Diversified Energy Co (DEC) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the Diversified Energy 2023 final-results earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

女士們、先生們，早安，歡迎參加多元化能源 2023 年最終業績電話會議。（操作員指示）謹此提醒，本次會議正在錄製中。

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Douglas Kris, SVP, IR, and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead, sir.

現在我很高興向您介紹主持人道格拉斯·克里斯 (Douglas Kris)，他是投資者關係和企業傳播部高級副總裁。請繼續，先生。

Good morning, and welcome to the Diversified Energy 2023 results and acquisition conference call. Joining me today are Rusty Hutson, our Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Brad Gray, our President and Chief Financial Officer.

早安，歡迎參加多元化能源 2023 年業績及收購電話會議。今天加入我的是我們的創辦人兼執行長 Rusty Hutson；以及我們的總裁兼財務長 Brad Gray。

During this call, we will make certain references to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to those financial measures are in both of our earnings release as well as our annual report, which was published this morning and available on our website as well with our filings with the SEC.

在本次電話會議中，我們將提及非公認會計準則財務指標。這些財務指標的對帳均包含在我們的收益報告和年度報告中，該報告於今天上午發布，可在我們的網站上以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中查閱。

Now, my pleasure to hand the call over to Rusty Hutson. Rusty, please go ahead.

現在，我很高興將電話轉交給拉斯蒂·赫特森。魯斯蒂，請繼續。

Thank you, Doug. Appreciated it. Real quickly, just base the presentation today. I'm going to kick it off, talk a little bit about the 2023 numbers, the success that we had in '23. I will turn it over to Brad Gray, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss financial metrics associated with the year. And then, I will come back on and update on the acquisition that we announced this morning, along with the 2024 strategic outlook for the remainder of the year.

謝謝你，道格。很欣賞它。真的很快，今天的示範就到此為止了。我將首先談談 2023 年的數字，以及我們在 23 年取得的成功。我會將其交給我們的財務長布拉德·格雷 (Brad Gray)，討論與本年度相關的財務指標。然後，我將回來更新我們今天早上宣布的收購，以及 2024 年剩餘時間的策略展望。

So with that, I'll go to page 3 of the presentation and start there. I just want to say that we're pretty proud of our year and the 2023. The strategic successes that we had, that was a great year for Diversified in a very challenged commodity price environment. We'll talk a little bit about this, but our hedging program, our hedging portfolio was very successful in insulating us from a lot of that commodity price risk that we saw in 2023. But overall, very good year.

因此，我將轉到簡報的第 3 頁並從那裡開始。我只想說，我們對這一年和 2023 年感到非常自豪。在充滿挑戰的大宗商品價格環境中，我們所取得的策略成功對於多元化來說是偉大的一年。我們將對此進行一些討論，但我們的對沖計劃、我們的對沖投資組合非常成功地使我們免受 2023 年我們看到的大量大宗商品價格風險的影響。但總的來說，這是非常好的一年。

You can see here on page 3, some of the highlights that I'd bring to note. Here, being the production was strong through '23, 821 made to date natural gas production on average. We continue to see a very resilient decline rates as we held at under 10% again, which is the key to our success long term, is the mature producing assets that we operate, which gives us the ability to hedge and be successful with cash flow profile.

您可以在第 3 頁看到我要注意的一些要點。由於 2023 年產量強勁，迄今為止平均天然氣產量為 821。我們繼續看到非常有彈性的下降率，再次保持在 10% 以下，這是我們長期成功的關鍵，是我們經營的成熟生產資產，這使我們有能力對沖並在現金流方面取得成功輪廓。

We have $543 million of EBITDA for the year, which was a record for us. Net debt at 2.3, again, within a margin of the 2 to 2.5 that we talked about with our investors. Cash margin, strong at 52%. That has been a staple since 2017. And I think, which is a very key factor that investors should be please with, is over the last -- since our IPO, we've returned $800 million of cash back to our investors. Over $700 million of that dividends and the other portion in share repurchases.

我們今年的 EBITDA 為 5.43 億美元，這是我們的記錄。淨負債比率再次為 2.3，與我們與投資者討論的 2 至 2.5 之間的差距不遠。現金利潤率高達 52%。自 2017 年以來，這一直是主要內容。我認為，投資者應該感到滿意的一個非常關鍵的因素是，自從我們首次公開募股以來，我們已經向投資者返還了 8 億美元現金。其中超過 7 億美元的股息和其他部分用於股票回購。

In December, we publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which was something that we had been striving for for about 1.5 year prior to that. A very important factor for us as we move forward and being able to access the public markets and the institutional investors in the US. Free cash flow of $219 million. Again on the ESG perspective, continuing to see great results around our emissions and our identification and reduction programs. Again, OGMP awarded us with the gold standard for the second consecutive year.

12月，我們在紐約證券交易所公開上市，這是我們在此之前奮鬥了大約1.5年的目標。對於我們前進並能夠進入美國公開市場和機構投資者來說，這是一個非常重要的因素。自由現金流為 2.19 億美元。再次從 ESG 角度來看，我們的排放以及識別和減排計畫持續取得巨大成果。OGMP 再次連續第二年授予我們金標準。

And we retired over 400 wells last year through our asset retirement program and next-level asset retirement company. So all in all, a great year. We'll talk about some of the specifics around some of that as we go through the presentation.

去年，我們透過資產報廢計畫和下一級資產報廢公司報廢了 400 多口井。總而言之，這是美好的一年。當我們進行演示時，我們將討論其中的一些細節。

Moving to page 4, delivering on our de-risked model, and really, it results in de-risking four things: commodity price risk, which we do through our hedging program; our operational risk, which we do through our smarter asset management and our ground game on a day-to-day basis with people that operate in the field, and really striving and driving for those lower decline rates by operating the assets more effectively; the financing risk and the ability to finance our company's programs, both from an RBL, but also, through some of the ABS and the financing structures that we've used to finance the business, to create liquidity and also, to pay down debt over a period of time; and then, our environmental risks, which we do through our are stringent ESG programs that we -- for emissions, detection, and reduction, and which we believe is best in class in our sector. All of that leads to a very low risk model with generating consistent cash flow, which you can see now since 2017, we've operated with these 50% cash margins consistently since 2017.

轉到第 4 頁，實現我們的去風險模型，實際上，它會降低四件事的風險：商品價格風險，我們透過對沖計畫來實現；我們的營運風險，我們透過更智慧的資產管理和與現場營運人員的日常地面博弈來做到這一點，並透過更有效地營運資產來真正努力並推動降低下降率；融資風險和為我們公司的專案提供資金的能力，不僅來自 RBL，而且還透過一些 ABS 和我們用來為業務融資的融資結構，創造流動性，並償還債務一段時間;然後，我們的環境風險，我們透過嚴格的 ESG 計劃來應對——用於排放、檢測和減少，我們認為這是我們行業中最好的。所有這些都導致​​了一個非常低的風險模型，並產生穩定的現金流，自 2017 年以來您可以看到，自 2017 年以來，我們一直以 50% 的現金利潤率運作。

Flipping over to page 5, again, a very peer-leading decline rate in 2023. 10% or less, which is what we strive for on an annual basis, and that is including the whole portfolio. And you can see across all of our peers, that that is a peer-leading decline rate, but more importantly, a very peer-leading capital intensity rate. The $0.25 per Mcf compared to all of our other peers, and these are US peers by the way, they just shows how little cash flow that we had to reinvest to keep our decline rates where they are. So we have superior capital intensity, which enhances our free cash flow, which creates greater value for the shareholders and returns over a period of time.

再次翻到第 5 頁，2023 年的下降率在同業中處於領先地位。10% 或更低，這是我們每年努力爭取的目標，其中包括整個投資組合。你可以在我們所有的同行中看到，這是一個同業領先的下降率，但更重要的是，這是一個非常同業領先的資本密集度。與我們所有其他同行（順便說一下，這些都是美國同行）相比，每 Mcf 為 0.25 美元，這表明我們為將下降率保持在現有水平而必須再投資的現金流是多麼少。因此，我們擁有卓越的資本密集度，這增強了我們的自由現金流，從而在一段時間內為股東創造更大的價值和回報。

Flipping on page 6 real quick, hedging strategy. '23 with a very challenged commodity price environment. Well, that didn't stop, it carried over into 2024. But again, the hedging program that we have that we deploy across our portfolio gives us an advantage because you can see here, our hedge price for natural gas at $3.09, about 85% of our production hedged through remainder of this year. The remainder of '24 strip prices up $2.45. So says it's a pretty robust hedging price above and beyond the current strip.

快速翻到第 6 頁，對沖策略。 '23 大宗商品價格環境充滿挑戰。好吧，這並沒有停止，它延續到了 2024 年。但同樣，我們在投資組合中部署的對沖計劃給我們帶來了優勢，因為你可以在這裡看到，我們的天然氣對沖價格為3.09 美元，我們約85% 的產量在今年剩餘時間內進行了對沖。24 年剩餘的帶鋼價格上漲 2.45 美元。所以說，這是一個相當強勁的對沖價格，高於目前的水平。

And you can see our program, we're 85% hedged at '24. We've probably around 70% or a little less maybe in '25 and forward. So that will continue because we underpin the business through that hedging program for the long haul. You could see as it relates to our peer average, we're 85% hedged on an average basis across the rest of our peers, that they're at about 44%. And I think the key to that will show as '24 continues to remain low in terms of pricing than our peers. Leverage will continue to elevate over the period of time. This gives us the ability to pay down our debt and continue to lower our leverage profile as goes on.

你可以看到我們的計劃，我們 85% 在 24 年進行了對沖。25 年及以後我們可能會達到 70% 左右或更少。因此，這種情況將會持續下去，因為我們透過長期對沖計劃來支撐業務。你可以看到，因為它與我們的同行平均值相關，我們對其他同行的平均水平進行了 85% 的對沖，而他們的水平約為 44%。我認為關鍵在於 '24 在定價方面繼續保持低於同行的水平。槓桿率將在一段時間內持續上升。這使我們有能力償還債務並繼續降低我們的槓桿率。

On page 7, one of the things that we did in December that you saw us announcea was an innovative asset sale where we were able to essentially bundle up an asset and essentially sell it to institutional investors for a much higher multiple than we would have been able to sell it to a third party. We sold that asset for 5.7 times EBITDA multiple. In December, we had a liquidity impact or uplift, I should say, of $90 million. And we delever the business with this structure. We remain that we retain a 20% minority interest in that asset.

在第7 頁上，我們在12 月所做的事情之一就是一項創新的資產出售，我們能夠從本質上捆綁一項資產，並以遠高於我們預期的倍數將其出售給機構投資者.能夠將其出售給第三方。我們以 5.7 倍 EBITDA 的價格出售該資產。12 月份，我們的流動性影響或增加，我應該說是 9,000 萬美元。我們透過這種結構去槓桿化業務。我們仍保留該資產 20% 的少數股權。

But at the end of the day, we were able to reduce debt, be able to sell the asset for a much higher multiple. And this is a structure that we can continue to use moving forward, as long as the institutional investors are there to acquire those assets out of the structure. So very innovative asset sale that provided liquidity, reduce debt, and helped us to reduce leverage as we entered 2024.

但最終，我們能夠減少債務，能夠以更高的倍數出售資產。只要機構投資者能夠從該結構中收購這些資產，我們就可以繼續使用這種結構。非常創新的資產出售提供了流動性，減少了債務，並幫助我們在進入 2024 年時降低了槓桿率。

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Brad to run through some additional financial metrics. And then, I'll come back and talk about the acquisition at '24.

有了這個，我將把它交給布拉德來運行一些額外的財務指標。然後，我會回來談論 24 年的收購。

All right. Thank you, Rusty. It's good to be back in London. It's good to be back in the financial leadership role with our company. I thoroughly enjoyed my six years plus as Chief Operating Officer, and I'm extremely proud of the growth and the results that our operational teams delivered during this time period. And also enjoying being back in the role of Chief Financial Officer, which is providing me the opportunity to build relationships with our talented finance and accounting teams, our investors, and bankers. But it's also allowing me to help direct impact and strengthen our financial operations and results. So thank you for the opportunity to reengage in this part of the company.

好的。謝謝你，魯斯蒂。很高興回到倫敦。很高興能重新擔任我們公司的財務領導職務。我非常享受擔任營運長的六年多時間，我對我們的營運團隊在此期間的成長和成果感到非常自豪。我也很高興重新擔任財務官，這為我提供了與我們才華橫溢的財務和會計團隊、投資者和銀行家建立關係的機會。但這也讓我能夠幫助直接影響和加強我們的財務營運和績效。感謝您給我機會重新參與公司的這個部門。

My comments today will reflect on our solid financial results in several areas of our operations, and I'll start out on page 9. And as Rusty mentioned in his initial remarks, 2023 was a great year in many respects for our company. We generated a record $543 million of adjusted EBITDA, and we delivered our 6th year in a row of approximately 50 plus percent gross margins. This $543 million of EBITDA translated into $410 million of cash provided by operations, which included a large use of working capital in first six months of the year.

我今天的評論將反映我們在多個業務領域的穩健財務業績，我將從第 9 頁開始。正如 Rusty 在最初的演講中提到的那樣，2023 年對於我們公司的許多方面來說都是偉大的一年。我們創造了創紀錄的 5.43 億美元調整後 EBITDA，並且我們連續第六年實現了約 50% 以上的毛利率。這 5.43 億美元的 EBITDA 轉化為營運提供的 4.1 億美元現金，其中包括今年前六個月大量使用的營運資金。

We ended 2023 with an average daily production of 821,000 cubic feet equivalent, which was another record year for us. Our product mix continues to be heavily weighted to natural gas at 86%, while our exposure to liquids was 11% for natural gas liquids, and 3% for crude oil.

截至 2023 年，我們的平均日產量為 821,000 立方英尺當量，這對我們來說又是創紀錄的一年。我們的產品組合繼續以天然氣為主，佔 86%，而液體產品中天然氣液體佔 11%，原油佔 3%。

Our disciplined and consistent hedge program produced a healthy net realized price of $3.48 per Mcfe. And our operating cost improved from 2022 to $1.69 per Mcfe. In spite of a very challenging commodity price environment, our assets continue to provide our shareholders with a notable future value as seen with our net asset value per share of slightly more than $28.

我們嚴格且一致的對沖計劃產生了每 Mcfe 3.48 美元的健康淨實現價格。我們的營運成本從 2022 年降至每 Mcfe 1.69 美元。儘管大宗商品價格環境極具挑戰性，我們的資產仍持續為股東提供顯著的未來價值，我們的每股資產淨值略高於 28 美元。

Our operational teams continued to deliver outstanding results with our focus on sustainability. We retired 384 wells in our Appalachia operations, our gold standard OGMP measurement detection practices, and our LiDAR work have helped us ensure a 98% leak-free rate of our wells, and we continue converting our pneumatic devices on more than 50 well pads.

我們的營運團隊專注於永續發展，並持續取得出色的成果。我們在阿巴拉契亞作業區退役了384 口井，我們的黃金標準OGMP 測量檢測實踐以及我們的LiDAR 工作幫助我們確保了98% 的井無洩漏率，並且我們繼續在50 多個井場上改造我們的氣動設備。

Moving on to page 10. Our annual report is also being published today. In this annual report, we share significant information on our company strategy, priorities, and the key metrics we track to determine our success. Our KPIs are provided here on this page. These KPIs were set by our Board of Directors, and we monitor review and discuss the progress and results throughout the year.

轉到第 10 頁。我們的年度報告也將於今天發布。在這份年度報告中，我們分享了有關公司策略、優先事項以及我們追蹤以確定我們成功的關鍵指標的重要資訊。本頁提供了我們的 KPI。這些關鍵績效指標由我們的董事會制定，我們全年監控審查並討論進度和結果。

Most of these KPIs have been discussed by Rusty or me, but there's one on this page that we're highlighting for the first time, which is our methane emissions intensity ratio, which ended 2023 at 0.8. The attainment of this ratio is a significant achievement for our company and all of our teams that have been involved in this. This was our 2030 goal that we set back in 2021. So our teams, our investments, and our commitment to be a responsible operator have driven us to achieve this goal seven years early.

Rusty 或我已經討論過大多數 KPI，但本頁上有一個是我們首次強調的，即我們的甲烷排放強度比，截至 2023 年，該值為 0.8。對於我們公司和所有參與其中的團隊來說，達到這一比率是一項重大成就。這是我們在 2021 年設定的 2030 年目標。因此，我們的團隊、我們的投資以及我們對成為負責任的營運商的承諾促使我們提前七年實現了這一目標。

Moving on to page 12 -- page 11, excuse me. Our disciplined hedge practices, as Rusty mentioned early on, continue to underpin our ability to produce very healthy cash margins and cash flows for 2024, which again, as we've seen and we've talked about, has been a very challenging commodity price environment. Our natural gas hedge price is 25% higher than the 2024 NYMEX strip. For natural gas, we're 85% hedged in '24 with primarily swap contracts. NGLs and oils were hedged around 50% to 60%.

請轉到第 12 頁 - 第 11 頁，對不起。正如Rusty 早些時候提到的那樣，我們嚴格的對沖做法繼續支撐我們在2024 年創造非常健康的現金利潤和現金流的能力，正如我們所看到和討論的那樣，這再次是一個非常具有挑戰性的大宗商品價格環境。我們的天然氣對沖價格比 2024 年 NYMEX 地帶高出 25%。對於天然氣，我們在 2024 年主要透過掉期合約進行了 85% 的避險。NGL 和石油的避險幅度約為 50% 至 60%。

Moving on to page 12, this page provides some additional insight into our low-decline production, our effective hedge program, and our efficient vertically integrated cost structure, which leads to a healthy cash margin of 52% in 2023. In spite of dramatically lower commodity prices, our revenue actually ended up higher in 2023 compared to '22. This result is really a testament to our low-decline assets and our thoughtful hedging program. From a cost perspective, our price-linked expenses declined in 2023, while our field teams continued to utilize our Smarter Asset Management program to deliver cost savings and efficient operations, all of which allowed us to generate the 52% cash margin.

轉到第 12 頁，本頁提供了有關我們的低衰退生產、有效對沖計劃以及高效垂直整合成本結構的更多見解，這將導致 2023 年實現 52% 的健康現金利潤率。儘管大宗商品價格大幅下降，但與 22 年相比，我們 2023 年的收入實際上有所增加。這一結果確實證明了我們的低跌幅資產和深思熟慮的對沖計劃。從成本角度來看，我們的價格掛鉤費用在2023 年有所下降，而我們的現場團隊繼續利用我們的智慧資產管理計劃來實現成本節約和高效運營，所有這些使我們能夠產生52% 的現金利潤。

Moving on to page 13. This is an area we don't talk about as much as we probably should, but it really is becoming a significant advantage and competitive advantage for our company, and that's technology. It's a critical part of our success. And by being a company that generally grows through acquisition, it's extremely important for us to be disciplined and efficient with integrations, and also, with how we manage and use data.

轉到第 13 頁。這是一個我們應該談論的不多的領域，但它確實正在成為我們公司的一個顯著優勢和競爭優勢，這就是技術。這是我們成功的關鍵部分。作為一家通常透過收購來發展的公司，對我們來說，在整合以及管理和使用數據的方式上保持紀律和高效非常重要。

I'm proud to say that our Chief Information Officer, David Myers, was named as one of the top CIOs in energy in 2023 due to his leadership and creativity in building out our information technology capabilities. We've built a 100% cloud-based technology platform and we're also committed to running our company on consistent single-software applications. This commitment is part of our OneDE culture, where we strive to eliminate technical debt from previous companies, and we strive to provide our teams with one consistent view of data. And what we found is that when our teams are all looking at the same set of trusted information, our ability to make timely and value-added business decisions is significantly improved.

我很自豪地說，我們的資訊長 David Myers 因其在建立我們的資訊技術能力方面的領導力和創造力而被評為 2023 年能源領域頂級 CIO 之一。我們已經建立了 100% 基於雲端的技術平台，我們也致力於在一致的單一軟體應用程式上運行我們的公司。這項承諾是我們 OneDE 文化的一部分，我們努力消除以前公司的技術債務，並努力為我們的團隊提供一致的數據視圖。我們發現，當我們的團隊都查看同一組可信任資訊時，我們及時做出增值業務決策的能力就會顯著提高。

On page 14, we've talked about our Smarter Asset Management program for many years, and it continues to deliver great results for us. Whether the Smarter Asset Management efforts are focused on optimizing production, vertically integrating operations, or just eliminating unnecessary spending, the objective is the same. And that objective is to increase and improve our cash margins.

在第 14 頁，我們多年來一直在談論我們的智慧資產管理計劃，並且它繼續為我們帶來巨大的成果。無論智慧資產管理工作的重點是優化生產、垂直整合運營，還是只是消除不必要的支出，目標都是相同的。該目標是增加和提高我們的現金利潤率。

With our inventory of assets, we have continual opportunities to create value. Our central region teams produced some great results with numerous projects in '23. And here on page 14, we've provided a few numbers to highlight that success.

憑藉我們的資產庫存，我們有持續創造價值的機會。我們的中部地區團隊在 23 年透過眾多專案取得了一些出色的成果。在第 14 頁，我們提供了一些數字來強調這一成功。

Moving on to page 15. As I mentioned earlier, we will achieve our 2030 target of 0.8 ratio for methane emissions intensity here in 2023. Again, that's seven years earlier than our established target year. Our Board and leadership team established numerous climate focused targets back in the fourth quarter of '21. And over the last two years, we've worked extremely hard to make significant progress.

轉到第 15 頁。正如我之前提到的，我們將在 2023 年實現 2030 年甲烷排放強度比率 0.8 的目標。同樣，這比我們既定的目標年早了七年。我們的董事會和領導團隊早在 2021 年第四季就制定了許多以氣候為重點的目標。在過去的兩年裡，我們非常努力地取得了重大進展。

We're all extremely proud of our teams for significantly beating this target time period. And led by our Senior VP of Environmental Health and Safety, Paul Espenan, our work on emissions detection measurement and mitigation has been very thoughtful and effective.

我們都為我們的團隊顯著超過了這一目標時間而感到非常自豪。在我們環境健康與安全資深副總裁 Paul Espenan 的領導下，我們在排放檢測測量和緩解方面的工作非常周到且有效。

On page 16, an additional area of our climate focus goals has been with our asset retirement programs. We made intentional investments during 2022 to expand our internal retirement assets and our capacity. We combined four different plugging companies during 2022, and we created our Next LVL Energy company. 2023 represented our first full year of operation for Next LVL.

在第 16 頁，我們的氣候重點目標的另一個領域是我們的資產報廢計畫。我們在 2022 年進行了有意投資，以擴大內部退休資產和產能。2022 年，我們合併了四家不同的堵漏公司，創立了 Next LVL Energy 公司。 2023 年是我們 Next LVL 營運的第一個全年。

And just to remind everyone, Next LVL is a full service retirement company. Which what does that mean? That means that it includes service rigs, cement trucks, wireline trucks, transportation and construction equipment. We've also built into our Next LVL entity, dedicated resources for permitting and land work to ensure that our operations are focused on efficiency.

只是提醒大家，Next LVL 是一家提供全方位服務的退休公司。這意味著什麼？這意味著它包括服務鑽孔機、水泥卡車、電纜卡車、運輸和建築設備。我們還在 Next LVL 實體中建立了用於許可和土地工作的專用資源，以確保我們的營運注重效率。

We're very pleased with the results from our retirement teams in 2023, with 384 wells plugged in Appalachia and a total of 404 wells plugged overall. Our Next LVL Energy team plugged over 150 wells for third parties, which generated revenues that were available to offset the cost of plugging over our own inventory.

我們對 2023 年退休團隊的成果感到非常滿意，阿巴拉契亞地區堵塞了 384 口井，整體堵塞了 404 口井。我們的 Next LVL Energy 團隊為第三方封鎖了 150 多口油井，這些收入可用於抵消我們自己庫存的封鎖成本。

So in closing, I'll just say that 2023 was a challenging year in many ways. But as seen in our results, it was also a significant year of accomplishment for our teams.

最後，我只想說，2023 年在許多方面都是充滿挑戰的一年。但從我們的結果來看，這對我們的團隊來說也是重大成就的一年。

Rusty, back to you.

魯斯蒂，回到你身邊。

Thank you, Brad. And I'll be speaking from slide 18. As you guys have seen this morning, we made an announcement of a strategic acquisition which really should come as no surprise to anybody that's watched the company for any period of time, as I've been previewing the ability to acquire the Oaktree. Working at respect at some point, I've always called it on-the-shelf assets waiting for an acquisition at some point. We were able to accomplish that.

謝謝你，布拉德。我將從幻燈片 18 開始發言。正如你們今天早上所看到的，我們宣布了一項策略性收購，對於任何一段時間以來一直關注該公司的人來說，這都不足為奇，因為我一直在預覽收購橡樹資本的能力。在某些時候，我總是稱之為等待在某個時候被收購的現成資產。我們能夠做到這一點。

What is the Oaktree working interest participation in our partnership with them has been a great partnership. It helped us to accomplish what we really set out to do 3.5 years ago, and that was to enter a new region and scale that region up more rapidly than we would be able to do just on our own. Reason being the synergies and the ability to lower the operating costs was a higher and more concentrated geographical presence, was the important part of entering that new region.

橡樹資本的工作興趣是什麼？我們與他們的合作關係一直是很好的合作關係。它幫助我們實現了 3.5 年前我們真正打算做的事情，那就是進入一個新的地區，並以比我們自己所能做的更快的速度擴大該地區的規模。原因是協同效應和降低營運成本的能力是更高、更集中的地理分佈，是進入該新地區的重要組成部分。

So Oaktree and their partner, and we're great partners. We were able to accomplish that. But it was a great time for us to acquire this asset back. This is a very, very accretive and synergistic opportunity for us. We're paying $386 million net purchase price, which represents about a PV17 on PDP future cash flows and strip. It represents about a 3.1 times multiple. If you remember back in December, we talked about the the asset sale we did at almost a six times multiple and being able to take some of that liquidity and reinvest it back into an asset at three times.

所以橡樹資本和他們的合作夥伴，以及我們都是很棒的合作夥伴。我們能夠做到這一點。但這對我們來說是收回這項資產的好時機。這對我們來說是一個非常非常增值和協同的機會。我們支付的淨購買價為 3.86 億美元，相當於 PDP 未來現金流和剝離的 PV17。大約是 3.1 倍。如果您還記得去年 12 月的情況，我們曾討論過以近六倍的價格出售資產，並且能夠以三倍的價格將部分流動性重新投資回資產中。

That is a great trade-off for us. And so, we created a liquidity at six times and we're reinvesting at three times, which is great. These assets are very synergistic. And what I mean by that is we operate them already, we have all the backroom operations, and the G&A for these assets are already embedded in our numbers.

這對我們來說是一個很好的權衡。因此，我們創造了六倍的流動性，並進行了三倍的再投資，這非常棒。這些資產具有很強的協同作用。我的意思是我們已經在運營它們，我們擁有所有的幕後操作，而這些資產的一般管理費用已經嵌入到我們的數據中。

We've operated now for 24 months, so we have a very good handle on the operating procedures and the metrics and the stability of the assets. They're already on our IT systems. They're already really factored into our existing debt profile. We shared an ABS with Oaktree back in 2022 on these Oklahoma assets.

我們現在已經營運了24個月，所以我們對營運流程、指標以及資產的穩定性都有很好的把握。它們已經在我們的 IT 系統上。它們已經真正納入我們現有的債務狀況中。早在 2022 年，我們就與橡樹資本就這些俄克拉荷馬州資產共享了 ABS。

All of these assets are already in our emissions reporting, so they won't result in any additional emissions or permissions, intensity, or anything like that because they were already in our numbers. And so, that's all very positive attributes of the acquisition. We're adding about 122 million a day of natural gas prduction. That's very, very relevant from the standpoint that that is essentially covering decline rates into '25. So we won't have any reinvestment rate that would be necessary just to hold production flat in the 2025.

所有這些資產都已經在我們的排放報告中，因此它們不會導致任何額外的排放或許可、強度或類似的情況，因為它們已經在我們的數據中。因此，這就是此次收購的所有非常積極的屬性。我們每天增加約 1.22 億天然氣產量。從本質上涵蓋了 25 年下降率的角度來看，這是非常非常相關的。因此，我們不會有任何再投資率，而這只是為了在 2025 年保持產量持平所必需的。

These are heavy margins, 65% EBITDA margins on these assets don't contribute $126 million of EBITDA in 2024. If you can tell, these assets was $462 million. Again, we've bought these at a PD17. This is a very, very strategic asset for us. It was the best asset we could buy in this market.

這些利潤率很高，這些資產 65% 的 EBITDA 利潤率在 2024 年不會貢獻 1.26 億美元的 EBITDA。如果你看得出來的話，這些資產是 4.62 億美元。再說一遍，我們是在 PD17 上購買的。這對我們來說是非常非常具有策略意義的資產。這是我們在這個市場上能買到的最好的資產。

The one thing that we wanted to do was if we're going to acquire this asset, we definitely don't want to wait until in '25 and '26, which we believe will have an increase in natural gas prices as the export facilities start to come online. We didn't want to wait and have to acquire that asset in a higher price environment. It's a very strategic asset for us at this time in our company.

我們想做的一件事是，如果我們要收購這項資產，我們絕對不想等到 25 和 26 年，我們相信隨著出口設施的發展，天然氣價格將會上漲開始上線。我們不想等待，不得不在更高的價格環境中收購該資產。對於我們目前的公司來說，這是一項非常具有策略意義的資產。

Moving to page 19, again, adding scale. You can see where these assets are located. Obviously, we already operate and own 51% of the same assets, but we're increasing our exposure, very importantly to the Gulf Coast gas pricing. Even though we don't, in essence, sell to these export facilities, we are a benefit -- we do benefit from the pricing that comes along with the index basis differentials on the Gulf Coast. So now, we operate all these assets. 100% of the production belongs to us. And we -- and it gives us more scale in our marketing activities for this gas.

再次翻到第 19 頁，增加比例。您可以看到這些資產的位置。顯然，我們已經運營並擁有 51% 的相同資產，但我們正在增加我們的風險敞口，非常重要的是墨西哥灣沿岸天然氣定價的敞口。儘管我們本質上並未向這些出口設施出售產品，但我們確實從中受益——我們確實從墨西哥灣沿岸指數基差帶來的定價中受益。所以現在，我們經營所有這些資產。 100% 的生產屬於我們。而我們——它使我們的天然氣行銷活動規模更大。

So all in all, very, very strategic acquisition. 82% natural gas. All the assets in East Texas in Louisiana are natural gas assets with some natural gas liquids or -- so they go along with them. The Capstone asset in Oklahoma now belongs back to us at 100%, which gives us some flexibility on the ABS that we did with Oaktree back in 2022 to extract additional equity value and liquidity out of it at a point in time in the future. So all in all, a very strategic acquisition.

總而言之，這是非常非常具有戰略意義的收購。 82% 天然氣。路易斯安那州東德克薩斯州的所有資產都是天然氣資產和一些天然氣液體——所以它們也隨之而來。俄克拉荷馬州的Capstone 資產現在100% 歸我們所有，這為我們在2022 年與橡樹資本合作的ABS 上提供了一定的靈活性，以便在未來某個時間點從中提取額外的股權價值和流動性。總而言之，這是一次非常具有戰略意義的收購。

If you move to page 20, you can see how this benefits us. 2% reduction in our unit costs. $15 million in cost efficiencies that we see across the portfolio with no G&A addition required. And we increased our '23 reported margins to 54% from 52%. We see a significant amount of Smarter Asset Management opportunities that we can now take advantage of because we own 100% of the asset, and we can reinvest in a way that's meaningful for the future.

如果您翻到第 20 頁，您就會看到這對我們有何好處。我們的單位成本降低了 2%。我們在整個產品組合中看到了 1,500 萬美元的成本效率，且無需增加一般管理費用。我們將 23 年報告的利潤率從 52% 提高到了 54%。我們看到了大量的智慧資產管理機會，我們現在可以利用這些機會，因為我們擁有 100% 的資產，並且我們可以以對未來有意義的方式進行再投資。

And then, the system integration is next to zero risk. We essentially will do nothing more than flip the working interest in our accounting system from Oaktree to Diversified. That's essentially the only systems integrations that need to take place here. So it's a very simple operating procedure to get these assets removed from Oaktree and put back on to Diversified as working interest.

然後，系統整合幾乎為零風險。我們基本上只會將會計系統的工作興趣從橡樹資本轉向多元化。這本質上是這裡需要進行的唯一系統整合。因此，將這些資產從橡樹資本中移除並作為工作權益放回多元化投資是一個非常簡單的操作程序。

On page 21, this is a very important factor. We, as part of this transaction, we're ovating their 20 -- Oaktree's 2024 hedges that they have on their portfolio for their assets that they owned, for their working interest at $3.89, which represents almost 100% of the gas production in East Texas and Louisiana. That's a significant uplift for us in our company. It represents approximately $60 million to $70 million of value in 2024. It will increase our average floor price.

在第21頁，這是一個非常重要的因素。作為本次交易的一部分，我們對橡樹資本 2024 年的對沖表示歡迎，他們在其投資組合中對其擁有的資產進行了對沖，其工作權益為 3.89 美元，這幾乎佔東部地區天然氣產量的 100%德克薩斯州和路易斯安那州。這對我們公司來說是一個重大的提升。到 2024 年，其價值約為 6,000 萬至 7,000 萬美元。這將提高我們的平均底價。

As you know, 25% from the $3.09, provided the $0.10 uplift to our pro forma average price for 2024. And more importantly, there's no hedges on in '25 and '26, which gives us some optionality. I truly believe that '25 and '26, that the price of natural gas will rebound pretty strongly as the uncertainty around the natural gas export facilities take place and the prices will respond to that. And so, what that does, it gives us some optionality. We will hedge some of that '25 and '26 exposure, but we will definitely leave some upside to leg into as the prices, we believe, come rebound next year.

如您所知，在 3.09 美元的基礎上上漲 25%，使我們 2024 年預計平均價格上漲 0.10 美元。更重要的是，25 年和 26 年沒有對沖，這給了我們一些選擇。我確實相信，隨著天然氣出口設施的不確定性的出現，天然氣價格將在 25 和 26 日強勁反彈，並且價格將對此做出反應。因此，它的作用是給我們一些選擇。我們將對沖部分'25和'26風險，但我們肯定會留下一些上行空間，因為我們相信明年價格會反彈。

And then, just derisk our acquisition multiple by having these hedge, the hedge book that we're bringing in from an ovated perspective from their working interest percentage. So all in all, this money in the money hedged is highly accretive to our asset acquisition.

然後，透過這些對沖來降低我們的收購倍數風險，我們從他們的工作利率百分比的角度引入了對沖帳簿。總而言之，這些對沖資金對我們的資產收購有很大的增值作用。

And as we move to page 22, I spoke about this a minute ago. But the increased exposure to premium Gulf Coast pricing, I do believe that the price of natural gas in the US is going to be highly fragmented between basins. In this basin, the Gulf Coast is going to have the best -- or have the ability to have the best pricing because of its exposure to these natural gas export facilities.

當我們翻到第 22 頁時，我剛才談到了這一點。但隨著墨西哥灣沿岸溢價定價的增加，我確實相信美國天然氣價格在盆地之間將高度分散。在這個盆地中，墨西哥灣沿岸將擁有最好的天然氣出口設施，或有能力獲得最好的定價。

You can see of the map there, the ones that already do exist, and then, the ones that are coming online in the next year, 1.5 year. By the end of '26, we could see 20% to 25% of our current US production being exported which is significant, and I believe will underpin the gas price for a long term, long time into the future.

你可以在那裡看到地圖，那些已經存在的地圖，然後，那些將在明年（1.5 年）上線的地圖。到 26 年底，我們可能會看到美國當前產量的 20% 至 25% 用於出口，這一數字非常重要，我相信這將在未來很長一段時間內支撐天然氣價格。

We have all the takeaway we need. We're currently working on different -- some different operational projects within the region to get more gas behind our own facility, operating facility down there that will give us higher natural gas liquids exposure and increase the exposure or the amount of natural gas liquids we're producing off of these assets. But all in all, you can see that this is going to have a big impact, gives us a lot more exposure to the natural gas liquid export facilities, and gives us a chance to leg into some much higher prices over the long haul.

我們有我們需要的所有外賣。我們目前正在該地區進行一些不同的營運項目，以便在我們自己的設施後面獲得更多的天然氣，那裡的營運設施將使我們接觸到更高的天然氣液體，並增加我們接觸的天然氣液體的數量。正在利用這些資產進行生產。但總而言之，您可以看到這將產生巨大影響，使我們有更多機會接觸天然氣液體出口設施，並讓我們有機會在長期內獲得更高的價格。

And then, on page 23, I want to bring note and bring some light to this. We've seen a significant amount of merger, I called merger mania, in the US over the last 6 to 12 months. I don't think this is by accident. We're seeing a lot of interest levels in the institutional investors calling for fewer companies, bigger companies with bigger balance sheets, more stronger balance sheets, and more drilling inventory and such. And really, I believe, is going to expand in go today, each company having a more -- being more exposed to different basins than just the one that they're currently in.

然後，在第 23 頁，我想對此進行說明並提供一些說明。過去 6 到 12 個月，我們在美國看到了大量的合併，我稱之為合併狂潮。我認為這並非偶然。我們看到機構投資者的興趣程度很高，要求減少公司規模、擴大資產負債表、增強資產負債表和增加鑽探庫存等。事實上，我相信，今天的圍棋將會擴張，每家公司都會更接觸到不同的盆地，而不僅僅是他們目前所在的盆地。

This is taking place as we speak. You can see some of these public-to-public transactions that have occurred. Not all have closed yet, but they've all been announced. We've seen some private to public transactions occur over the last several months. These are $215 billion in corporate transactions over the last 12 months. $16 billion of those have been natural gas weighted deals.

就在我們說話的時候，這一切正在發生。您可以看到其中一些已發生的公共對公共交易。尚未全部關閉，但已全部宣布。我們看到過去幾個月發生了一些私人到公共的交易。過去 12 個月的企業交易額達 2,150 億美元。其中 160 億美元是天然氣加權交易。

I do believe that the natural gas companies will continue to merge over the next several months. And we know there's a backlog of mergers out there that will be coming to light over the next several months. And we will look to that as a thing, a couple of positives, which I'll talk about.

我確實相信天然氣公司將在未來幾個月繼續合併。我們知道，合併積壓的情況將在未來幾個月內曝光。我們會將其視為一件事，一些積極的方面，我將對此進行討論。

One of the things that's really interesting is if you look on here that if you look at our sector, the E&P sector, the UK year to date, approximately down 19%, the US is up 3%. There's a dislocation between the two markets in terms of value being attributed to public E&Ps. It's a very important factor that as we get more and more exposure to US institutional investors, that we will see that hopefully trickle back towards where the US peers have been from a year-to-date perspective.

真正有趣的事情之一是，如果你看看這裡，如果你看看我們的行業，勘探與生產行業，英國年初至今大約下降了 19%，美國則上漲了 3%。就公共勘探與生產的價值而言，兩個市場之間存在錯位。這是一個非常重要的因素，隨著我們越來越多地接觸美國機構投資者，我們將看到，從今年迄今的角度來看，我們有望回到美國同行的水平。

This historic consolidation, we haven't seen this consolidation in our industry since 1990s. What I really liked about it is is that the big companies combined the amount of divestitures that is going to be required by the FTC to close these deals is going to be significant. And I've said it to the degree that there will be large companies generated and built off these divestment of assets of these big corporate mergers, which leaves us in a very good position as we move forward, to be in more in line for these assets. And we'll talk about this in a minute, we talk about 2024.

這是歷史性的整合，自 20 世紀 90 年代以來，我們的產業從未見過這種整合。我真正喜歡的是，大公司將聯邦貿易委員會要求完成這些交易的資產剝離數量加起來將是巨大的。我已經說過，在這些大公司合併的資產剝離的基礎上，將會產生和建立大公司，這使我們在前進時處於非常有利的位置，能夠更加符合這些要求。資產。我們稍後會討論這個，我們會討論 2024 年。

A lot of it will be generated through institutional investors requiring it. But I truly believe that the market is calling for this because the fewer companies, capital availability will be harder and harder to come by as time goes by and being larger, bigger balance sheets with access to capital markets is extremely important. So we'll continue to see this. And I wouldn't rule out Diversified being involved in something like this in the future as we go forward, looking for merger partners that can grow and scale this up over a period of time.

其中很大一部分將透過需要它的機構投資者產生。但我確實相信市場正在呼籲這樣做，因為隨著時間的推移，公司越少，獲得資金的難度就會越來越大，而資產負債表規模越來越大，能夠進入資本市場是極其重要的。所以我們將繼續看到這一點。我不排除 Diversified 在未來參與類似的事情，因為我們正在尋找能夠在一段時間內發展和擴大規模的合併合作夥伴。

With that, let's let's turn to 24 and talk about '24 and some of the highlights that we put in our RNS this morning, and I'll start here on page 25. We see this 2024 being a renewed on our business model and our strategic plans that we laid out over the last seven years. We want to get back to free cash flow generation through unlocking hidden asset value in the portfolio, in the assets that we've acquired, enhancing production, enhancing our revenue using our hedging -- hedged book and our hedge strategies, and growing through an accretive growth and driving scale to the operation, which again has impacts on our margins, or lower your cost across the portfolio.

接下來，讓我們轉向 24 日，討論 24 日以及我們今天早上在 RNS 中發布的一些亮點，我將從第 25 頁開始。我們認為 2024 年是我們過去七年制定的商業模式和策略計畫的更新。我們希望透過釋放投資組合中隱藏的資產價值、我們所收購的資產中的隱藏資產價值、提高生產、利用我們的對沖——對沖帳簿和對沖策略來增加我們的收入，以及透過增值成長並推動營運規模，這再次對我們的利潤產生影響，或降低整個投資組合的成本。

Maintaining financial operational flexibility. We've been very successful in finding ways to access capital outside the normal needs, which is typically in this industry as RBLs and high yield. We've been able to find other ways to do that, whether it be through value-creating asset sales or through the ABS transactions and the amortizing debt. These have been ways that we've been able to be successful in finding capital to grow and to run our business.

維持財務營運靈活性。我們非常成功地找到了獲取正常需求以外的資本的方法，這在這個行業中通常是 RBL 和高收益。我們已經能夠找到其他方法來做到這一點，無論是透過創造價值的資產出售還是透過資產支持證券交易和攤銷債務。這些都是我們能夠成功找到資本來發展和經營我們的業務的方法。

Also, we have a -- we're going into '24 with a heavy, heavy cost optimization plan. And being able to continue to drive down cost in a very low price environment and vertically integrated business. And I think, what Brad said earlier about, technology is a big part of that. We need technology to be driven further into the operational base and finding ways to use it to our advantage to lower costs. We'll continue to do that.

此外，我們還有一個——我們將在 24 年制定一個非常非常大的成本優化計劃。並能夠在極低的價格環境和垂直整合的業務中繼續降低成本。我認為，正如布拉德之前所說，技術是其中的重要組成部分。我們需要將技術進一步推向營運基地，並找到利用它來降低成本的方法。我們將繼續這樣做。

And then, our sustainability and the innovation that we've deployed there, we are best in class. We'll continue to invest and find ways to not only to identify, but also to reduce and mitigate emissions over the long haul. We call it our Focus Five. This is where we're setting our business up for the future. And from this point forward, these things will be the focus of our business, and they will be part of our everyday plans, discussions, and operations.

然後，我們在那裡部署的可持續性和創新，是同類中最好的。我們將繼續投資並尋找方法，不僅可以識別排放，而且可以長期減少和減輕排放。我們稱之為「焦點五」。這是我們為未來奠定業務基礎的地方。從現在開始，這些事情將成為我們業務的重點，它們將成為我們日常計劃、討論和營運的一部分。

Flipping to page 26, talking about our capital allocation framework. Obviously, we talked about it on a slide at the beginning. The last seven years, we've paid close to $800 million back to our shareholders. This is significant. We've done a fabulous job of creating a very resilient business that we've been able to increase cash margins, drive cost synergies, increased cash flows, and we've rewarded our shareholders with that. One of the things that we decided as we look at our Focus Five, and as we sit here today, we want to be able to be a -- and the dividend has been a way that we return capital to our shareholders over that period of time.

翻到第26頁，談論我們的資本配置架構。顯然，我們一開始就在幻燈片上討論過它。過去七年，我們已向股東支付了近 8 億美元。這很重要。我們在創造一個非常有彈性的業務方面做得非常出色，我們能夠增加現金利潤，推動成本協同效應，增加現金流，並以此回報我們的股東。我們在研究焦點五時決定的一件事是，當我們今天坐在這裡時，我們希望能夠成為——而股息是我們在此期間向股東返還資本的一種方式。時間。

The reallocation or the recalibration of our dividend that we announced this morning was for a purpose other than just reducing the dollar payouts of that dividend. It was really to be more holistic in the way that we look at our business and the way that we reward our shareholders. And we know as we move forward with new US institutional investors, and -- but also, even with our UK investors who we've been extremely grateful for and continue to hold in high esteem, we want to be able to be a more holistic approach to this shareholder allocation framework.

我們今天早上宣布的股息的重新分配或重新調整的目的不僅僅是減少股息的美元支付。我們真正要更全面地看待我們的業務以及獎勵股東的方式。我們知道，隨著我們與新的美國機構投資者一起前進，而且，即使是我們一直非常感激並繼續高度尊重的英國投資者，我們也希望能夠成為一個更全面的人股東分配框架的方法。

We want to be able to reduce debt. I think it's extremely important. We've seen very low price environment. We need to be focus on the balance sheet and continuing to reduce the overall levels of debt on the balance sheet. And as we do that, increase NAV value, which is equity appreciation for our shareholders.

我們希望能夠減少債務。我認為這非常重要。我們看到了非常低的價格環境。我們需要專注於資產負債表，繼續降低資產負債表上的整體債務水準。當我們這樣做時，就會增加資產淨值，也就是股東的股權增值。

And so, we'll continue. We'll reallocate some of that cash for that. We want to pay a meaningful but sustainable dividend. We announced this morning that the dividend where it's been set at is sustainable for at least the next three years if we do nothing else in the business. It doesn't mean we can't grow that over a period of time, if we grow the business pretty substantially. But where we are today will be sustainable for at least, the next three years.

因此，我們將繼續。我們將為此重新分配部分現金。我們希望支付有意義且可持續的股息。今天早上我們宣布，如果我們在業務中不做任何其他事情，那麼所設定的股息至少在未來三年內是可持續的。如果我們的業務大幅成長，這並不意味著我們不能在一段時間內實現成長。但至少在未來三年內，我們今天的處境將可持續。

Somebody asked me, well, what about years four and five? We really focused on the next three years. That's how we focus our business. That's how we forecast our business and what can happen in three years. But that is a sustainable dividend that is achievable for at least the next three years with the business where it's at.

有人問我，那麼，第四年和第五年呢？我們確實專注於未來三年。這就是我們如何專注於我們的業務。這就是我們預測我們的業務以及三年後會發生什麼的方式。但這是可持續的股息，至少在未來三年內就其業務狀況而言是可以實現的。

We want to be able to reallocate cash and be more strategic in the way that we repurchase shares. You probably will see us put some type of share repurchase plan in place. That will be just what I would call, on the shelf, will give our share repurchase program over to our brokers, allow them within certain guidelines to buy shares on a daily basis and keep us out of restricted period. That here's the guidelines, here's the framework. Go buy as long as it falls within that, and you'll see us to redeploy cash into that over the next several months.

我們希望能夠重新分配現金，並在回購股票的方式上更具策略性。您可能會看到我們制定某種類型的股票回購計劃。這就是我所說的擱置，將把我們的股票回購計劃交給我們的經紀人，允許他們在一定的指導方針內每天購買股票，並使我們擺脫限制期。這是指導方針，這是框架。只要它在這個範圍內，你就可以購買，你會看到我們在接下來的幾個月內重新部署現金。

And then, fourth. The one thing that has gotten lost over the last three, four years, I believe, and just the way that we create value for our shareholders. We've got to grow the business, and we've got to be able to redeploy cash, we've got to be able to cover our decline rates, we've got to be able to grow our production and our revenues to be able to be successful long term. And so, we're going to be able to do that now and have excess cash to assist in that methodology.

然後，第四。我相信，在過去的三、四年裡，我們失去了一件事，那就是我們為股東創造價值的方式。我們必須發展業務，我們必須能夠重新部署現金，我們必須能夠彌補我們的下降率，我們必須能夠增加我們的產量和收入能夠長期成功。因此，我們現在就能夠做到這一點，並有多餘的現金來協助該方法。

In fact, the deal that we announced today, the Oaktree deal, a lot of that purchase price will be be able to be funded through what we're saving on the dividend over the next 18 months. So just gives you an idea of how we're going to redeploy cash. And you can see down below, we're still going to be in a very, very strong quartile as it relates to our peers, but also in our US peers. We'll be at the top of our US peer group in terms of dividend yield at current price.

事實上，我們今天宣布的橡樹交易交易中，大部分收購價格將能夠透過我們在未來 18 個月內節省的股息來支付。只是讓您了解我們將如何重新部署現金。您可以在下面看到，我們仍然處於非常非常強勁的四分位數，因為它與我們的同行相關，並且與我們的美國同行相關。以當前價格計算，我們的股息殖利率將在美國同業中名列前茅。

So turning to page 27. I'll just -- I'll end with this, and then, we'll open it up for some questions. Our 2024 action plan. We will reduce debt. Now that the acquisition will entail utilizing some of the purchase price will be through a leverage. Obviously, we'll take back the ABS structure from Oaktree, which will add about $120 million, along with the deferred payment of $90 million. We'll put us -- that would be -- but not a lot of that $90 million will be paid off using the free cash flow that we're generating from the recalibration of the dividend. So we will reduce our overall borrowings by $200 million this year and continue to decrease our overall leverage.

所以翻到第27頁。我會——我會以此結束，然後，我們將開放它來回答一些問題。我們的 2024 年行動計畫。我們將減少債務。現在，收購將需要透過槓桿來利用部分收購價格。顯然，我們將從橡樹資本手中收回 ABS 結構，這將增加約 1.2 億美元，以及 9,000 萬美元的延期付款。我們將——這將是——但9000萬美元中的大部分將不會使用我們透過股息重新調整產生的自由現金流來支付。因此，我們今年將減少整體藉款 2 億美元，並繼續降低整體槓桿率。

Our fixed dividend which we've set this morning is sustainable over the next two or three years. We want our investors to know that. We also want them to know that the dividend yield is in the top quartile, not in the UK, but it will be above in the US, our existing US peers.

我們今天早上設定的固定股息在未來兩三年內是可持續的。我們希望我們的投資者知道這一點。我們也希望他們知道，股息殖利率位於前四分之一，不是在英國，而是在美國，我們現有的美國同業之上。

The strategic share repurchases, it gives us the ability. We will conduct strategic and regimented buybacks instead of buying on days or tender offers. And we're just going to set a strategy and it's going to be deployed on a daily basis from here until going on in the future. And we'll just continue to buy back shares until the value of the shares doesn't make sense to buy anymore. So that will be started as soon as we're able to start buying back shares again.

策略性股份回購，給了我們能力。我們將進行策略性、有組織的回購，而不是按天購買或要約收購。我們將製定一個策略，從現在開始直到將來每天都會部署該策略。我們將繼續回購股票，直到股票的價值不再具有購買意義。因此，一旦我們能夠再次開始回購股票，就會立即開始。

And then, lastly, this Oaktree acquisition was a big opportunity but it's also a big strategic move for us in 2024. We will continue to see that benefit our numbers and our cash flows throughout the year and into '25. But we'll continue to be very, I would say picky, but where we're going to be watching for acquisitions and trying to be strategic in the way we look at them on a going forward basis. And increasing the scale and access to premium-priced markets.

最後，收購橡樹資本是一個巨大的機遇，也是我們 2024 年的重大策略舉措。我們將繼續看到這有利於我們全年的數位和現金流，直至 25 年。但我想說，我們將繼續非常挑剔，但我們將密切關注收購，並努力以策略性的方式看待未來的收購。並擴大規模並擴大進入高價市場的機會。

So that's our '24 action plan. We will pay down debt. We will pay our fixed dividend for the next three years at this level, regardless of we don't even acquire another asset. We will be strategic and regimented in when we buy that shares. And we'll continue to be active on the acquisition front if they make sense.

這就是我們的 24 小時行動計畫。我們將償還債務。無論我們甚至不收購其他資產，我們都將以此水準支付未來三年的固定股息。當我們購買這些股票時，我們將採取策略性和嚴格的控制。如果收購有意義，我們將繼續積極參與收購。

So with that, I will stop and I will turn it over for questions.

因此，我會停下來，將其轉過來以供提問。

Yes, operator, if you could open the lines up for Q&A, please.

是的，接線員，請打開問答隊列。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) David Round, Stifel.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，我們現在將進行問答環節。（操作員說明）David Round，Stifel。

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the call, and thanks for the detail you provided so far. Can I just ask a follow up on the acquisition? Are you able to talk about payback at all, because multiple will give us a good steer, but I'd be interested in the point at which you'll be generating incremental cash from this deal, please?

謝謝。早上好傢伙。感謝您的來電，也感謝您迄今為止提供的詳細資訊。我可以詢問收購的後續情況嗎？您能談談投資回報嗎，因為倍數會給我們一個很好的指導，但我對您將從這筆交易中產生增量現金的時間點感興趣，好嗎？

Yeah, David, this is Brad. Thanks for the question. As Rusty indicated, we've shown a 3.1 multiple on a cash basis. The assets generate a sub four payback period. So again, for all the strategic requirement -- or probably, strategic elements of the transaction, the financial ones are equally as compelling.

是的，大衛，這是布萊德。謝謝你的提問。正如 Rusty 所指出的，我們的現金倍數為 3.1。這些資產的投資回收期不到四年。因此，對於所有策略要求——或者可能是交易的策略要素，財務要素同樣具有吸引力。

Okay. Great. And the follow up, just a separate -- except for area. I mean, I know a lot of shareholders have been asking you, particularly Rusty, to reallocate cash from the dividend for a while. I mean, whether that was to buyback the debt reduction or even to M&A. I mean, I think you alluded to the freedom that this is going to give you on the capital allocation slide. I'm just interested, how much was the previous situation just distracting you from concentrating on value creation?

好的。偉大的。接下來，只是一個單獨的——除了區域。我的意思是，我知道很多股東，尤其是拉斯蒂，一段時間以來一直要求您重新分配股息中的現金。我的意思是，無論是回購、減債或併購。我的意思是，我認為您提到了這將在資本配置幻燈片上為您帶來的自由。我只是感興趣，之前的情況在多大程度上分散了您專注於價值創造的注意力？

Well, a dividend recalibration is never a situation that you want to really think about. But at the same time, as we started looking out over the course of the next 12 months and forward, it was apparent that the share price wasn't going to respond appropriately to price the dividend in the shares. And so, if it's not pricing, it's been, for us, we need to create that. We need to create value to get the share price where we believe it needs to be, because it's not reflective of the true value of the company right now.

嗯，股息重新調整從來都不是你想要真正考慮的情況。但同時，當我們開始展望未來 12 個月及未來時，很明顯，股價不會對股票股利的定價做出適當的反應。因此，如果不是定價，那麼對我們來說，我們需要創造定價。我們需要創造價值，以使股價達到我們認為需要的水平，因為它目前並不能反映公司的真實價值。

And so, we want to be able to -- on the back end of this, we're going to go into the US markets, the institutional investors in US and we're going to hit them hard over the next several months. We believe that getting this behind us in terms of the -- it was the -- it was essentially impossible to get a meeting set up until we got this dividend yield in place where it made sense.

因此，我們希望能夠——在此基礎上，我們將進入美國市場，進入美國的機構投資者，我們將在接下來的幾個月裡對他們進行嚴厲打擊。我們相信，在我們獲得合理的股息收益率之前，基本上不可能召開會議。

I mean, people in the US will look at it and say, you got a 30% dividend yield, why would we talk to you? But now, number one, we've got a recalibrated dividend that's not only affordable, but also sustainable over a period of time. Just gives us entry into the US markets now where we can go in market, be confident in what we're doing, but also be able to sell this Oaktree acquisition. Because I'm telling you, people aren't giving it enough attention, but it's a substantial accretive value to our company.

我的意思是，美國人會看著它說，你有 30% 的股息殖利率，為什麼我們要跟你說話？但現在，第一，我們已經重新調整了股息，不僅可以承受，而且在一段時間內可持續。現在讓我們進入美國市場，我們可以進入市場，對我們正在做的事情充滿信心，而且還能夠出售橡樹資本的收購。因為我告訴你，人們沒有給它足夠的關注，但它對我們公司來說是一個巨大的增值價值。

And it was extremely important to me. It's been extremely important to me since the day we bought -- that we entered the agreement. I knew it was an inventory of assets for us to acquire back. So yeah. The distractions over. We've we've done extremely well for our shareholders and which I'm a big one. So when you're a big shareholder like I am, none of these decisions are easy, but there's a right move. They take put our company in a position to be on the offensive going forward and being able to buy back shares and really do things that we probably could have done previously.

這對我來說非常重要。從我們購買的那一天起，我們簽訂協議對我來說就非常重要。我知道這是我們要收回的資產清單。嗯是的。幹擾結束了。我們為股東做得非常好，我對此非常重視。因此，當你像我一樣是大股東時，這些決定都不容易，但有一個正確的舉動。他們使我們的公司處於向前進攻的位置，能夠回購股票並真正做我們以前可能可以做的事情。

So I think it's -- this is -- when we look back a year from now, I think we'll see a lot of potential upsize -- upside that we didn't have coming into this his presentation. So I'm pleased. I think we're going to see a big opportunity set going forward, gives us have more flexibility around acquisitions and the ability to take advantage of that. But more importantly, buying back shares and doing other things other than just paying straight dividends, I think is a big big plus for us moving forward.

所以我認為，當我們一年後回顧時，我認為我們會看到很多潛在的升級，這是我們在他的演講中沒有看到的。所以我很高興。我認為我們將看到未來的巨大機遇，使我們在收購方面擁有更大的靈活性並有能力利用這一點。但更重要的是，我認為除了直接支付股息之外，回購股票和做其他事情對我們前進來說是一個很大的優勢。

And David, I would just add. With all the discussions that we had at senior management or at the Board level, the results show that the company and our teams were not distracted. I mean, I think that's an important factor that we continue to produce good results, great results in many respects throughout the company. So we addressed it at the appropriate level. We ensured that our business model is sound, and the results show that. So we're real proud of that.

大衛，我想補充一下。透過我們在高階管理層或董事會層面進行的所有討論，結果表明公司和我們的團隊並沒有分心。我的意思是，我認為這是我們在整個公司的許多方面繼續取得良好成果、出色成果的一個重要因素。所以我們在適當的層面上解決了這個問題。我們確保我們的商業模式是健全的，結果也證明了這一點。所以我們對此感到非常自豪。

Right. That's really helpful. Thanks, guys.

正確的。這真的很有幫助。多謝你們。

Sure.

當然。

Matt Cooper, Peel Hunt.

馬特·庫珀，皮爾·亨特。

Thank you very much, and thanks for the presentation. So first question is post the closure of the Oaktree deal, are you able to give a bit more color on how you expect to reallocate the $110 million a year between paying down debt buybacks and M&A? So for example, should we expect this year's buyback quantum to be similar to the one in 2023?

非常感謝，也感謝您的介紹。因此，第一個問題是橡樹資本交易結束後，您能否詳細說明您預計如何在償還債務回購和併購之間重新分配每年 1.1 億美元的資金？例如，我們是否應該預期今年的回購金額與 2023 年相似？

Yes. So obviously, with $110 million of reallocation, I think it's going to be -- we have a multitude of options there. As I said, I think we'll probably set some regimented share repurchase program in place. We have a, I think, about a 10-day period of time here under SEC rules where we're locked out. But as soon as that opens back up, you'll probably just see us set a regimented program in place. And that could, for the full year, could be anywhere from 3% to 10% of the total shares. I mean, eliminating less than 3%, let's just say that.

是的。顯然，有了 1.1 億美元的重新分配，我認為我們將有多種選擇。正如我所說，我認為我們可能會制定一些嚴格的股票回購計劃。我認為，根據 SEC 的規定，我們有大約 10 天的時間被鎖定。但一旦恢復開放，您可能會看到我們制定了嚴格的計劃。全年而言，該比例可能佔總股本的 3% 至 10%。我的意思是，消除了不到 3%，這麼說吧。

Now, it will be set based on the parameters. And if those parameters are exceeded, then we will buy back shares. I'm not a big proponent of buying back shares just to be buying that back. But in what the intrinsic value of our shares are undervalued, and I think it's a good use of cash. So I would say anywhere from 3% to 10% would be a regimented program. That won't be tender offers and this thing, and I'll tell you why.

現在，將根據參數進行設定。如果超過這些參數，我們將回購股票。我並不熱衷於為了回購股票而回購股票。但鑑於我們股票的內在價值被低估，我認為這是對現金的一個很好的利用。所以我想說 3% 到 10% 之間的任何地方都將是嚴格的計劃。那不會是要約收購之類的事情，我會告訴你原因。

I don't have any problem with tender offers, but the problem with it is it's costly. And if I'm going to spend $1 million, $1.5 million to do a tender, I rather use that $1 million, $1.5 million to buy back our shares. And so, the programs -- these tender offer programs are just extremely expensive because of the work that you have to do, attorneys and advisers and those things to get it all set up. So I would say somewhere between 3% and 10% of the shares along with our fix and sustainable dividend, and then, we'll continue to pay down debt.

我對投標報價沒有任何問題，但問題是它的成本很高。如果我要花 100 萬、150 萬美元招標，我寧願用這 100 萬、150 萬美元回購我們的股票。因此，這些計劃——這些要約收購計劃非常昂貴，因為你必須做的工作、律師和顧問以及所有準備工作的那些事情。所以我想說 3% 到 10% 之間的股份以及我們的固定和可持續股息，然後，我們將繼續償還債務。

We've set a goal of $200 million quantum of the debt for the year. Depending on where the share price is where we -- the program comes in as it relates to share repurchases, we may go -- we may do more than that. We may see a period of time here where it looks like selling through a structure like we did previously. It makes sense, and we may even do more if the prices -- I've said it all along. If I could sell the whole company at six times, I would. So it's not a situation where that's a bit -- to us, that is just a great asset sale where you could sell something for six times. So all of those things are really playing into my mind, but that $100 million will be focused on shareholder return.

我們設定的今年債務目標為 2 億美元。根據股價的情況，我們可能會採取與股票回購相關的計劃，我們可能會做更多的事情。我們可能會在這裡看到一段時間，看起來像是透過像我們之前那樣的結構進行銷售。這是有道理的，如果價格——我一直在說——我們甚至可能會做得更多。如果我能以六倍的價格出售整個公司，我會的。因此，對我們來說，這只是一個偉大的資產出售，你可以將某些東西出售六次。所以所有這些事情都在我的腦海中浮現，但這 1 億美元將集中在股東回報上。

Got you. That makes sense. Thank you. And then, I just wondered if you could give an update on the current state of the US M&A market in terms of the number and quality of opportunities? And also, actually, does the Oaktree acquisition also come with some undeveloped reserves?

明白你了。這就說得通了。謝謝。然後，我想知道您能否從機會的數量和品質方面介紹一下美國併購市場的最新狀況？而且，實際上，橡樹資本的收購是否也帶來了一些未開發的儲量？

Yeah. Well, let me answer that segment first. Yes, we have undeveloped reserves already. Obviously, we own 51% of it prior to this acquisition. So we will see opportunities to do one of two things. If prices rebound, and when I say rebound, it's probably above $3.50. There are opportunities for us in that acreage position to leg into some upside. Okay. Whether it be through JVs, drilling ventures, whatever we have the ability to. And anything we add along that Gulf Coast is a benefit, okay? It's going to be a benefit as we move forward.

是的。好吧，讓我先回答這個部分。是的，我們已經有未開發的儲備。顯然，在這次收購之前我們擁有它 51% 的股份。因此，我們將看到做兩件事之一的機會。如果價格反彈，當我說反彈時，它可能會高於 3.50 美元。在這個面積位置上，我們有機會獲得一些上行空間。好的。無論是透過合資企業、鑽探企業，或是我們有能力的任何方式。我們在墨西哥灣沿岸添加的任何東西都是有益的，好嗎？當我們前進時，這將是一個好處。

As relates to the US M&A market, we've seen a -- it seems like most of the M&A has been these public mergers, and I think that will continue throughout the year, as I said before. But it's going to spin off quality asset divestitures. For these guys to close those transactions, the FTC, Federal Trade Commission will make them offload some of their assets that is part of that. Those are not going to be bad assets, they're going to be really nice assets.

就美國併購市場而言，我們已經看到——似乎大部分併購都是公開合併，我認為這種情況將持續一整年，正如我之前所說。但它將剝離優質資產。為了讓這些人完成這些交易，聯邦貿易委員會、聯邦貿易委員會將讓他們出售其中的一些資產。這些不會是壞資產，它們將會是非常好的資產。

And so, I believe recalibration of the dividend and the capital returns was important from the standpoint of being able to align ourselves with the ability to take advantage of that on a going-forward basis. And again, the mergers, the public market mergers is not lost on us, and our ability to grow the company in size and scale quickly to take advantage of a much more robust capital market situation. We're seeing high yield being raised in the US for the first time, probably in the last four or five years at a high level. We're seeing equity being raised, and we're seeing equity being able to be utilized for acquisitions. And I believe that having a larger and much more diverse not only asset base but also investor shareholder base, is going to help us to take advantage of that as we move forward.

因此，我認為，從能夠使我們與未來利用股息和資本回報的能力保持一致的角度來看，重新調整股息和資本回報非常重要。再說一次，我們並沒有忽視合併、公開市場合併，以及我們利用更強勁的資本市場情勢迅速擴大公司規模和規模的能力。我們看到美國首次提高收益率，可能是過去四、五年來的高水準。我們看到股本正在籌集，我們看到股本能夠用於收購。我相信，擁有更大、更多樣化的資產基礎和投資者股東基礎，將有助於我們在前進的過程中充分利用這一點。

That's great. Thank you. I'll hand over.

那太棒了。謝謝。我會交出。

Tim Hurst-Brown, Tennyson Securities.

蒂姆·赫斯特·布朗，丁尼生證券。

Hi, gents. Thanks for the call. Very useful. So I just had a couple of questions, some of which have already been covered. But just on \trading liquidity in the states. So now, I think trading in the states roughly represent 50% of total traded volume. Just wondering on how and when index track as they become involved here in the states? How do you see that playing out?

嗨，先生們。感謝您的來電。很有用。所以我只有幾個問題，其中一些問題已經得到解答。但只是「在各州交易流動性」。所以現在，我認為各州的交易量大約佔總交易量的 50%。只是想知道指數在美國如何以及何時參與？您如何看待這種情況？

Yeah. That's a great question. Let me let me say this, we are surprised how quickly the level of trading picked up in the US versus the UK total share trading, primarily because we didn't issue any equity in the US. I mean, we literally just opened up a structural listing. And then, we've seen a significant amount of activity coming out of the US, buying the shares across the platform.

是的。這是一個很好的問題。讓我這麼說吧，我們對美國的交易水準相對於英國股票交易總額的回升速度如此之快感到驚訝，這主要是因為我們沒有在美國發行任何股票。我的意思是，我們實際上只是打開了一個結構清單。然後，我們看到大量活動來自美國，透過該平台購買股票。

And we are -- we think probably somewhere between 30% and 40% of our existing shares probably are US domicile holders now, both from the buying that's occurred since December, and then the previous ones that we had on the register already. And so, that's been a significant surprise for us. We didn't expect it to be this much volume this quick.

我們認為，我們現有股票中的 30% 到 40% 可能是美國註冊持有人，這既來自 12 月以來的購買，也來自我們之前已經登記在冊的股票。所以，這對我們來說是一個重大的驚喜。我們沒想到它的數量這麼快。

Now, what I would say is is that every June, I believe it is, the Russell 2000 Index rebases itself and would put us in a position. Come June, to enter the Russell 2000, we hit the thresholds very easily. We're fully qualified for it. And all of our indications are that we would be entering that potentially in June.

現在，我想說的是，我相信，每年 6 月，羅素 2000 指數都會重新調整自己的基準，並使我們處於有利位置。到了 6 月，進入 Russell 2000，我們很容易就跨入了門檻。我們完全有資格這樣做。我們所有的跡像都表明我們可能會在六月進入這一階段。

Now, to put that in perspective, Doug can probably give you a better indication, but that's a significant amount of tracker volume. That's a big index in the US with a lot of companies, obviously 2000 companies in it, but a lot of trackers involved in that. Doug, I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that.

現在，從正確的角度來看，道格可能會給你一個更好的指示，但追蹤器的數量很大。這是美國的一個大指數，有很多公司，顯然有 2000 家公司，但也有很多追蹤者參與其中。道格，我不知道你是否想補充什麼。

Yeah. Just two quick points on that. I think one of the aspects that makes it really exciting for us is that one of the contingents that we really think will be a large ultimate investor from the US perspective, is the small- to mid-cap generalist and venture -- investors. So they are going to now have a company that's introduced to their benchmark that gives them energy exposure without a large degree of commodity price risk. And we've already seen a lot of engagement from that investor class.

是的。關於這一點，我只想說兩點。我認為，令我們真正興奮的一個方面是，從美國的角度來看，我們真正認為將成為大型最終投資者的團隊之一是中小型通才和風險投資者。因此，他們現在將有一家公司引入他們的基準，為他們提供能源敞口，而無需承擔很大程度的商品價格風險。我們已經看到投資者階層的大量參與。

The other aspect would be that there are going to be the knock-on effects of ETFs that trade relative to the Russell 2000 and a number of quantitative trading strategies that trade to the Russell 2000. So in terms of the magnitude, it will have a meaningful effect and significantly more index trading than what currently goes on in the London market alone right now.

另一方面是，相對於 Russell 2000 進行交易的 ETF 以及一些基於 Russell 2000 進行交易的量化交易策略將會產生連鎖反應。因此，就規模而言，它將產生有意義的影響，並且指數交易量將比目前倫敦市場的交易量顯著增加。

That's great. Thanks for that. And then, just to follow up on something different. So Rusty, I think you said on the M&A slide that you wouldn't rule out some merger activity in the future. Just wondering what that might look like? What are the ideal characteristics of a merger partner?

那太棒了。感謝那。然後，只是為了跟進一些不同的事情。Rusty，我想您在併購幻燈片上說過，您不會排除未來的一些合併活動。只是想知道那會是什麼樣子？合併夥伴的理想特徵是什麼？

Yeah. I would say that there's nothing really that I can pinpoint at this point in time. I just know that there's a lot of discussions between a lot of different companies going on across this spectrum. And if it -- for us, it would have to meet criteria had to be accretive, it would have to improve our business and improve up -- but more importantly, now, I think this is the most important thing. Our free cash flow profile.

是的。我想說的是，目前我還沒有什麼可以確定的。我只知道很多不同的公司之間在這個領域正在進行很多討論。如果它——對我們來說，它必須滿足必須具有增值性的標準，它必須改善我們的業務並提高——但更重要的是，現在，我認為這是最重要的事情。我們的自由現金流概況。

We want to -- anything we do have to be accretive from a free cash flow profile and distributable cash flow profile. Because everything we do from here on out, we wanted to have the flexibility of spreading that cash across the four main pillars that we talked about in terms of shareholder returns. So I don't have one specific pinpointed, but I can tell you that there's a lot of discussions going on in the market. And if it fits us and it improves our business and is accretive to our shareholders, then we'll look at it.

我們希望——我們所做的任何事情都必須從自由現金流狀況和可分配現金流狀況中獲得增值。因為從現在開始我們所做的一切，我們都希望能夠靈活地將現金分配到我們在股東回報方面談到的四個主要支柱。所以我沒有具體指出，但我可以告訴你，市場上正在進行很多討論。如果它適合我們並且可以改善我們的業務並為我們的股東帶來增值，那麼我們就會考慮它。

And Tim, other benefits from a merger transaction is scale. And with scale comes access to capital, larger pools of capital, different types of capital that, to date, we have not been able to access as easily maybe in some of our larger peers. So that's a big opportunity for us as well, just from gaining scale.

提姆，合併交易的其他好處是規模。隨著規模的擴大，我們可以獲得資本、更大的資本池、不同類型的資本，到目前為止，我們在一些較大的同行中可能無法輕鬆獲得這些資本。因此，這對我們來說也是一個巨大的機會，只要擴大規模即可。

That's great. Thanks, gents.

那太棒了。謝謝，先生們。

Simon Scholes, First Berlin.

西蒙‧斯科爾斯，《第一柏林》。

Yes, good morning. Thanks for the very informative presentation. And thanks for taking my questions. I just got a couple. First of all, I was very interested, Rusty, to hear what you are saying about the prospects for the gas market, particularly, as it relates to LNG exports over the next five or six years or so.

是的，早安。感謝您提供了非常豐富的資訊。感謝您回答我的問題。我剛買了一對。首先，Rusty，我很想聽聽您對天然氣市場前景的看法，特別是因為它與未來五、六年左右的液化天然氣出口有關。

I mean, my understanding is that there isn't really much uncertainty over the next three years because you're talking about projects that have already been financed. It seems to me that most of the uncertainty kicks in around '28, '29. And surely, a lot of that relates to the outcome of the next US election. So interesting to know your comment on that.

我的意思是，我的理解是，未來三年並沒有太大的不確定性，因為你談論的是已經融資的專案。在我看來，大部分的不確定性是在 28 年、29 年左右開始。當然，這很大程度上與下一次美國大選的結果有關。很有趣地知道你對此的評論。

And secondly, I just wondered if you could say something more about the possible structure, possible volume of the potential private placement you were talking about in the press release this morning?

其次，我只是想知道您是否可以更多地談論您今天早上在新聞稿中談到的潛在私募的可能結構和可能數量？

Yeah. Let me talk about the LNGs and the -- natural gas liquids and the LNG export facilities. What I would tell you about that is that currently, the ones that have been approved and that are in process, to your point, are represent about 20%, 25% of the existing production in the US today, which is very strong and which should put a floor under pretty much the prices as we move forward.

是的。讓我談談液化天然氣和天然氣液體以及液化天然氣出口設施。我要告訴你的是，就你的觀點而言，目前已獲得批准和正在處理的產品約占美國現有產量的 20%、25%，這是非常強大的，而且隨著我們的前進，應該為價格設定一個底線。

The ones after that, what I would say is yesterday, there's a thing going on in CERA in Houston. CERAWeek, they call it. The energy secretary under Biden made a comment yesterday that this slowdown in permitting for new export facilities, she made the comment that by this time next year, you should see that gone, and that those should be opened back up. Now, that's her speaking. So I would say this she's probably in to it as anybody.

之後的事情，我想說的是昨天，休士頓的 CERA 發生了一件事。他們稱之為CERAWeek。拜登領導下的能源部長昨天發表評論稱，新出口設施的審批速度放緩，她表示，到明年這個時候，你應該會看到這種情況消失，並且這些設施應該重新開放。現在，這是她的發言。所以我想說，她可能和任何人一樣參與其中。

Runs also on John Podesta, who's probably making the call.

約翰波德斯塔 (John Podesta) 也很可能會打電話。

Correct. And so, I think we'll see that open back up, Simon. And then, the floodgates will open because there's going to be a significant amount of those additional export facilities permitted and moving forward, which again, increases the amount of export capacity further. And I think that -- I don't necessarily believe that the election is going to have much of an impact on that one way or another.

正確的。所以，我想我們會看到這個開放的備份，西蒙。然後，閘門將會打開，因為將有大量額外的出口設施被允許並向前推進，這再次進一步增加了出口能力。我認為，我不一定相信選舉會對這一方面產生很大影響。

Another big positive event that occurred yesterday was is that the Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin made a comment at CERA, that there has been significant bipartisan support, and they've made headway on improving bidding and regulatory bill, which is probably more important than the export moratorium because we need infrastructure in the US to move gas around it and get it to these export facilities. So I think that between that and the bill related to the permitting, the export facilities and the permitting, I think that that is going to have a massive impact on the stability of natural gas prices in the US.

昨天發生的另一個重大積極事件是，來自西維吉尼亞州的參議員喬·曼欽(Joe Manchin)在CERA發表評論說，得到了兩黨的大力支持，他們在改進招標和監管法案方面取得了進展，這可能是更重要的而不是暫停出口，因為我們需要美國的基礎設施來運輸天然氣並將其運送到這些出口設施。因此，我認為，在與許可、出口設施和許可相關的法案之間，我認為這將對美國天然氣價格的穩定產生巨大影響。

As it relates to the private placement, what I would say is that it's an option for us. We've been looking at it for a while. It's liquidity, if we didn't want it, it would be liquidity enhancing. It's been a very active market in the US here in the last year. Lots of opportunity set and a lot of capital providers providing this. It's just an option on the table to us, and that's it. If it was something that we decided to utilize, then we would inform the market of it, and make sure that it's just an option, and along with it, asset sales and other things.

由於它涉及私募，我想說的是，這對我們來說是一個選擇。我們已經研究了一段時間了。這是流動性，如果我們不想要它，它就會增強流動性。去年，美國這裡的市場非常活躍。許多機會集和許多資本提供者提供了這一點。這對我們來說只是一個選擇，僅此而已。如果我們決定使用它，那麼我們會將其告知市場，並確保它只是一種選擇，並伴隨著資產出售和其他事情。

Okay. Thanks very much. That's very helpful.

好的。非常感謝。這非常有幫助。

Noel Parks, Tuohy Brothers.

諾埃爾·帕克斯、圖伊兄弟。

Hello, good morning.

你好早安。

Good morning.

早安.

I just had a couple. I didn't want to turn for a moment to the work you've done, emissions detection and mitigation. And I'd say over maybe a year, 18 months ago, many companies were talking a lot about their efforts, and it feels like that has slacked off. Maybe, consolidation is more of a topic. So I wonder if you could just talk about some of the efforts you've made, where you view yourself as being more rigorous than many of your peers?

我剛喝了幾個。我暫時不想談你們所做的工作：排放檢測和緩解。我想說，也許一年多、18 個月前，許多公司都在談論他們的努力，但感覺已經鬆懈。也許，整合更像是個話題。所以我想知道您是否可以談談您所做的一些努力，您認為自己比許多同齡人更嚴謹？

Yeah. Well, I just say this. There has been -- to my knowledge, there seems to be that there has been a slowdown from a lot of the industry in terms of how they're approaching this on a going-forward basis. What I would tell you is there's no slippage down on our part. We believe that it's the right thing to do. We've always thought since we announced our program and what we're going to do back in 2022, that this is going to be a big part of our business going forward. Honestly, reducing emissions is good business for us. We're selling more gas because of it. So it's not become less of a situation for us.

是的。嗯，我只是說這個。據我所知，許多行業在未來處理這一問題方面似乎都在放緩。我要告訴你的是，我們並沒有出現任何下滑。我們相信這是正確的做法。自從我們宣布我們的計劃以及 2022 年我們將要做的事情以來，我們一直認為這將成為我們未來業務的重要組成部分。老實說，減少排放對我們來說是一筆好生意。因此我們銷售了更多的天然氣。所以這對我們來說並沒有變得不那麼重要。

Brad, go ahead and you want to add something there?

布拉德，繼續，你想在那裡添加一些東西嗎？

Yeah. I mean, it is a comprehensive approach that we're taking. And that comprehensive approach starts in our Board room, and it goes all the way up through our organization. And our employees have really embraced all of the efforts and programs that we've done and it's showing up in our results. So we are -- we're boots on the ground, at the ground level with emission detection devices. And we're really sticking to the philosophy we've had since we've listed the company that back in 2017, and it's very simple. If we find a leak, we repair it.

是的。我的意思是，這是我們正在採取的綜合方法。這種全面的方法從我們的董事會會議室開始，一直延伸到我們的組織。我們的員工確實接受了我們所做的所有努力和計劃，這也反映在我們的成果中。所以我們——我們在地面上，在地面上安裝了排放檢測設備。我們確實堅持了自 2017 年公司上市以來一直秉承的理念，而且非常簡單。如果我們發現洩漏，我們會修復它。

And with a 98% leak-free rate on our wells, we're proud of that. But it's showing that the fact that all the efforts we're doing are producing some very good results. And we're going to continue on that path. We're still committed this year with our pipeline flyover program.

我們的油井無洩漏率高達 98%，我們為此感到自豪。但這表明我們所做的所有努力正在產生一些非常好的結果。我們將繼續沿著這條道路走下去。今年我們仍然致力於我們的管道立交橋計劃。

The other thing I would tell you, too, is as part of our Focus Five, where we talk about sustainability innovation. We're working with some technology partners to deliver solutions. And these technology partners, they all want to work with us. One, because we've got some very good resources and leadership in the space on our team. Two, we've got an awards set of assets that we can work with. And three, we're showing the fact that we're open to and making a tangible investments into that space. So we think that there's going to be a lot of innovation occurring in emissions mitigation, and we're working good right there on the forefront to continue to improve our results.

我還要告訴您的另一件事是我們的焦點五的一部分，我們在其中討論永續發展創新。我們正在與一些技術合作夥伴合作提供解決方案。而這些技術合作夥伴，他們都想跟我們合作。第一，因為我們的團隊在該領域擁有一些非常好的資源和領導力。第二，我們擁有一套可以使用的獎勵資產。第三，我們展示了這樣一個事實，即我們對該領域持開放態度並進行了切實的投資。因此，我們認為在減排方面將會出現許多創新，我們正在最前沿努力工作，繼續改善我們的成果。

Great. Thanks. That's really interesting. And you did mention that you foresaw just more things to do as far as cost optimization heading into next year. And you mentioned that some of that was definitely going to be technology driven. Any other things operationally that you have on your radar for making improvement?

偉大的。謝謝。這真的很有趣。您確實提到，您預計明年將有更多的成本優化工作要做。你提到其中一些肯定是技術驅動的。您還有其他需要改進的操作事項嗎？

Well, we're constantly reviewing the cost in our business. Whether that's field cost through our Smarter Asset Management program, where we're looking to eliminate unnecessary compression, consolidating pipelines, improved route efficiency. And technology is one area that we're looking to do that, and really understanding what well route district profitability is to across all of our different assets.

嗯，我們不斷審查我們業務的成本。無論是透過我們的智慧資產管理計畫實現的現場成本，我們都希望消除不必要的壓縮、整合管道、提高路線效率。科技是我們尋求實現這一目標的領域之一，並真正了解油井路線區域盈利能力對我們所有不同資產的影響。

We've developed some new tools here recently, where we can deploy to our field teams on their phones, on their tablet, on their PCs. And they've got immediate visibility into all the profitability and production characteristics of the businesses that they're operating. I mentioned it earlier, where we got one source of trusted information that we all -- whether it's in my chair, or in a guy on a truck, we're all looking at the same information that allows us to make some good business decisions. So we're constantly looking at field cost optimization, but we're also looking at our G&A costs as well.

我們最近在這裡開發了一些新工具，我們可以將其部署到現場團隊的手機、平板電腦和 PC 上。他們可以立即了解所經營企業的所有獲利能力和生產特徵。我之前提到過，我們獲得了一個值得信賴的資訊來源——無論是在我的椅子上，還是在卡車上的一個人身上，我們都在查看相同的信息，這些信息使我們能夠做出一些良好的業務決策。因此，我們不斷關注現場成本優化，但我們也在關註一般管理費用。

This Oaktree acquisition is going to give us some great cost efficiencies by bringing in a lot of volume, a lot of revenue, and we're adding zero expense or additional costs to our G&A structure. And then, we feel we're continually looking at our G&A structure where we can drop technology in that area as well to make our processes more efficient. So it's a continual project that we have going on. And it's an area that I'm really focused on, bringing a very disciplined and targeted approach to reviewing our cost.

此次收購橡樹資本將帶來大量銷售和收入，從而為我們帶來巨大的成本效率，並且我們將在 G&A 結構中增加零費用或額外成本。然後，我們覺得我們正在不斷關注我們的一般管理費用結構，我們也可以在該領域放棄技術，以使我們的流程更加有效率。所以這是我們正在進行的一個持續的項目。這是我真正關注的一個領域，採用非常嚴格和有針對性的方法來審查我們的成本。

Great. Thanks a lot.

偉大的。多謝。

Sure.

當然。

Alex Smith, Investec.

亞歷克斯史密斯，天達集團。

Yes. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the call. Just a question really on the strategy following the Oaktree deal, and given the current liquidity and the dividend cut and the focus on debt reduction, and just the timing of a $400 million acquisition against that backdrop, or was it more this deal was too good to pass up and there was a timing element there and the focus is now on what Diversified was two or three years ago where you could maybe be a bit aggressive on the M&A front? Just trying to understand that against that backdrop of focusing on debt reduction, but then, leveraging up for a deal. It would be good to hear a bit more color on that, please.

是的。早上好傢伙。感謝您的來電。只是一個關於橡樹交易之後的策略的問題，考慮到當前的流動性、股息削減和對債務削減的關注，以及在這種背景下進行 4 億美元收購的時機，還是這筆交易太好了放棄，那裡有一個時間因素，現在的焦點是兩三年前的多元化，你可能會在併購方面有點激進？只是想在專注於債務削減的背景下理解這一點，然後利用槓桿來達成協議。如果能聽到更多的顏色就好了，拜託。

Yeah. Well, we don't do deals just to be doing them. We don't look for a window to do them. This is a deal that's been out there for several months. We've been working it hard over the last several months. Deals are never easy. They don't just materialize overnight. You have to work them, you have to massage them, you have to be on the calls and really trying to garner leverage and relationship. So this deal has been out there for a while, and I've been talking about for several months. It's not like it's something that just popped up all of a sudden.

是的。嗯，我們做交易不只是為了做交易。我們不會尋找一個視窗來做這些事情。這項交易已經進行了幾個月了。過去幾個月我們一直在努力工作。交易從來都不是一件容易的事。它們不會在一夜之間實現。你必須與他們合作，你必須按摩他們，你必須接聽電話並真正努力獲得影響力和關係。所以這筆交易已經存在一段時間了，我已經討論了幾個月了。這不像是突然冒出來的東西。

The timing of it I think was permanent because obviously, going into 2024, I didn't want gas prices to rocket up late in the year and into next year, then we this asset becomes that much more expensive. And so, this was the prime time to do that. But the recalibration, the dividend, and acquisition have nothing to do with each other. They just happened to happen at the same time, but they have nothing to do with each other. This was something we were going to do regardless because we're trying to set the business up for long-term success and long-term value creation, and this was the time to do it.

我認為這個時機是永久性的，因為顯然，進入 2024 年，我不希望天然氣價格在今年晚些時候和明年飆升，然後我們這項資產就會變得更加昂貴。因此，這是這樣做的黃金時機。但重新調整、股利和收購彼此無關。它們只是碰巧同時發生，但彼此沒有任何關係。無論如何，這是我們要做的事情，因為我們正在努力讓業務長期成功並創造長期價值，而現在正是這樣做的時候。

And so, we're taking our -- the strategy across more shareholder return pillars versus just focusing on one thing all the time, which was dividend. We've now have an opportunity to go into '24 and '25. We know now that we have our production declines covered. We know that we have the ability to be more focused on growth in the business going forward. And we have the ability to buy back shares, if the shares are -- the intrinsic value of the shares is not where it needs to be. We have more options now than we had previously, and this just gives us the ability to go out and be more aggressive on all those fronts.

因此，我們正在採取跨越更多股東回報支柱的策略，而不是一直只專注於一件事，那就是股息。我們現在有機會進入 '24 和 '25。我們現在知道我們已經彌補了產量下降的問題。我們知道我們有能力更加專注於未來業務的成長。如果股票的內在價值沒有達到應有的水平，我們就有能力回購股票。我們現在比以前有更多的選擇，這讓我們有能力走出去，在所有這些方面更加積極。

I'll also add that with our relationships and all the back office administration support that we will provide Oaktree -- do provide to Oaktree, we have good visibility into their hedge book and into how they've protected the cash flows. And they've got, as we've shown, they've got a very attractive hedge price that we're going to be able to benefit from in '24. But also, there, they do not have hedges in place for '25 and '26.

我還要補充一點，憑藉我們的關係以及我們將為橡樹資本提供的所有後台管理支援——確實向橡樹資本提供，我們可以很好地了解他們的對沖賬簿以及他們如何保護現金流。正如我們所展示的，他們擁有非常有吸引力的對沖價格，我們將能夠在 24 年從中受益。而且，在那裡，他們沒有為 25 和 26 設定對沖。

And so, that's a great opportunity for us as the contango in the curve is providing some much stronger prices than what we're seeing here in the back half of '24, that we have the opportunity to leg into higher prices. So for all the strategic elements, we talked about higher volumes, Gulf Coast access, the financial attributes were good as well. And so, those were other reasons that we felt like this was a great opportunity to do this transaction.

因此，這對我們來說是一個很好的機會，因為曲線中的期貨溢價提供了一些比我們在 24 年下半年看到的價格強得多的價格，我們有機會進入更高的價格。因此，對於所有策略要素，我們討論了更高的銷售量、墨西哥灣沿岸的通道以及良好的財務屬性。因此，這些是我們認為這是進行這筆交易的絕佳機會的其他原因。

One other thing, Alex, I would just add to this to maybe put a bow on Brad and Rusty's commentary, is really the fact that as we've demonstrated and as everyone has seen from the results that we posted today, we continue to provide reliable production and consistent in cash flows. And so, when you look at the acquisition that we added to our portfolio today, it was really a win for Diversified at the end of the day, to bring in an acquisition that has the efficiencies that we're going to be able to generate.

另一件事，亞歷克斯，我想補充一點，也許是為了對布拉德和拉斯蒂的評論表示敬意，事實上，正如我們已經證明的那樣，正如每個人從我們今天發布的結果中看到的那樣，我們繼續提供可靠的生產和穩定的現金流。因此，當你看到我們今天添加到我們的投資組合中的收購時，歸根結底，這對多元化來說確實是一次勝利，引入了具有我們將能夠產生的效率的收購。

Got it. Now, very clear. Thank you, guys. Just a quick last one. Just on you mentioned non-core asset sales potentially. Could you highlight a little bit more color on what they could be, or is it still in the early days there?

知道了。現在，非常清楚了。感謝你們。只是最後一張。剛才您提到了可能的非核心資產出售。你能否強調它們可能是什麼，或者它仍處於早期階段嗎？

No. I don't know if I would say noncore. I would just say that if it -- we would potentially look at an asset sale, if it fits the criteria that we saw with the one we did in December, we're selling an asset for way more than we would be able to sell it to a third party operator under an institutional type sale structure where liquidity is significantly enhanced and where the -- we can reinvest it in a much lower rate of return or lower multiple asset when we're acquiring it. So I think that's all I meant.

不。我不知道我是否會說非核心。我只想說，如果它 - 我們可能會考慮資產出售，如果它符合我們在 12 月所做的標準，我們出售資產的價格將遠遠高於我們能夠出售的價格在機構類型的銷售結構下將其出售給第三方運營商，在這種結構中，流動性顯著增強，並且當我們收購它時，我們可以將其再投資於回報率低得多的資產或較低的多重資產。所以我想這就是我的意思。

Okay. Because you could sell at 6x, but reinvest it at free x again, then that's an opportunity for you.

好的。因為您可以以 6 倍價格出售，但再次以免費 x 價格進行再投資，那麼這對您來說就是一個機會。

Absolutely. And look, it wasn't -- the asset sales that we did in December at six times, keep in mind, we were talking to Oaktree about this asset purchase at the same time. So it just wasn't because we sold it just to be selling it, we knew that we had an opportunity here to buy that much smaller multiple than what we're selling these other assets at.

絕對地。看，事實並非如此——我們在 12 月進行了六次資產出售，請記住，我們同時與橡樹資本討論了這筆資產購買。所以這並不是因為我們只是為了出售而出售它，我們知道我們有機會在這裡購買比我們出售其他資產的倍數小得多的倍數。

Got it. Thank you very much.

知道了。非常感謝。

Sure.

當然。

Mark Wilson, Jefferies.

馬克威爾遜，杰弗里斯。

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, gents. I'm looking at your results this morning. You give a very clear three-year set of annual numbers in the press release, and it's quite clear to see EBITDA very constant gain up towards $550 million. Free cash flow, around the $220 million. And leverage, within that target range of 2 to 2.5. And so, an investor looking at that could be, forgive me for saying, but what's changed and led to the reset of the capital allocation?

你好。謝謝。早安，先生們。我今天早上正在看你的結果。您在新聞稿中給出了非常清晰的三年期年度數據，並且很清楚地看到 EBITDA 非常穩定地增長至 5.5 億美元。自由現金流約2.2億美元。槓桿率在 2 至 2.5 的目標範圍內。因此，投資者可能會，請原諒我說，但是發生了什麼變化並導致了資本配置的重置？

If I go back to COVID times, you've seen volatile gas prices before during COVID. You didn't blink with the dividend and that continued. So I'm going to reflect on that and say and ask what has changed? Is it the commodity price? Is it the cost of debt? Is it you speak the $200 million of maturities to pay off? And you speak to maintaining the leverage level, which you actually have maintained. So could you speak to what has changed, please? Thank you.

如果我回到新冠疫情時期，你會發現在新冠疫情期間，汽油價格波動很大。你對股息沒有眨眼，這種情況還在繼續。所以我要反思並詢問發生了什麼變化？是商品價格嗎？這是債務成本嗎？是你說的2億美元到期還清嗎？您談到維持槓桿水平，而您實際上一直維持著槓桿水平。那麼您能談談發生了什麼變化嗎？謝謝。

Well, Mark, I don't think it's what's changed, it's what we plan on doing for the future. Look, we're sitting here today trading at a 30% dividend yield. I can't get institutions to discuss future investments with us because they don't even want to take the calls when you're sitting here at 30%. Obviously, analysts and institutional investors weren't willing to say, look, the dividend obviously is -- that we're getting doesn't need to have a higher share price. And so, it wasn't being factored into the share price. But more importantly for us, I don't even really care about that.

好吧，馬克，我認為這不是改變，而是我們計劃為未來做的事情。看，我們今天坐在這裡，股息殖利率為 30%。我無法讓機構與我們討論未來的投資，因為當你坐在這裡的時候，他們甚至不想接電話 30%。顯然，分析師和機構投資人不願意說，看，我們獲得的股利顯然不需要更高的股價。因此，它沒有被計入股價。但對我們來說更重要的是，我甚至並不真正關心這一點。

At the end of the day, we want the ability to grow the business, Mark, long term. We're paying out a level of cash that was restricting our ability to grow the business on a long-term basis. And this is not a business where you just sit there and run it off, you have to grow it over a period of time or sell it. That's your two options. And so, we -- hey, you can still sell it, but now, we're going to be selling it out in place of strength going forward, having the ability to have options and be able to buyback shares, Mark, when it makes sense. When you're in 30% dividend yield, buying back shares looks pretty dang attractive.

歸根究底，我們希望能夠長期發展業務，馬克。我們支付的現金水準限制了我們長期發展業務的能力。這不是一個你可以坐在那裡經營它的企業，你必須在一段時間內將其發展或出售。這是你的兩個選擇。所以，我們 - 嘿，你仍然可以出售它，但現在，我們將出售它來代替未來的實力，有能力擁有期權並能夠回購股票，馬克，當它發生時說得通。當股息殖利率為 30% 時，回購股票看起來非常有吸引力。

And so, it wasn't anything to do with, can you sustain that or whatever. We could have sustain it. We could have done another year to probably, but we've had sell assets and create liquidity in other ways to do that. But that to me was just not the right way to operate the business. Let's make the decision that it makes the most sense, strengthens the balance sheet, strengthens our cash flows to have options and ways to return capital to shareholders other than just a pure dividend. And I think as we -- especially, if we go into the US and get more and more shareholders in the US, that's going to become very, very important. At 30% dividend yield wasn't giving us an audience with US' institutional investors.

所以，這與你能否維持下去或其他什麼無關。我們本來可以維持它。我們可能還可以再做一年，但我們已經出售資產並以其他方式創造流動性來做到這一點。但對我來說，這並不是經營業務的正確方式。讓我們做出最有意義的決定，加強資產負債表，加強我們的現金流，以便有選擇和方式向股東返還資本，而不僅僅是純粹的股息。我認為，特別是如果我們進入美國並在美國獲得越來越多的股東，這將變得非常非常重要。30% 的股息殖利率並沒有讓我們成為美國機構投資者的聽眾。

Okay, that's clear. Thank you very much. And then, could you give us an update on where we're at, if there indeed is anything to say with the congressional letter situation?

好的，很清楚了。非常感謝。然後，您能否向我們介紹我們目前的最新情況，如果對於國會信件的情況確實有什麼要說的？

Yeah. So the congressional letter, we responded to it back in January. I believe it was first, second week of January. We were very descriptive in what we do. We've had a couple of calls with them. We're actually -- I think, correct me if I'm wrong, we're going to even provide them a lot of the data of the things that we've done. And so, that's become less and less of an issue. And I don't foresee us really having any other type of inquiries.

是的。我們在一月就回覆了國會的信件。我相信那是一月的第一週、第二週。我們對我們所做的事情進行了非常詳細的描述。我們已經與他們通了幾次電話。我們實際上——我想，如果我錯了，請糾正我，我們甚至會向他們提供我們所做的事情的大量數據。因此，這變得越來越不成為問題。我預計我們不會真正進行任何其他類型的詢問。

And let me make this very clear, because people use the wrong wording. There wasn't -- people use the word investigation, inquiry, it was none of that. It was purely a letter asking for information. And there was no -- honestly, we didn't even have to respond. There was no requirement. But we knew we had a positive message, and that we were doing the right things, so heck yeah, we're going to respond. And we're not trying to hide anything, we do all the right things and we had no problem in letting them know the things that we do.

讓我說得非常清楚，因為人們使用了錯誤的措辭。沒有——人們使用「調查」、「詢問」這個詞，但這些都不是。這純粹是一封詢問資訊的信。老實說，我們甚至不需要回應。沒有要求。但我們知道我們傳達了積極的訊息，而且我們正在做正確的事情，所以我們會做出回應。我們不想隱藏任何事情，我們做了所有正確的事情，而且我們毫無問題地讓他們知道我們所做的事情。

Yeah. We really took it as an opportunity to engage with that committee. They've been very appreciative of our approach, and we're appreciative of the education that we provide to them. And so, it's been a positive engagement.

是的。我們確實將其視為與該委員會接觸的機會。他們非常欣賞我們的方法，我們也很欣賞我們為他們提供的教育。因此，這是一次積極的參與。

Yes. Thank you very clear. Thank you.

是的。謝謝你說得很清楚。謝謝。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, I would now hand the conference over to Rusty Hutson, the CEO for his closing comments.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，由於沒有其他問題了，我現在將會議交給執行長 Rusty Hutson 發表總結評論。

Yeah. Thank you all for coming today. I would just like to add on the way out, that we are very proud of the year that we had in 2023. I think it was strong of an operational performance, and really want to just give accolades to our employees that are on the ground every day, operating these assets. They did a tremendous job in a very low-price environment.

是的。謝謝大家今天的到來。我想補充一點，我們對 2023 年的這一年感到非常自豪。我認為這是一項非常出色的營運績效，並且真的想向每天在現場運作這些資產的員工表示讚揚。他們在非常低廉的價格環境中做了出色的工作。

We tell them, don't worry about price as you operate the wells and get the production. We'll worry about how we manage pricing and be able to get the revenues that's necessary using our hedging strategies. They did a fantastic job.

我們告訴他們，在運營油井並獲得產量時，不要擔心價格。我們將擔心如何管理定價並能夠使用我們的對沖策略來獲得必要的收入。他們做得非常出色。

'24 is going to be really, really good year for Diversified. The fact that acquisition has a lot of scale, has a lot of revenue, has a lot of free cash flow. The recalibration gives us a lot of options that would have been more difficult without it. We will buy back shares. We will have a sustainable dividend over the next three years or at least the next three years as we stated. We will pay down debt.

對 Diversified 來說，24 年將會是非常非常好的一年。事實上，收購規模很大，收入很多，自由現金流也很多。重新校準為我們提供了許多選擇，如果沒有它，我們會變得更加困難。我們將回購股票。正如我們所說，我們將在未來三年或至少未來三年內獲得可持續的股息。我們將償還債務。

So we're going to do all of the things that people think that we can't do. We're doing them. We will do them. And I'm very excited about the options in the US. I think that the Russell 2000 indexation that's out there in June will be a big catalyst for the company and the stock. So we appreciate the support of our investors and appreciate your time today on the call.

因此，我們將做人們認為我們做不到的所有事情。我們正在做它們。我們會做的。我對美國的選擇感到非常興奮。我認為 6 月推出的 Russell 2000 指數將成為該公司和股票的重要催化劑。因此，我們感謝投資者的支持，也感謝您今天參加電話會議。

Thank you. The conference of Diversified Energy has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

謝謝。多元化能源會議現已結束。感謝您的參與。現在您可以斷開線路。