WhiteHawk Minerals Corp. (WHK) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the White Hawk Minerals third quarter 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I'll now hand the conference over to John Don Ragazzino, please go ahead.

Thank you, Dawn. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to White Hawk Minerals' third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Thank you all for joining us. With me on the call today are Daniel Herz, Chief Executive Officer, and Jeffrey Slaughterback, Chief Financial Officer. Daniel will start by discussing the highlights of the quarter, including key operational and strategic developments. Jeff will then take you through our third quarter financial results in more detail, and Daniel will wrap up with some closing thoughts on our outlook and priorities. After that, we'll open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements regarding White Hawk's financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, and future performance. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For a complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements and risk factors section in Whitehawks' filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution. These measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, the most directly comparable gap measures. Reconciliations of these non-gap measures to the most directly comparable gap measures are included in our third quarter earnings release issued last night, which is available on our investor relations section of our website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Daniel.

Thanks, John. Good morning, and welcome to the White Hawk Minerals third quarter earnings call. To quote Aristotle, we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by the exercising of self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage. To simplify, I will quote Will Durant's excellent summary of Aristotle. Quote, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. End of quote. And excellence is exactly what we are striving for in everything we do at Whitehawk. And we are doing it through habit. Over the last three months, since our last earnings call, we have signed and or completed 13 new acquisitions, totaling $45.5 million. In total, since our IPO, just five months ago, we have signed and or completed 22 Acquisitions totaling more than $157 million. These acquisitions are expected to drive cash available for distribution per share higher in 2027 and 2028. Jeff will get into further detail, but I'm pleased that we are executing on the plan we have laid out for our investor partners, and I look forward to sharing the results of this execution over the coming quarters. Of course, Matt and the entire team are working every day to continue to execute on our two-pronged acquisition strategy of both ground game and large strategic transactions. Thank you to all of the Whitehawk team members for your unrelenting hard work to drive value for our investor partners. Okay. During the third quarter of 2026, we generated $0.65 per share of free cash flow, or cash available for distribution, or $2.60 on an annualized basis. This includes only five days of contribution from our SJM II acquisition, which we closed on September 25th, and the weighted average Shares outstanding during the quarter. If we include the entire SJM2 cash flow for the third quarter and the total shares outstanding, we generated $0.68 per share of cash available for distribution, or $2.72 per share on an annualized basis. Operationally, we delivered a strong third quarter with net production of approximately 71 million cubic feet equivalents per day of natural gas. This was an increase of 10% over the same period of 2025, and a 2% increase over the second quarter of 2026. Again, and importantly to note, this production only included five days of production related to the $105 million SJM II acquisition closed on September 25th. We generated this production from our more than 11,700 producing wells. We have approximately 500 gross line of site wells, positioning us for solid production from our base assets over the next year. We also benefit from our more than 9,300 gross identified undeveloped locations across our 3.6 million gross unit acres. In the Marcellus Shale, 95% of our production came from EQT, Range, CNX, and Antero. Whitehawk currently receives royalties on 46% of their combined gross production. Following the closing of the EQT acquisition of range, we expect EQT to represent approximately 67% of our Appalachia production. In the Haynesville shale, 65% of our production came from Xpand, Dan, Adamus, Comstock, and Apex. Whitehawk currently receives royalties on 47% of their combined gross production. For the quarter, approximately 59% of our production came from the Marcellus and Utica shale in Appalachia, with an additional 22% from the Haynesville shale. And our line of site wells carry a similar basin weight. Whitehawk is uniquely positioned across our 3.6 million gross unit acres to benefit directly from the largest operators in the most economic natural gas basins with zero capital expenditures and minimal operating expenses. This positions us to benefit from the tremendous work in capital deployment by EQT Range, CNX, Intero, Expand, and others while incurring zero capital expenditures. Resulting in significant cash flow to our shareholders. That means shareholders are directly tied to those operators, while receiving significant returns through both dividends and reinvestments through acquisition of additional minerals and royalties. A couple of weeks ago, two of our largest operators, EQT and Range, announced their agreement to combine, which I'm sure most of you know about. We view this as highly favorable for Whitehawk. We currently receive royalties of approximately 49% of both EQT and Range's production. So about half of each of their position pays us royalties. We believe there's no better operator in the U.S. than EQT. And this acquisition should over time drive both production higher as they increase in-basin demand for power generation for data centers, which should further drive natural gas prices as basis differentials contract even further. A double benefit for the transaction and for us, and I suspect there will be even more for us over time. As a reminder, White Hawk Minerals has several ways to succeed or win for our shareholders. Those include our strategic and ground game acquisition strategy, the exposure we have to the two most economic natural gas basins in the U.S., our mineral and royalty ownership benefiting from the largest natural gas producers in the U.S. And the medium and long-term significant demand tailwinds behind natural gas. And of course, we have mitigated short-term price volatility with attractive natural gas hedges, including a weighted average NYMEX hedge price of $3.80 per MMBTU for 2027, and continue to protect our balance sheet with less than one times debt to EBITDA. With respect to our acquisition strategy and opportunities, we continue to see between $3 billion and $5 billion of strategic acquisition opportunities in front of us in the Marcellus, Utica, and Haynesville shale. Furthermore, the ground game opportunity, which continues to pick up momentum, where we buy from individual mineral owners, is well over 35 times our existing asset base, or... Over $35 billion. Excellence, not by a single act, but by habit. We do this one day at a time, focused on production, our expenses, and executing on our dual-pronged acquisition strategy. I like where we are, but I'm even more pleased as to where we are headed. The future for Whitehawk looks to be brighter than ever. With that, I will hand it over to Jeff to review the financial results. Jeff?

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for your participation in Whitehawks' third quarter earnings call. Over the next several minutes, I'll walk you through our third quarter results, including our operating revenue, cash flows, and financial position. I'll also cover the declaration of our quarterly dividend and liquidity before we open the line for questions. For the third quarter, revenue on our income statement was $21.5 million, which is inclusive of $1.4 million in non-cash unrealized loss on our hedging instruments. Excluding the impact of mark-to-market activity, net operating revenue for the third quarter was $22.9 million. Including $3.3 million, or $0.51 per MCFE, of operating expenses incurred during the period. Our third quarter revenue reflects only the results of our September 2026 SJM II acquisition from the date of closing on September 25th through the end of the quarter. Inclusive of a full quarter's contribution from the acquired assets, our operating revenue for the third quarter was $26.8 million, an increase of $4.4 million or 19.5% from the second quarter. As Daniel highlighted, we announced an additional $45.5 million of new acquisitions in our third quarter earnings release. This increase to our asset base is expected to generate $5.6 million of cash flow in 2027 and $7.5 million of cash flow in 2028 from 5.8 and 6.8 MMCFE per day of additional production in 27 and 28, respectively. During the third quarter of 2026, our average realized natural gas price for the quarter was $3.50 per MCF, including our hedge settlements, compared to $2.53 per MCF before the effect of those hedges. For context, Henry Hub first-of-the-month pricing averaged $2.96 per MMVTU. For the quarter, our natural gas volumes were 96% hedged at $4.05, while our oil volumes were 90% hedged at $63. We hedge a substantial portion of our expected production on a rolling basis, specifically to protect our downside, secure predictable cash flows, and enhance the visibility of our dividend. Proforma for the acquisitions announced yesterday, we are currently hedged for 90% of 2027, over 80% of 2028, and approximately 45% of 2029. Our hedging strategy is intended to keep protecting our downside while retaining asymmetrical exposure to the upside from our acquisition strategy, our operators' continued development of their positions, and the long-term tailwinds from natural gas demand, including increased AI power demand and LNG exports. Our adjusted EBITDA, which is effectively comprised of our operating revenue less G&A expenses, was $21.1 million for the second quarter after giving effect to our $1.8 million of cash G&A expense, which excludes certain non-recurring IPO and other transaction-related costs. Our cash available for distribution for the third quarter was $18 million after giving effect to net cash interest expense of $1.7 million, preferred dividends of $1.4 million, and less than $50,000 in cash paid for income taxes. Again, when giving effect to a full quarter of contribution from the acquisitions closed during the third quarter, our acquisition adjusted EBITDA was $25 million for the quarter, and acquisition adjusted cash available for distribution was $20.8 million. The acquisition adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution for the third quarter represented a 21% and 20% increase, respectively, over the second quarter of 2026. On a per share basis, our cash available for distribution for the third quarter was $0.65 per share, based on our $27.9 million weighted average shares outstanding. As a reminder, we issued 2.9 million Class A common shares on September 21st for $75 million of gross proceeds to partially fund our September SJM II acquisition at a $26.10 per share price. On an adjusted basis, our $20.8 million of acquisition-adjusted cash available for distribution equates to 68 cents per share. On the fully diluted 30.4 million common shares outstanding at the end of the period, or an 8% increase from our reported 63 cents of cash available for distribution per share in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA, cash available for distribution, and cash available for distribution per share are non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP measure are available in our earnings release, investor presentation, and on our website. On a GAAP basis, net income for the period was $6.9 million. Our income for the period was impacted, in part, by certain non-cash charges, including the aforementioned items, as well as our depletion expense and the change in the fair value of our earn-out liability. On November 12th, our board approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.50 per share, or $2 per share on an annualized basis. The dividend is payable on November 30th to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 23rd. Our 50 cent dividend implies a 1.3 times coverage ratio from cash available for distribution on a per share basis. Before we open the line for questions, please allow me to review our capital transactions during the quarter and our financial position as of September 30th. In addition to the $75 million common equity issuance I referenced previously, we funded the September SJM II acquisition through the issuance of $50 million of Series E preferred equity. The Series E preferred will initially bear a 10% annual dividend and can be redeemed at any time. On September 30th, we repaid an additional $6.3 million in debt, reducing our notes outstanding to approximately $62 million at the end of the quarter. We exited the third quarter with $23.6 million of cash on our balance sheet, and we were 0.4 times levered. In connection with the acquisition closing in September, we also completed our fall borrowing base redetermination with our revolving credit facility banks. We increased the commitments on the RBL from $150 million to $175 million and remained fully undrawn as of the end of the quarter. Yesterday's acquisition closing was funded through a combination of cash on hand and borrowings on our revolving credit facility. We are committed to a conservative balance sheet, and we target long-term leverage of approximately one times adjusted EBITDA. Inclusive of yesterday's acquisition closing, we remain well under that target. With that, I thank you for your time this morning, and I turn the call back to Daniel for a few closing thoughts.

Well, I think we'll turn it over to Dara to open up the line for questions.

We'll open the line for questions. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from John Freeman with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys.

Morning, John.

Uh, first question for me, um, obviously the balance sheet's in great shape, uh, currently below half turn of leverage. Um, you know, y'all cited, you know, wanting to stay at that kind of one times or less sort of target long term. Uh, I'm just curious, kind of given the, the depressed kind of natural gas strip and maybe the more, more bullish sort of outlook, uh, you know, if we look at a few years, do you have like a, an increased willingness for the right sort of acquisition to potentially, you know, go above that one time? Is there a leverage ceiling, or should we think of that as sort of a firm, kind of hard target?

Yeah, no, thanks for the question. The reality is, you know, we target one times, and that's our long-term target. We're going to, you know, stay pretty close to that, and that's really how we think about it. I think that keeps the business in a healthy position, allows us to remain highly nimble and able to protect on the downside and benefit on the upside. And, you know, really, John, I think about, you know, I think about the... The room we have to grow through our ground game acquisitions and our strategic acquisitions while targeting that one times and with all the excess cash flow that we're generating above our dividend, we really have the ability to grow cash flow per share of cash available for distribution nicely higher than the $2.72 annualized rate that we're at. So we're feeling really good with our base assets heading into 2027, our ability to execute on the ground game on strategic deals that should drive it well over $2.80 in 27. And then with what we have coming in 2028, well over $3, plus Matt and Irene and our full acquisition team executing, we feel pretty excited about where we're headed here. Not to mention the macro factors you mentioned on the natural gas side, which could provide further tailwinds. That's great.

And then just my follow-up, obviously, great to see another, you know, continued momentum on the acquisition front this quarter. Just to have a sort of sense of when y'all are providing kind of the forward guidance, like the 27-28 guidance associated with the recent acquisitions, obviously, mainly San Jacinto, is that forward outlook based on, like, existing PDP and then weld and process, or just maybe a little bit of color of how y'all go about Forecasting, you know, those out years from the acquisition.

Yeah, I mean, we, of course, A, love buying assets we already hold an interest in. And, you know, with a position of 3.6 million gross unit acres and, you know, over a million and a half, well over a million and a half in the Marcellus and the Haynesville, we have a lot of acreage we own interest in. But beyond that, John, we have mapped every producing and undeveloped location in the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia. And the same is true in the Haynesville in Louisiana and Texas. So we have a massive database. And then within that database, we're, you know, we really, we look at each of those undeveloped locations, and we rank them within the operator's portfolio as to where they rank economically. So we get a very, I think, clear look at what development activity will look like based purely on the economic side. Then we look at historical development cadence, our statistical relevance, when a well was drilled on a pad or when a pad was drilled and when historically that operator may drill their next batch of wells adjacent to that pad. And we take all of that information, and Mike Downs, our COO, and John Pickton, our head of engineering, the team has, I think, over the last eight years, been within 1% of forecast on a go-forward basis. But yes, we have within our line of sight with our WIPs and our permits, that provides us a year plus of visibility very clearly. And then we have our long-term forecasting. And then having our statistical relevance, almost 50% of EQT's production, we're really, you know, super tied in with EQT, super tied in with Expand and the Haynesville. And so, yeah, puts us in a great position to look out over the medium and long term as far as what our production is going to be. Thanks, Daniel. Nice quarter. Thank you, John. We appreciate it.

Your next question comes from David Dekelbaum with Stiefel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions, Daniel and Jeff, and thanks for the update today. Maybe a little bit just on logistics and mechanics around the quarters right now. I'm curious. You turn in another strong quarter on the production side. You know, we can adjust for the acquired volumes going into 4Q. How much was 3Q or 4Q being impacted by curtailments? We've obviously heard of several of your operating partners shutting in volumes. How does that typically translate through your portfolio?

Yeah, David, nice to talk to you. We did not see much as far as curtailments on our existing, on our base business. So, you know, we obviously follow very closely and we talk to our operators on a regular basis, you know, but we really had very minimal impacts of curtailments across our entire position.

I appreciate that. And then. I know that in your prepared remarks, you talked about the EQT range deal and the benefits, and I think we can probably all understand the logic of just having a premier operator, both of them obviously premier operators, but having someone with more scale over time just continuing to develop into your core position. How do you think about some of the other benefits that are material to you, particularly around the marketing and pricing side? And do you think about that as more of a later-in-the-decade event, or is this something that you're anticipating an improvement to your business in more of the next, I'll call it, couple years or so?

Yeah, that's a super question. So the, I mean, the reality is, I think EQT, and I'll even be more specific, Toby. Eddie QT is one of really the great marketers of natural gas, and they have an extremely robust marketing team that's focused on maximizing price on every molecule they produce. I think, frankly, they were short volumes relative to the demand that they were going to be able to market vis-a-vis power generation in basin. And frankly, I think LNG exports and what they're going to be able to do over time. I think range adds a meaningful kind of set of tools for their toolbox in that. And so EQT, you know, they've talked about as much as 20 BCF a day of in-basin demand growth over time for PowerGen. We, of course, you know. We take a much more conservative lens to what's coming, although we think there's four to five BCF of clear under construction and FID in basin growth for power demand. So EQT is extremely well positioned to take advantage of that. This then allows them to work with the hyperscalers to have that volume sourced. And so what does that all mean? It means more production in basin, very good for us. We think it likely means further contraction of basis differentials, which means higher prices. Good for us. As far as timing, you know, We see the train coming down the tracks. But we don't even really think it's come into the station yet. Or using a baseball analogy, my Milwaukee Brewers just won the World Series. We're not even out of the warm-up innings yet when it comes to power generation. So the reality is we look at 2028, 2029, 2030 is when that production growth and when that pricing benefit begins to come into the station. And so that's the timeline we're looking at for the benefits. I think over the next year, as EQT has said, is kind of steady as it goes. And then I think there's a lot of excitement. And David, I would say, and Jeff makes this point extremely well. Our business is driven by what we do and what we've done now for decades in acquisitions, in driving the things we can control. And we see a huge opportunity in the tens of billions to drive cash flow per share and net asset value per share over time. So having this window, if prices remain relatively muted, we're going to keep marching forward and buying accretively as many assets as we can for when that train comes into the station. And if it doesn't come in, we're still going to have generated a lot more cash flow and net asset value per share.

I appreciate all the color and the analogies. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, David.

Your next question comes from Jack Jarosalmi with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, and congrats on the quarter. Thanks, Jack. First question here. This is the second quarter in which your acquisition strategy has been centered on these SJM2 assets. We're just wondering if you could provide some color on what makes these specific assets attractive that you keep coming back to them, and maybe just to add on, how much further opportunity is there to keep on transacting this asset base?

Uh, that's a great question. I mean, these assets, uh, these assets and are as good as it gets when it comes to the Marsalis shale and Utica shale. It is Southwestern, uh, Pennsylvania into West Virginia, phenomenal exposure to EQT and Antero. Uh, we love this asset base. You know, we now own, uh, 80% of this specific asset base. So there's still more for us to buy. If, you know, if we were to choose to do that, and if the seller were to choose to sell to us. But I think what it really is indicative of is the type of relationships we have, and we have others like this who we've transacted with. Over and over again at Whitehawk and at our previous companies, we're extremely grateful for the partnerships we have and proud of the long-term relationships we've had. I think we've said $3 billion to $5 billion in our core buy area in the Marcellus and the Haynesville, owned by parties that we've transacted with. I think our team's done over $30 billion of transactions in the E&P midstream and minerals and royalties space. So, you know, I think there's a lot to do here, not to mention the ground game, which we've said is over $35 billion. We know what we're doing there. We're executing methodically. But, you know, what I think it exemplifies is we want to be in the core of the best basins. We want the largest, most well-capitalized operators. And that's what this asset has. And that's what you should expect us to buy as we move forward.

Got it. That's super helpful. And then just for my follow-up, it looks like you're planning to fund the acquisition with cash in the credit facility, which compares to last quarter where you leaned on those Series E preferreds. We're just wondering if you can talk more broadly about how you evaluate the different funding options behind the acquisition strategy between using preferreds or leaning on the credit facility or issuing more common equity.

Yeah, Jack, thanks for the question. I think for us, you know, we're very appreciative of having, you know, multiple tools in the toolbox and that flexibility. So I think coming into this transaction with the cash that was on the balance sheet at the end of the quarter, you know, felt really good about using that cash and doing an initial draw on the revolver.

Yeah, I mean, and really what it allows us to do, just to supplement Jeff there, what it allows us to do, you know, being in the position we were in, is have hyper-accretive acquisitions using that cash and a little bit of the revolver.

Got it. Really appreciate the time and congrats again on the quarter. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Michael Salia with Stevens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. I've obviously been very active on the acquisition front since going public. I'm curious how you're seeing the competition for these assets, any trend in the prices that you're having to pay to win bids, and do you have any different threshold for returns on ground game versus the strategic assets?

Great questions. Appreciate it, Michael. Okay, so on the competitive landscape, we, you know, in Appalachia, see limited competition. I think our knowledge base is highly differentiated versus what others can, others have. It puts us in a unique position. I think the land makeup in Appalachia is considerably more complex than other parts of the country. We've operated in Appalachia for over 20 years. We know the community. We know the landowners. We know the area like the back of our hands. So we see limited competition there. Sometimes people show up. That's fine. Buy metrics have remained, and return thresholds have remained consistent for the last almost 10 years of running mineral businesses, and we think they're super attractive total returns. Um, so prices, I guess I'll say in the Haynesville, the Haynesville is a little bit different. And you've seen that I think our acquisitions have skewed more towards Appalachia, where I think we have a differentiated capability, certainly knowledge base when it comes from an engineering standpoint. The Haynesville is an area that we see more people, you know, small, well, really on the smaller deal size, anywhere from $100,000 to $10 million. You know, it's pretty active and competitive. And while we have an incredible knowledge base, I think others have a strong knowledge base as well. So I think where we're differentiated in the Haynesville and, of course, in the Marcellus is there are not other large scale buyers in our sense, either in the Haynesville or the Marcellus. So I think that offers us. For those private equity firms that are, you know, further along in their fund life and looking to exit, still that differentiated opportunity to buy large packages at attractive prices. And then on the ground game, certainly, you know, we remain super disciplined. As far as our valuation metrics, again, they're right in line. And I would also point out, to give you a little bit of granularity, if you look at just this one quarter in isolation, and I don't think anyone should take one quarter in isolation, but the ground game and the large deals that we did, when you look at them together, the ground game actually has some super attractive undeveloped locations that we expect to come online in 2028. I think we've been conservative in when we expect those wells to come online. So when we look at the overall kind of valuation, we see we're at or better than last quarter, and certainly in line with what we've seen over the last four years.

I appreciate all that detail, Daniel. Maybe to follow up on one comment there, you talked about the work in progress and permits, and looking at slide five of the new acquisitions, it does look like In the mix of the undeveloped and the work in progress and permits are maybe a little bit heavier than what you've done in the past. Is that a fair comment? And is that something that you're looking to take advantage of moving forward? Is that, I guess, a trend that we should anticipate going forward?

I love this question because it allows me to give you our philosophy here. So you're right and no. And what I mean by that, Michael, is our philosophy is to build medium and long-term value in this tremendous resource base that we built and we're stewards of. And so we're going to have some quarters where we have more wells that are PDP that we buy, sometimes where there's more whips and permits, and sometimes where there's more undeveloped. We look at this as a mosaic, and we're building this mosaic over a period of time, a long period of time. And that will shift and ebb and flow. And we're not going to target buying more WIPs or permits or more undeveloped. What we're trying to do is buy super attractive total return assets when we put them all together. That's going to drive that medium and long term cash flow and that asset value per share. So the answer is you should expect over time 40 to 60 percent of what we buy to be in the producing and the inverse 60 to 40 percent to be in the undeveloped, including in the whip and permit. So that's a pretty broad range, but with the overall philosophy that we're targeting unlevered returns of 15% to 20% for the life of the portfolio that we're buying, plus having the upside from operators accelerating development, plus having the upside from additional resource on our position, plus having the upside from higher commodity prices.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Daniel. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Noel Parks with 2E Brothers. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Continuing on some of the sort of general topics that you were just talking about, so I'm thinking a lot about the map or the footprint, if you will, about, you know, what's attractive to you, and I heard you just now talking about your proportion of Um, undeveloped acreage, uh, not, not wanting that to be too high in favor instead of, uh, you know, producing assets. So when it comes to some of the more frontier plays, I'm thinking about like, uh, deep Utica dry gas, for instance. Um. Do you, I guess, kind of what's your stance on those and how well they fit? I guess I'm thinking especially if some of these might need more infrastructure investment in the event that they're successful.

Yeah, thank you. So, when... We benefit, because of the breadth of our footprint, to exposure to what I might characterize as frontier. You might not consider that frontier, but we're certainly in the fairway of significant Utica activity and future development. As far as, you say, Utica, I guess I hear like Western Hainesville. And when I think about those type of frontiers, we are not aggressively or actively pursuing areas that are not core today. I think we have lots of advantages. We have 9,300 identified, undeveloped locations. We have a massive resource base. We're not acquirers of frontier situations. I think Matt Heinlein was saying this the other day, quoting me, which is, you can't pay a low enough price for bad rock. And I'm not saying Deep Utica or Western Haynesville's Bad Rock and maybe Fantastic Rock, but I don't know yet. And what we want to do, and we have such a huge pot in front of us with. Tens of billions of dollars to buy. Let's stay right in the middle of the fairway. We've got plenty to say grace over. We're executing, you know, around the clock. The team works unbelievably hard. We're going to just stick to that. And then over time, as situations develop, I think we'll be even better positioned to be buyers of assets at the right time.

Great. Thanks. And I guess I was just also continuing on a past theme around... Pretailments being some operators more of a go-to strategy than others who maybe are more inclined to kind of keep operations steady at all costs, if possible. If we assume the strip is still too low, given the demand growth that's ahead of us, I'm just wondering, do you have any thoughts on sort of rig count in the basin, which, of course, if it goes higher, then that implies more new drill wells, which, if you have minerals, is positive, but versus the – I know it's hard to think of it when we see $3 or barely $3 gas, But versus the risk of too much drilling and oversupply hitting prices. So I guess it's sort of that activity is good on the one hand, oversupply is bad on the other, and just kind of what your thoughts are as you look ahead in sort of the medium term.

Yeah, so it's a very interesting landscape. One, when it comes to curtailments, when prices are inappropriately low, we like that. We don't want our molecules sold at extremely low pricing. And given the strong hedge position we have. We actually get a double benefit when prices are low and there's curtailments because we still collect cash flow from the hedges. And then when prices rebound, those wells that were curtailed come online with flush production because the wells have pressured up. And so we get the double benefit of higher flush production at higher prices. Right. We haven't seen that this year in any material way. However, when we get into the rig count and even more specifically to operators, and I can think in particular of certain operators in the Haynesville, they're highly strategic and they may have their rig counts up and they may be drilling wells and they may not turn those wells or complete those wells until prices move higher. So, you know, we're watching all of that. We watch all of it on a daily basis and a weekly basis. Rig counts are one aspect. I think completion crews are probably even more important than rig counts. And I think even more important than that, when you look at the EQTs, the EQT range and tarot expand. Those operators are steady and super responsible. Very, very good for us and provide us a great base. You have others, and I throw a Domus in there, by the way, too, that want a very stable production level and have strategic reasons for that. But then you have others, and I'll just say an Apex, who may be more, you know, willing to fluctuate their production up and down based on prices. We look at that as very good for us. Um, because we have the base layer and then this asymmetrical upside when prices spike higher. I mean, for us, though, it's a long winded way of saying we're in this like win win situation, where we have great stable production. And I think we have a great upside potential if prices spike higher from certain of our operators flexing their production up. Great. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Noel.

There are no more questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Daniel Herz for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, Dara. And I want to thank again the entire Whitehawk team for the truly unrelenting work over the last five months and really over the last five years. I want to thank you all as our partners, shareholders, and everyone who works to drive value for Whitehawk. We look forward to speaking to you over the coming days, weeks, and months. Bye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.