Matador Resources Co (MTDR) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the third quarter, 2026 Matador Resources Company earnings conference call. My name is Sarah Gallant, and I'll be serving as the operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We'll facilitate a question and answer session at the end of the company's remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. The replay will be available on the company's website for one year as discussed in the company's earnings press release that was issued yesterday. I will now turn the call over to Mac Schmitz, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Matador. Mr. Schmitz, you may proceed.

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Matador's third quarter, 2026 earnings conference call. Some of the presenters today will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures regularly used by Matador Resources in measuring the company's financial performance. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures with comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP are contained at the end of the company's Earnings Press Release. As a reminder, certain statements included in this morning's presentation may be forward-looking and reflect the company's current expectations or forecasts of future events based on the information that is now available. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are contained in the company's earnings release and its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. In addition to the earnings press release issued yesterday, I would like to remind everyone that you can find a slide presentation in connection with our third quarter 2026 earnings release under the Investor Relations tab on Matador's corporate website. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Joe Foran, our founder, chairman, and CEO. Joe?

Thank you, Mac, and it is a pleasure to visit with you all today, and I want to begin first by thanking each of you who wrote a note that we thought, Mac and I, thought the notes were more thoughtful and thorough, as well as any that we've had in the last couple of years. Thank you. We really appreciate that and want to reiterate to you, we'd very much like to have each of you come visit us sometime, have lunch or breakfast with us, see our facility and what we think makes a difference in our max comm room. It goes 24-7 and some other differences, and I think it'd give you a more complete picture. Of the future we have, as well as meet in person some of the people that visit with you during the in-between these analyst calls. That's the first point. Second is that we've had a lot of changes here for the better. This year, there's some opportunities came up. And we were able to take advantage of them with the support of our banks and our shareholder groups and want to thank them for helping to lean in and let us execute on these. And since then, the pay down, that what we promised, yes, we borrowed a lot of money, but we said we would make extra effort to pay it down. And we first did $100 million a month or so ago, and just recently we did another $50 million. So, on the money that we borrowed, I think it's $500 million to $600 million. We've now paid down $150 million and hope to make further paydowns here in 2026, but certainly take care of it in 2027. Finally, a shout-out to the teams is that they've put in... A little extra work and effort, and that was our challenge to them as we were acquiring Cardinal, Paloma, and Ridge Runner, we said, we're going to ask you all to put in a little extra time and effort to make sure this works out, and they have, and I think you'll see the effect in our results. For this quarter, but even more so in the upcoming fourth quarter, but I look forward to taking your questions and seeing what we do. As you think of what questions you may want to ask us, I'd like to just say a few current remarks to emphasize that our production has grown 10% to over 230,000 BOEs. From December 31, 2025, reserves of 667. Now, showing you the difference is that we've now increased that to over 700 million. So we continue to have growth in our reserve base, substantial growth. Which allowed us to increase the dividend the eighth time in five years from $1.50 to $1.75, a 17% increase. Finally, there are a lot of news to tell you, but we're trying to let it, a lot of good news, but perhaps the most important, impactful, is we are now moved away from Waha. We were selling our gas with the Hugh Brinson, and so last month we were having to pay at Waha $0.79 for them to take our gas so we could keep our oil production going, and this month we were getting paid $2.99 for our gas, which has made $100. $62 million in cash flow compared to $38 million in the second quarter of 2026. So big swing there of over $200 million. And thanks, ET, for finishing the Q Brinson, and we look forward to working further with them. In the meantime, we've talked, and happy to have your questions about our strategic acquisitions. We're currently drilling three Corby wells on the adjacent federal acreage. This is important because we got permits, we got the left, and we got them going in a matter of months. So, turned on, that may be one of the best wells that we've... We'll have drilled in Matador's history, so really have our fingers crossed there. Very hopeful. Teams are excited. We'll see what happens, and I know we'll talk about that in the future. The Woodford Discovery continues to outperform our initial expectations. It's now produced over 140,000 barrels in just over five months. So, we were... Our high end of the range originally was 100,000 barrels in 100 days, so we've outperformed that. So kudos to the team, everybody working on that. So then people have said, what are you going to do with your Paloma? Again, Paloma has a good eye for good acreage, and we were very excited to do the deal with them and get to know them better and see if we can't find more to do. As analysts, you can expect up to 25 wells on acreage associated with Paloma over the next year and 10 to 12 additional wells on associated federal lease sale acreage. And the great advantage of the federal lease is it's an eighth lease, so you have a higher net revenue, and one well holds the whole acreage, and even if you don't drill, you have 10 years. To get your first well drilled, but we will drill all the federal acreage faster than that. It's exciting acreage, and we think the best part of the basin. The Cardinal acquisition has now been integrated, bringing nine new third-party customers to the San Mateo system. It's been in good shape, and again, Paloma did a good job. With that development of developing the Cardinal business plan, and that fits in, and now we have, if you look at the maps, you'll see that we're all around the basin. We're adding a few connectors to it to make it that much more efficient, and I think in the coming time, you'll hear what the material contributions that the Cardinal system has said. Going in now into the Matador-San Mateo system. So all in all, I always like to be careful and say that's a lot of good news all at once, and everything is looking pretty good. For us, and we're excited about the coming year, and we'll have more on that when we report on the fourth quarter. But I think what you'll see is continuing good performance and continuing improvement in our efficiencies.

That's great. Sarah, we'd like to turn it over to Q&A.

Thank you, Mac and Joe. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Due to time constraints, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. Again, please limit yourself to one question until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we would welcome additional follow-up questions you may have. Our first question comes from the line of Gabriel Dowd with Truist. Gabriel, your line is open.

Thanks, Operator. Morning, Joe and team. Appreciate the time. Joe, I was hoping we can maybe unpack the comment you made in the release around mid-single-digit growth for 27 on current commodity prices and service pricing. So I guess the question is, is that implying you could essentially deliver that growth from a flat budget relative to 2026? So maybe just talk a little bit about the moving pieces within the capital budget. You have, obviously, inflationary pressures. You just announced the Marlin expansion on Monday, which could require some capital. So we'd love to get maybe some more commentary on that.

Thanks, Joe.

Hey, Gabe. It is Chris Calvert, EVP, CFO. Great question. You know, I think I would like to point you first to highlight four things to kind of set up that question. First, as we look at 2027, the first thing, you know, we have great properties that we can go out that are included in some of these acquisitions, obviously, but then just great legacy properties that we can go out and develop. We have an ability to execute in a very capitally efficient way. Joe already spoke to the benefits of the Hugh Brinson before. We also have the people to prosecute the plan that we set forward, and so I think as we look at 2027, we do see ourselves as being a potential relative grower, and we think we could prosecute a plan that not only allows us to be a relative grower, but we could still achieve debt repayments. We could still grow our reserve base, and then we could still potentially grow our acreage position through our brick-by-brick program. And so I think the commentary around CapEx, there are a lot of moving parts, Gabe. You know, I think obviously we've seen oil price change drastically in the last 48 hours. You're going to have oil field service that is somewhat following activity that could be based off of that oil price change. And so I think it's a little early to comment on what we think a capital program could look like in 2027. However, when we think about the potential program in 27, we think we can achieve a lot of our objectives, specifically debt repayment and production growth, and prosecute it in a very efficient way.

Thank you, Chris. And I would just add is that if oil prices go down, the vendor prices tend to go down with it, and they just adjust. And we have been – Glenn Stetson has done a great job on these – working with the completion team and driving down the cost of completion. So we're... Now on the rig, three days less on average, but there's savings there. Those are big savings. And what else do you want to say?

Yeah, Gabe, just as Joe said, we're very focused on efficiencies, and we have seen some oil field service cost inflation with a higher commodity price, and we did highlight in our slide deck on slide eight, if you get a chance to see it, you know, a lot of the things that the teams are working on, including, as Joe said, drilling wells faster. That's kind of an easy one to say but hard to actually do, and the teams have done a fantastic job of doing that, along with simul and timul frack. And some of the bigger knobs that we've been able to turn have been in the categories of using three-to-produce water for the hydraulic fracturing operation. This last quarter was the first quarter that we used 100 percent of the water that we used for frack was treated, produced water, and then also using field gas as the fuel to run our pressure pumping. Trucks, and is another large mover and something that we think is unique to Matador in our relationship with San Mateo. And in Q3, approximately 80 percent of the wells that we completed used fuel gas as opposed to trucked in compressed natural gas. And so those are, you know, a couple of the big highlights that are helping offset some of those, you know, inflationary pressures from Oil field service costs. And just as Joe said, we'll see what next year has in store for us in that way. Yeah, and I do want to highlight, Gabe, that, you know, the relationships that we do have with our vendors and that we've built over time, and just as a reminder, Patterson is, you know, has been a big part of that effort, and currently our contracts with Patterson are for all of our rigs, and then also, you know, on the pressure pumping side. Next year, which is a Patterson-owned company as well. And so along with Halliburton, and they've been great partners in helping us to achieve these efficiencies and focus on the win-wins where if we can get more stages in a day and we can get more lateral footage per day, those are win-wins. So they've been great partners. And lastly, I'd say, you know, it's important to make sure that pipe is on location when you need it, and B&L Pipe Co. has also been, you know, crucial in making sure that that is the fact, that we're never sitting waiting on pipe.

Thank you for your question, Gabe. Next, we have Neal Dingman from William Blair. Neal, your line is open.

Good morning, Joe and team, and nice update yesterday, Joe, on all the San Mateo and natural gas comments. Joe, my first question is on San Mateo, specifically for you, the team. The asset, you know, certainly has notable value, you know, obviously given the $400 million EBITDA you all are suggesting. However, you know, I would argue that it doesn't seem like the value is being properly recognized in your stock price. So I'm just wondering how soon might you all consider some sort of monetization event or, you know, something to help better realize the value in this large asset?

Well, that's great. That's a great question, Neil. And we discuss this every day. What can we do better? How do we add value without spending a lot of money? And I think the midstream has that. We're undervalued right now in the market. We got into the business. Be sure to flow assurance out of the basin is that with the increase in drilling activity in New Mexico, particularly in the potash area, you're going to have a lot more gas coming to market, and if you don't have your own midstream system, you may find that you're shut in. And so we wanted to go ahead and realize that if you're going to make a lot of gas, you better have a system you control so you can get your gas to market. And it's a lesson we learned when we first went public years ago, and we tried to maintain that, being sure that we had a means of getting to market, particularly as our gas kept growing, our gas volumes kept growing. As far as increasing the value of it, we're open to ideas at any time. One commonly is about going public, and we've had a good experience being public. Matador went public at $12 a share, and, well, until yesterday, we were $60 a share. But, you know, it'll bounce back. It always does. It hasn't really lost value. It's just the times, and you've got to adjust to it. So that's been a good experience, even if we're 50 instead of 60. And I think the midstream... It could render that type of growth, too, but you've got to wait until the time the market is right. If you remember, at Matador, we were supposed to go public. And, you know, we were all set to go and got approval on September 10 of all days, and we know what happened on September 11. So we don't want to rush into anything, but we're planning to tap into that value, but we want to do it without losing the option and the ability to control our future. With the flow assurance, because it is a meaningful amount of money, but that's also helped enable us to raise the dividend eight times in five years. So it's paying off, and we feel we're building a better system, building up our customer base, and this last bill that we announced with a prominent company pretty much fills up the line. And we're very excited about working with them because that could be another value add to the midstream system. So we're open to any and all ideas, but trying to get it to where it's big enough, what we've learned from the market. You want to be big enough. You're not an afterthought, but you're a company actively being traded and that people want to meet with you. And work with you. And we feel we're building, it's helped us to build better relations with a number of the major companies out there. And, you know, we offload to them, they offload to us, and you're just building relationships and efficiencies. Lynn, did I leave something out?

No, yeah, that's right. Just what Joe said, and I think we've shown a track record of, you know, adding value to those, you know, midstream assets, and that has helped, you know, the upstream business. Just as Joe said, both Matador and the customers that are on that system. And so, you know, when we started this year, I don't think Cardinal, that Cardinal acquisition was really, you know, a part of the picture, but that opportunity came along, and I'm very glad that we got that closed in the quarter and took over on August 1st, and that integration has gone really well. Just as Joe said, this quarter have connected the two systems, the San Mateo and the Legacy Cardinal system, and look forward to further connections in 2027 that will add to the reliability of San Mateo and its customers on the system.

Anton is head of our gas marketing. Anton, do you... Add anything to that? Does that make you more efficient? Joe, I agree with you completely because it's helped us with our surety of flow and knowing where our gas is going, and it's connected to Hugh Brinson that we know that we have all these gas plants in the future, and we have takeaway going from our gas plant in Basin to Hugh Brinson and then Hugh Brinson all the way to the Gulf Coast. So this is where we're adding a lot of value to the natural gas on the residue side, and also the NGLs have added a lot of value to our gas, and that's where our gas plants, where we get the better TNF by owning our own plants. We get better transportation and fractionation, or better natural gas liquids price because we own our own plants. Well, I hope that answers your question some, but don't hesitate to follow up and call us. We'll be around, and, Neal, we really appreciate your interest over time. It's getting to be that we've worked together for a long, long time, and I hope you feel that we've always done what we said we'd do.

Thank you, Neal. Our next question is from Tim Rejvan with KeyBank Capital Markets. Tim, your line is open.

Good morning, folks. Thank you for taking our question. I want to follow up on Neil's question on San Mateo with a little different angle here. You know, very strong EBITDA number that you put up in the third quarter. I know two months of Cardinal had a little bit of impact to that, but you seem to be at about $100 million run rate as we look 4Q and beyond, you know, without any drop down from Matador to San Mateo. So can you help us maybe understand the EBITDA growth outlook? I know you put guideposts out before, but, you know, a lot of this growth seems locked in with these recent third-party agreements and then sort of the work underway at Cardinal. So can you talk more about organic growth that we can expect from San Mateo?

Hey, Tim. Great question. This is Chris Calvert, EVP, CFO, again. We appreciate the fact that you recognize the catalysts for growth within the San Mateo business. I think in previous disclosures, we have talked about the integration of Cardinal, contributing potentially $100 million in EBITDA in 2028. And so I think when we see the San Mateo business, and kind of piggybacking to Neil's question a little bit, We've got this question a lot about the monetization of San Mateo, and I think we've always said, patience, we want to do the right deal, not just any deal. And so I think if you look back at 2025 EBITDA for the combined entities, it was around $325 million. We are up 17%, projecting to be up 17% in 2026. And so I think that patience will be rewarded in the fact that San Mateo EBITDA has not only grown, but we feel within the cardinal acquisition, the recent agreements that have been announced, and the third plant expansion that will be built at Marlin, we feel that gives pretty clear line of sight that we've disclosed EBITDA growth around going into the future.

Thank you, Tim. Our next question is from John Freeman with Raymond James.

Thanks, guys. Just following up on Gabe's earlier question, obviously the Marlin expansion looks like another really nice project for y'all. Just to sort of like help us be at least in the right zip code on the midstream capital next year, I mean, can you give us sort of just a ballpark cost of that project so we can kind of get some idea of how that looks over 27 to 28 for midstream related to that? Yeah, John, thank you. One thing I want to emphasize, we're getting a lot of these questions on the midstream, and the way we look at the midstream is really that if you're going to be, say, a cotton farmer in Gaines County, Texas, you need to be sure to own part of the cotton gin, and if you don't own part of the cotton gin, you may have trouble getting your cotton processed, and And then when you do get it out, the market has already fallen some. So what we wanted to have was that flow assurance that we could get it to market as fast as is commercially reasonable and get it processed by the best people. And moved on. And we wanted that flow assurance. You know, it's been a lucky break for us that not only have we been able to maintain flow assurance, but we had the other thing that it's generated a lot of profits and a lot of optionality. We know it's a valuable asset, and we plan to bring it public at the optimal. What we consider optimal time with further growth ahead of us. I'm going to turn it back to Chris for the detail to the rest of your question, but it's like our, you know, that we handle a lot of our water, we handle a lot of these other side deals, and we feel we save a lot of money and make money for Matador. Thank you. Again, this is one of those questions that, John, when it works out for you sometime, please come up and have lunch or breakfast with us, and maybe the young people and how we're all set up, we've replicated what the plants look like, and I think you can see it didn't require it to succeed in the business, but it sure is helpful to have a processing plant that can take your gas. Process it and move it to market as well as, you know, get more NGLs out of it. But, again, we're open to ideas. If someone's got a better idea of what we could do with it, come see us. Chris?

Yeah, hi, John. It's Chris Calvert again. You know, the way we look at this build-out, it will be a multi-year build-out, you know, capital going out over time, and so we indicated it would be around $25 million in this quarter, and then spread out over the completion of the next project, or the completion of the project, excuse me, and so as we get to February, we'll provide more color on the cadence of that capital investment, but we just want to remind people it will be a multi-year investment, multi-year project.

Thank you for your question. Our next question will come from Aaron Jayarum with J.P. Morgan Securities. Aaron, your line is open.

Yeah, Arun Jerem with JP Morgan. I was wondering if you could comment on how you think about year-over-year capital efficiency upstream as you, you know, feather in, you know, up to 15 Woodford wells and maybe 35 to 40 wells from mix of Paloma and the federal lease sale.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you kind of rephrase it for either Glenn or me?

Yeah, I just wanted to comment on how you think about year-over-year changes in capital efficiency, which would include, obviously, well productivity, and CapEx is another important part of that. As you think about feathering in, you know, the Woodford... And 35 to 40 wells in the, you know, from the mix of the federal lease sale and Paloma. Hope that makes sense. Hey, Ryan.

Yeah, thanks for, thanks for the question. This is Glenn Stetson. I just, I'll start and maybe Tom can add some color on the, on the Woodford, but. You know, I think as we look at, you know, some of the wells that we completed in the quarter that were adjacent to the Paloma properties and the BLM properties, and as Joe mentioned, we actually have three wells that we're going to turn on this quarter that are also adjacent to those BLM properties. We have achieved B&C cost per foot in the $640 zip code, and I think that that is a testament of the efficiencies that not only that we've projected, but we've actually been able to execute on. And it was some of the things that I had listed in the previous question about the use of tree to produce water and field gas. And I do think that as we continue to drill longer laterals and really focus on cycle times, we have a slide in the deck that refers to the lateral We've seen several footage per rig gains that we've made in just a year with seeing a 30% improvement in that category. But we're not done yet. I think that there are still records to be made. And Joe also mentioned in his opening remarks about our MAXCOM room, this is where drilling engineers and our geoscience team with GeoSteers are bringing in live feed data from the rigs. And, you know, they continue to show that, you know, in our known targets, we see continuous improvement in cycle times and our ability to drill wells faster. And that, you know, is in, again, the known targets, but then also some of the exploration efforts. And our one Woodford well was a single well test, and we did a lot of geoscience work on that well. It was a longer well, and so I think that there are plenty of improvements that we can make as we drill more and more of those Woodford wells.

And hey, Arun, it's Tom Olson, our EVP for Reservoir Engineering. I would just tack on that back in August, we mentioned some of our really big improvements in our productivity and capital efficiency. You know, we mentioned that Our 12-month cumulative oil production will be 20 to 30 percent higher, you know, than it's been in previous years. You know, a lot of that's driven by the really high-value targets on the BLM acreage and on the Paloma properties, but I would also mention that, you know, we mentioned the over 800,000-barrel oil EUR on our first Woodford well, and we stand by that. You know, we expect it to do even better than that, and it's trended even stronger. So I think we're seeing, you know, a lot of great Improvements on our, you know, EUR per foot and our six-month cumulative production metrics, but also, you know, just kind of to put a number on some of the immediate offset well costs, we achieved $640 per foot on some of the properties just immediate adjacent to some of the new BLM and Palomba properties. So we're, as Glenn mentioned, on the capital side, we're doing a lot of incredible things, and we're also seeing it on the productivity side as well.

Thank you for your call. Go ahead, Joe.

Just remember that you've got to spend some money to make some money. And so the capital, you know, we don't want to put capital out there. It takes us 10 to 20 years to recover. What we're doing is... In effect, it's doing some short-term financing of our own projects, and it's working out really well. And you can see the difference in Matador today versus 10 years ago. And we were going public, and we didn't have a system then, and each meeting we went to during the public road show, we got asked, well, how are you getting your gas out of the market? We weren't having trouble, but the fact we were getting that question in every meeting meant others were. We looked into it, and we thought we had the pieces to make a... A mystery team, and we did, and to our operating group, they tell you that our life has been a lot simpler since then, having that sort of control. Over the future and being ready, and it's helped us offload and build relations with other midstream companies, and that's the way we look at it. It's just something, if you want to be one of the most efficient companies, you're going to need your own midstream system or have built a real close relationship with somebody who does. So that's where we're coming from. And so far, it's been money well spent, and it helped make us overall more efficient and more productive. So I wouldn't want to have to do it on every well we drill, but the fact that we can do it helps us negotiate, be better negotiators with. Other midstream companies, and we all somewhat work together because we need each other, is because systems go down or they need to do service work of some sort. So that's been one of the unexpected pleasures of having the midstream and having the so-called cotton GF, because we're cotton farmers in this area, and we all need that outside help.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Hanold with RBC. Scott, your line is open.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I was wondering if I could touch base maybe a little bit on some of that new federal acreage. I think you talked about maybe drilling a dozen wells on the new land. I know you've got it. I think you've identified, what, 140-some locations? You're utilizing two-mile laterals, but can you give us a sense of how you think about development of that land over the next, say, one to two years? And, you know, I think you did hint toward, you know, potentially improved efficiency. I think you all kind of mentioned, like, that 650 DNC cost on some recent wells in the area, but, you know, I'd be interested to know, like, how do you think about, like, developing the package sizes, the lateral lengths, and how do you want to scale that asset up over the next couple of years?

Well, I have one of you, Scott. I'm going to have a good question, and I'm going to have one of the other guys speak. But remember, you were around when we bought the other federal leases back in 2018, and everybody thought we'd pay too much and did that. But look what that did. We've made over $2 billion. For the wells that we've drilled over there, net profits, and that's helped make Matador and put Matador in the position where they could be aggressive about bidding on these federal leases. And we're really excited, and we're not waiting around years. As I said, we're out there right now. We're making plans and preparations to drill a number of these federal wells in different areas to prove them up. But it's deja vu all over again. And if you remember, Maddor's price got knocked down right after disclosure that we bought those federal leases in 2018. Well, these leases are going to be just as good, if not better, because they're going to be longer laterals. You've got a midstream system, and there's been a lot of... The work done on them, we know these formations, and we have experience, so we're really excited that all seems to be coming together.

Yeah, thanks, Joe. This is Brian Herman, president. Just to add on to what Joe was saying, obviously, we're really excited, as you noted, Scott, about the federal leakage. And I think one of the advantages of getting the tracks that we targeted, we really hit the crown running on the permitting side. And so we've disclosed that we're submitting permits actively. We have 48 actually submitted to date, and we expect to have a few more submitted by the end of this week. And so that's what's given us confidence in that 12-well number that you mentioned, Scott. And I think, you know, we talked a lot, and you mentioned it, about the efficiencies in this area and the expected EUR uplift, 15% to 20% lower on a DMC cost per foot basis compared to the corporate average and 15% to 20% higher on the EURs. So, you know, that's all to say that, you know, we're actively working to get those properties ready and are excited about hitting the ground running, you know, hopefully as early as Q1 of 2027. But I'll let Tom talk about the packet sizes and things on the part of your question.

Sure. Hey, Scott, it's Tom Olsener again. Clearly, we're very excited about these new BLM properties. You know, the final details would be a little bit easier to discuss once we get to, you know, February, but we're clearly moving very quickly on these new federal properties. Our teams have conducted, you know, many of the on-site reviews, and we're drilling immediately adjacent to it. One thing that's very important to us clearly is from the midstream perspective that we want to make sure that, you know, we synchronize the timing of our development with the midstream solutions, the oil takeaway, water takeaway, gas takeaway is something that we put a lot of value in and it's key to kind of development of these assets and getting that cost per foot down as low as possible. We do have a wealth of opportunities in 2027, as mentioned with the, you know, the number of properties on Paloma and also in the Woodford, and so we're still refining the exact kind of quarterly cadence and timing, but it's something we're very proud of. Um, these BLM properties offer nine, ten zones or more in many cases, and so we're looking to optimize how we put together the batches of the wells and stack them together. But it's something that we've done a very good job in. Many of the wells that were key to the drivers of outperformance in our third quarter here were very, very close to some of these new BLM properties, and so we see a lot of opportunity and a lot of success. You know, going forward, and we'll get more to the details in February.

Again, I'd say come see us, and you might get an early preview of some of what we're doing and get a better feel that the planning is going into this. We're experienced, and we're You know, we believe we have executed well on our other acquisitions and other buys at these lease sales, and we think this is our best opportunity yet. We look forward to the next quarter when we visit and report further progress, and further progress not just on operations, but also on the debt side, which I know concerns a lot. But we're moving in the right direction. Go ahead, Anton. Joe, I want to add the cooperation with these larger batches that Tom talked about, the great efficiency from these large batches. We work with San Mateo hand in hand, and San Mateo's been able to provide the takeaway on that. And so the seamlessness of our planning with our drill bit, San Mateo knows where the drill bit is. San Mateo get ahead of that with plants, compression, takeaway, so that works great having them in the building. I mean, the San Mateo's been providing great takeaway for us, and redundancy with work with the other midstreams where San Mateo's connected to those guys. San Mateo has an issue we can offload to the other midstreams, so it's provided a lot of surety of flow. San Mateo, and the field and acreage with the large batches, I think, works well have in San Mateo there for takeaway. We all have done a real good job of being there with the pipe when the well is completed and ready to go. It's not easy, but to keep up with our drill, we're working hard on that. Well, y'all done a real good job.

Thank you for your question, Scott. Our next question will come from the line of Derek Whitfield with Texas Capital. Derek, your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, and congrats on the quarter and all the positive updates. Thanks, Derek.

I wanted to focus on the Woodford with my question. It's clear through your updates that you guys are excited about the interval and what you've acquired. With the benefit of another quarter of data and industry results, Could you offer some perspective on what you're seeing in the data, how large the oil focus runway could be for you, and where do you think you could drive cost over time?

Well, I think I'd like to be able to give that to you now, but let us have a few more wells, and we can provide you that data, or it will be in the public records, but we're excited. You know, the one... One data point that we have is that the Woodford well that we drilled made over 100,000 barrels in 100 days, so at least on one data point, it looks pretty good, but we have a lot of other wells that we're drilling that we think are going to render. You know, also really good results. We, Lynn, I think, what, 110, 112 wells you expect to drill this year.

Yes, that's exactly right. And so, yeah, just as Joe said, Derek, this is Glenn Setson again. I just – I had mentioned it before, but we have the one well, but very confident in our team's ability to get out here. And as we drill more Woodford wells, we learned a lot drilling that first well, and we're going to take those learnings and apply them to the next wells along with, you know, some of these, again, efficiencies that we've talked about, but looking at drilling longer laterals, looking at, you know, drilling multiple wells at the same time to achieve some of those batch savings. And so, again, very, very confident in our team's ability to come out here, and as we, you know, repeat drilling Woodford wells, we'll absolutely be able to capture those efficiencies and reduce our costs on a go-forward basis.

And dare it not to be a broken record, but we, again, invite you to come out, have lunch, breakfast, see you then. See our war room, see our mass comm room, and meet the people behind us and ask them your questions, and hopefully you'll feel comfortable with their answers because we think we have a great opportunity, but it still takes great execution, and we're working on that. And Glenn's been real good about getting better each time he drills a weld into a different formation. And we're glad that Anton is looking for the wells to come on, because he's got places to go with the product oil, the gas, and the like. So, great question, and look forward to further updates. But if you want to come out here, we'd love to see you.

Thank you, Derek. Our last question for today's call is from the line of Noah Hungness with Wells Fargo. Noah, your line is open.

Morning. For my question, I was hoping to kind of go back to the Woodford, and not necessarily the Woodford bench, but more when you guys went and looked. the deal and did this deal. You acquired a bunch of locations for very cheap, and it seems like the first well is very strong, and I understand it's only one well, but with the success that you have had with this well and the entry price that you got it for, does this at all kind of change how you guys think about M&A and maybe thinking about acquiring acreage and other developing or less proven parts of the Delaware where you guys can really Leverage your geologic expertise.

Yeah, you know, that's a fair question. And we don't want to, I mean, take like a football team. They want to advance the ball by running. They want to advance the ball by passing. Thank you very much. You know, they want to gain yards however they can, and we do, too. We don't want to be saying we're only going to drill wells or we're only going to do acquisitions. We just take what the environment gives us and how other companies, but we're not trying to grow simply one way, but always. We like the diversified approach that we have where we... We drill wells that we put together, you know, we have the midstream, and we have this brick-by-brick strategy of buying smaller amounts but in good areas and trying to build a position from being there as well. So whatever helps contribute to building a good company is what we try to do. Try to do, and that's the challenge for everybody in the room, is help find additional ways to be more efficient and to go with the times. You've been the head of that project, Brian, so it's helpful. Tell us what you think.

No, I agree with what – this is Brian Ehrman again. I agree with what Joe is saying. I mean, exploration has always been a part of our program. We've always had some portion of our program that was devoted to that, and I expect that will continue. I think the Woodford is a great success story of that. I commend our technical team for identifying this play and being at the forefront of it. We drilled the first successful Woodford Horizontal well in New Mexico. Obviously, there were some in Texas, but I commend our team for being at the tip of the spear on identifying this, and our land team for putting together this position. You talked about, as we were drilling this well, putting together a really sizable position at an attractive cost that's going to generate what we think are going to be really attractive full cycle return. So I think this was a total team effort from all of our groups, but it'll be something that from an exploration standpoint, it's something that we're always looking at going Hey, this is Andrew Parker.

I'm the EVP of Geoscience. I just want to add to Brian's thoughts there. We were in a unique position for pushing this Woodford play north into New Mexico because of the data that, you know, management has supported us acquiring here. We, you know, the team really leveraged our 3D seismic data in a way that, you know, honed us in on this fairway in a way that other operators weren't comfortable doing. So really proud of the team there, and also that data leverage is also what allowed us to execute so well on our first well, and we're going to continue to refine that process and do better and better going forward.

Thank you, Noah. This ends the Q&A portion of today's conference call. I'd now like to turn the call over to management for any final remarks.

Well, thank you very much. I'd just like to thank everybody on the call. I thought all the questions were very good. We enjoyed the discussion. We think we always learn from having these discussions, and it makes us think about our own plan and how we might improve it. Andrew, I appreciate you stepping in and saying this wasn't a kind of throw the dart at the board and see what we might do next, but this is something that y'all worked on. Taking your time and you got it right. And it's the same way on a lot of the federal leases. We paid a lot of money for it. I would have liked to have paid less, but that's what it took to get the leases. We've got the locations. Our federal team has done a great job of getting permits so that we're ready to go. And it's not sitting on the shelf, but all of these are under active. Plans to see how fast we can drill them, but first we want to make sure the geological work has been done to support the effort. Hopefully, as you listen, there's been great teamwork and coordination between our professional staff and our operating group, and we think we've made a lot of progress this year. This is going to turn out to be one of our better years, but we're also very excited about what may happen for next year. We're ready to buy properties. We're ready to farm out properties. We're ready to do joint ventures with people. We're ready to help with their midstream business. We're just here like anybody else that we want to build relationships and yet increase revenues and lower the cost, and I think that we're making progress on all those grounds, and that's reflected in the reduction of CapEx that we're drilling these wells on 15% or less per foot. That we're doing, plus that we're out there actively chasing minerals and leases, and again, very pleased with Glenn drilling these wells faster, two or three days faster. So you make money all the different ways, and I want to thank all of you. I thought the questions were really good. We'd like to continue the conversations. And know that everybody here is working extra, and in the last, say, two quarters, there's been a lot more, a little bit of extra effort put on by everybody, and hopefully the results for this quarter reflect that increased effort and efficiency. I'm really proud of the team and their Their work, and Anton has brought a lot of expertise for us on the gas-marking bit and on the midstream, and I think you'll see further progress in that area, too. We're very proud of our geological team for identifying the Woodford and the different zones that we think will be prospective in the federal lease area. We'll be talking about some in 2027 of what we're getting, and the increase in reserves is very significant that we've had over this past year. So I look forward to when the reserve engineers from Netherland Sewell come in and weigh. See how much they've grown from the past. Don't have to take our word for it. You look on the end-of-year financial reports and see the growth for yourself. So it's a good direction, and, you know, that we started this business, remember, in 1983 out of a windowless office, and With $270,000, and now I think our reserves are approaching $10 billion. The value of our reserves is $10 billion or more. So long consistency of 40 years, but it's a great team we have now, and I'm really enjoying working with these young fellows.

We appreciate your participation in today's call. This concludes our program, and you may now disconnect. Thank you.