mid to late February. We continue to be disciplined evaluators of assets, and you would expect us to continue that in this market environment. That includes both across the base E&P business, but also the royalty asset. Clearly, with the portfolio we have built, we have never been in a better position of strength, but we will be disciplined acquirers, disciplined evaluators, and we are really excited about the opportunities that we control today.

We take the next question from the line of John Abbott from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. Question is really early thoughts on 2027. Brandi has already mentioned that for 2026 you will be likely up in the upper half—mid to upper half—of CapEx and production guidance. If we continue to have strong commodity prices, looking to 2027, what are the early puts and takes as we think about the next year? Do you get to the 25% decline rate? Do you change potentially the reduction in the number of Permian rigs? Joey just talked about 50% simul-frac this year in the Permian—maybe that could go higher. What are the early puts and takes as we think about 2027?

Hey, John. Great question. Without getting into too much detail too early, I think you know us well enough to know that we are going to continue to just do more of the same and do it better. Very steady focus on production levels—we talk about maintaining flat to very modest growth through the drill bit. We expect to continue to drive performance both on the production and D&C side, but also on the cost side. We would love to continue to generate significant free cash flow following all the core principles—decline rate, reinvestment rate, return on our capital—and strong free cash flow benefiting investors. So call it more of the same in 2027 and, hopefully, a very stable and continually improving business.

And the next question is for Brandi. Brandi, the $140 million working capital draw during the quarter—Is it correct to assume that sort of reverses over the course of the year? And additionally, how are you thinking about or how would you fine-tune cash taxes if higher commodity prices persist?

Great questions, John. Working capital—I would expect that to unwind next quarter, and I would say largely related to the A&D transaction that we closed at the end of the fourth quarter. From a cash tax standpoint, specifically with respect to 2026, we have significant tax assets to offset any expected taxable income. Over the longer term, we would expect to become a cash taxpayer in an $80-plus WTI environment.

We take the next question from the line of Hanwen Chang from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Could you walk through your current oil marketing exposure—specifically the split between MEH-linked barrels versus WTI-based pricing—and how much of the oil volumes are exposed to spot pricing?

Hey, Hanwen. I think your question is coming from just our strong oil realizations this quarter. We printed 99% of WTI. That is a function of the fact that we sell a lot of our South Texas crude based off MEH, which is technically a waterborne crude. Given what is happening in the Middle East, that is pricing at an incremental premium to how MEH has normally traded. I would say roughly 70% to 75% of our crude across the business prices off of MEH.

Thanks. And given your MEH exposure, how should we think about the second quarter versus the first quarter? Are you seeing potential for further upside, or is first quarter closer to a high point?

With respect to second-quarter oil realizations, I think it is probably in the zip code where first quarter printed.

We take the next question from the line of Charles Meade from Johnson Rice & Company. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, David, to you and the whole Crescent team there. I wanted to ask a question about your CapEx flexibility—specifically about reallocating CapEx within the current capital budget to more oily assets. It seems like the obvious place that you could do that would be by moving updip in the Eagle Ford, but I think there is probably also an opportunity out in the Permian once we get some of these big pipelines online and gas is not so negative anymore. For example, some of the stuff you have further west in Pecos would be—once gas goes positive—maybe there is an opportunity to bring on some oil volumes out there. Could you talk about where you see those opportunities and how likely you are to act on them?

Great question. I will start with a really simple answer of yes, and your commentary is music to our ears. We pride ourselves on having flexibility within the portfolio. I think it is one of the really valuable, distinctive things about Crescent’s assets that we have put together. Long story short, we have been able to manage that over the last few years, and this year is much the same—meaning we are today about 90% plus allocated to liquids-oriented drilling, and we will continue to monitor opportunities for the best returns across the portfolio. As you said, we have multiple places in the portfolio where we can allocate more or less capital to liquids and to gas. We are really just looking for the best returns and the best efficiency. We feel great about the program we have today, but we do continue to have flexibility to do exactly what you outlined, and we will stay focused on that.

Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants, I will now hand the conference over to David Rockecharlie for his closing comments.

Great. As I said at the beginning of the call, I would like to thank again all the investors who have trusted us, all the colleagues here at Crescent Energy Company who have helped build this company into what it is today and are going to help us take it forward, continue to improve every day, and everyone else who has been along the ride with us. We do think the best days are ahead for us. We have got a lot of work to do. We appreciate all the questions on this morning’s call, and we are going to get back to work and look forward to having a very strong series of updates, as I said in the beginning, over the coming months and years as we continue to build Crescent Energy Company into an outstanding business.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference of Crescent Energy Company has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.