先鋒自然資源 (PXD) 2022 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Pioneer Natural Resources Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today will be Scott Sheffield, Chief Executive Officer; Richard Dealy, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Neal Shah, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Pioneer has prepared the presentation slides to settlement comments made today. These slides are available on the Internet at www.pxd.com. Again, the Internet website to access the slide presentation for today's call is www.pxd.com. Navigate to the Investors tab at the top of the web page and then select investor presentations. For information, today's conference is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be archived at www.pxd.com through August 28, 2022.

The company's comments today will include forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements and the business prospects of Pioneer are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future periods to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are described in Pioneer's news release on Page 2 of the slide presentation and in Pioneer's public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At this time, for opening remarks, I'd like to turn the call over to Pioneer's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Neal Shah. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, George. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Pioneer's second quarter earnings call. Today, we will be discussing Pioneer's strong second quarter financial and operating results and our peer-leading return of capital strategy. We will also detail our best-in-class margins and unmatched depth of high-quality inventory along with our leading ESG strategy, which is also detailed in our recently published 2022 sustainability report. We will then open the call for your questions.

With that, I will turn it over to Scott.

Thank you, Neal. Good morning. We'll be starting on Slide 3. Pioneer delivered strong results, generating $2.7 billion in free cash flow in the second quarter. Additionally, this quarter, we increased our base dividend by more than 40%, which is supported by our high-quality assets, deep inventory, peer-leading margins and strong balance sheet. This is the third base dividend increase in the previous 4 quarters and represents a greater than 95% increase to the base dividend over the previous 12 months. This annualized base dividend of $4.40 per share has a yield that exceeds the S&P 500 average at our current share price.

Inclusive of this base increase, the quarter's base plus variable dividend results in a total dividend payout of $8.57 per share to be paid in mid-September. As I have always said, we would aggressively repurchase shares when the market presented opportunity. Consistent with this, we repurchased $750 million since the end of the first quarter, including $500 million during the second quarter, an additional $250 million repurchased in July at an average share price of $2.13.

Since reinitiating stock buybacks in the fourth quarter of last year, we have retired approximately 2.5% of our shares outstanding. Additionally, we recently published our 2022 sustainability report, which highlights our focus and significant progress on ESG initiatives including accelerating our target to in routine clearance to 2025 and joining the oil and gas methane partnership 2.0. Pioneer places a high priority on environmental stewardship and continues to make progress towards our goals.

Going to Slide #4. Pioneer's strong execution continued during the second quarter with total production in the upper half of our guidance range, supporting significant free cash flow generation of $2.7 billion. Our horizontal LOE continues to be low and our strong balance sheet is one of the best in this sector.

Going to Slide #5. We believe that maintaining a strong and growing base dividend is the foundation of our capital return strategy. As I mentioned earlier, we have further strengthened our base dividend with a significant increase of greater than 40% from last quarter. This material increase is underpinned by our balance sheet strength and our durability of our cash flow across commodity price cycles. Inclusive of this increase, our base dividend has grown by an average of 95% annually over the previous 6 years. This increase significantly outpaces both peers and majors over the same period, many of which have cut or suspended their dividend.

Going to Slide #6. Complementing our strong shareholder cash returns through dividends. We continue to repurchase our shares opportunistically. We have executed $1.25 billion since the fourth quarter of 2021, an average share price of $2.18. This represents a reduction of total shares outstanding by approximately 2.5%.

Consistent with our statements to be aggressive during market opportunities, we repurchased an additional $250 million in stock during the market pullback in July at an average share price of $2.13. As evidenced by the repurchase during July, we will continue to utilize 10b5 programs to take advantage of market opportunities. To date, we have utilized 1 quarter of our current $4 billion authorization, leaving $3 billion remaining.

Going to Slide #7. We remain committed to our core investment thesis underpinned by low leverage, strong corporate returns and lower reinvestment rate. This delivers oil production growth of up to 5% annually and generate significant free cash flow. The majority of this free cash flow was returned to shareholders in the form of base plus variable dividends. With total cash returned in dividends representing approximately 80% of our free cash flow. This compelling cash return is enhanced by opportunistic share repurchases and continued balance sheet fortification. When including second quarter share repurchase, we returned greater than 95% of second quarter free cash flow which equates to an annualized yield of approximately 19%.

Going to Slide #8. Pioneer's capital return framework remains best-in-class. With the return of capital framework described on the prior slide, you can see here Pioneer's forecasting to lead all peers and the percentage of free cash flow being returned to shareholders through dividend and share repurchases.

Going to Slide #9. Dividends grew cycle, Pioneer high-quality assets, low breakeven, discipline or growth of up to 5% provides a building return significant free cash flow through dividends over a wide range of commodity prices, inclusive of the impact of expected cash taxes.

As seen on the graph, if oil prices were to average $60 per barrel over the next 5 years, Pioneer shareholders would receive approximately 5% annual yield at current share prices. This yield is over 2.5x more than the S&P 500 average. Again, that is $60 WTI flat. At $100 WTI flat, which I believe will be the most likely outcome over the next 5 years as we march forward. As demand continues to increase with minimal supply increases, the yield is 12%. So significant upside.

On to Slide #10. The third quarter dividend payments outlined previously resulted in an extremely compelling annualized yield of approximately 15%. This yield exceeds all peers majors in the average yield of the S&P 500.

Going to Slide #11. Pioneer's 15% annualized dividend yield surpasses the S&P 500 average by greater than 7x. When looking beyond our peer group to the broader market, Pioneer's dividend yield exceeds every S&P 500 sector and remains higher than any individual company in the S&P 500, with our double-digit dividend yield, complement share repurchases and up to 5% oil growth, the case for owning Pioneer stock is compelling.

I will now turn it over to Rich.

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everybody. I'm going to start on Slide 12, where you can see our current full year 2020 production guidance remains unchanged at 350,000 to 365,000 barrels of oil per day and 623,000 to 648,000 BOEs per day. You can see we revised up our 2022 capital to $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion, up from $3.3 billion to $3.6 billion previously, really reflecting the inflationary pressures we have seen in diesel and steel primarily and to a lesser extent, in sand and chemicals and labor.

Our plan is expected to generate greater than $13 billion of operating cash flow, which is up from $10.5 billion at the beginning of the year. So $2.5 billion increase relative to midpoint to midpoint, $250 million on capital. This is going to result in over $9 billion of forecasted free cash flow in 2022. Consistent with our investment framework that Scott outlined, we expect modest production growth this year and a reinvestment rate of less than 30%. And return the vast majority of our free cash flow back to investors via dividends and opportunistic share repurchases.

On average, our activity locally remains unchanged. We expect to run 22 to 24 drilling rigs and approximately 6 frac fleets, of which 2 of those are simulfrac fleets. This will result in placing about roughly 500 wells on production in 2022.

Turning to Slide 13, and thanks for a to the hard work and focus of our teams across the company. We continue to realize operational efficiency improvements. Our implementation of simulfrac has been a great success in both reducing cycle time and cost. As evidenced by the chart on the left, we have established ourselves as a leading simulfrac operator, having completed the most simulfrac wells of any operator.

As you can see from the -- on the right side of the graph, the implementation of simulfrac, combined with continued operational improvements have significantly benefited our completions efficiencies. We have doubled our completed feet per day since 2018 and are targeting further improvement in 2023 with the addition of the third time we price fleet early next year.

Turning to Slide 14, which highlights Pioneer's best-in-class cash margins. Our high oil percent realizations and our strong marketing arrangements drive top-tier price realizations per BOE. And when you combine that with Pioneer's low cost structure as a result of our highly efficient field operations, our low corporate overhead and our expensive borrowing cost at below 2%, you get peer-leading cash margins that support our strong return of capital framework.

Turning to Slide 15. This slide really highlights the sustainability of those best-in-class margins by showing our unmatched depth and quality of drilling inventory. This third-party data shows the durability of our position with decades of high-quality inventory in the Midland Basin. You can see on the right side that the Midland Basin has more than 2x the remaining top-tier inventory in the Delaware Basin.

Turning to Slide 16. This slide complements the prior slide quite well. It matches our inventory duration with free cash flow per BOE highlighting Pioneer's favorable position with the longest inventory and highest free cash flow per BOE. This combination provides Pioneer the ability to distribute significant free cash flow to shareholders for decades considering the quality and depth of our inventory.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Neal.

Thank you, Rich. Turning to Slide 17. Pioneer's compelling value proposition is further evidenced through the combination of the 2 graphs on this slide, high corporate returns and an inexpensive valuation. The graph on the left demonstrates the culmination of our high-quality assets, capitally efficient development, our people and our best-in-class margins which drive our strong corporate returns.

In fact, Pioneer's projected ROCE exceeds all other sectors within the S&P 500 to also include the majors and the broader energy sector. Pairing the strong returns profile with our discounted valuation on the right graph, we believe, results in an extremely compelling and durable investment opportunity.

With that, I'll turn it over to Scott.

Finishing up on Slide #18, a leading sustainability plan. We recently published our 2022 sustainability report, which highlights Pioneer's focus and significant progress on our ESG initiatives. The comprehensive report details our environmental initiatives and targets, including those highlighted on the right side of this slide.

Since our last earnings call, we announced our membership into G&P 2.0 and the addition of Jacinto Hernandez to our Board of Directors, who brings decades of investment experience. We believe that these actions demonstrate our commitment and focus on ESG and further strengthens Pioneer position as a leader in the industry.

Our updated sustainable report can be found on our website. And additionally, we expect to publish an updated climate risk report later this year.

Slide 19, just summarizing all the things that we're doing in regard to enhancing shareholder value. We will now open it up for Q&A. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Today's first question is coming from Mr. John Freeman, colleague from Raymond James.

Very impressive dividend. Specifically, I want to focus on the base dividend, a year or so ago and I'll first introduce the base plus variable dividend sort of framework. The outlook was you'll have sort of this kind of a couple percent kind of a rate of growth on the base dividend. And obviously, you've done dramatically better than that since it was introduced. And I guess just trying to get a sense, maybe you can just remind us when you all think about where to take the base dividend rate. How much of this is the commodity environment was far better so the balance sheet got rapidly stronger than you would have initially expected versus maybe other things that we wouldn't be as aware of like something about the underlying asset reinvestment rate, some change in your view on the mid-cycle pricing. Just anything else that sort of goes into the confidence of that base dividends. So we have some -- a little better idea going forward, how we should think about that.

Yes, John, great question. As I've said before, we believe in a stable and growing base dividend and we'll continue to increase our base dividend over time. We materially increased our base dividend in recent quarters, increasing about 95% over the past year, including this 40% increase.

Over the past 5 years, we've demonstrated our commitment to the base dividend, increasing by 55x without cutting it or suspending it like many of our peers. We have the ability to still grow the base dividend even when stress testing at lower oil prices between $45 to $50 WTI. In addition, I'll finish up by saying we expect to continue to increase the base dividend commensurate with our production growth. So if we're able to grow 5% a year long term, you would anticipate a 5% increase in the base dividend on an annual basis.

And then my follow-up question, Rich, last quarter, you kind of mentioned how it was actually pretty easy for you all to pick up that spot frac crew when you needed it because you'll had ready access to things like sand and diesel. And I guess I'm just interested in sort of maybe an update as 3 months later here, service companies keep talking about how they're pretty much maxed out on the frac side, U.S. frac count has sort of staged out here in the last couple of months even if the overall rig count has gone higher. And just sort of any updated thoughts you've got on that. Is it still do you think relatively easy for someone like you all to pick up crews? Or are you starting to see a lot more tightness?

I would still -- I would say it's generally gotten tighter, John, over time. I just think you've seen continue to pick up a little bit of rig activity and some frac fleets. So I don't know there's a lot of spare capacity out there. I think there are some new fleets that you've seen, electric fleets that are coming into the market later this year, early next year that will help on the pressure pumping side.

So I think it's what it's caused all of us to do is move up our contracting time line for 2023 earlier than in prior years. And so I think all that work is underway. And I don't have any concern about Pioneer getting the equipment or services that we need or materials, but I mean, it's definitely a tighter market, so we're starting earlier.

I appreciate it.

We now move to Jeanine Wai calling from Barclays.

My first question is on the tank battery expansions. That work, I think you're starting to do that in Q3, is there more of that work that needs to be done beyond whatever you're going to handle pretty soon? And is that work concentrated in certain areas?

Yes, Jeanine, I'd say on our tank battery program is consistent with how we laid out at the beginning of the year. It really hasn't -- the timing of it hasn't changed. We had a little bit of that capital that was in plan for second quarter that's sliding in the third quarter just for various reasons, but nothing that's impacting production at all.

So nothing new there, and our tank battery size is still the same that we've done before. We're really just really focused on with the wells that we're selecting going into existing tank batteries where we have excess capacity already. So nothing really unusual on the tank battery side and work just as going on and as normal as we would have planned at the beginning of the year.

Okay. Perfect. And our second question, maybe we can just move to the CapEx number. So I don't know if Pioneer thinks about it in this way or not, but some companies, they mark-to-market their '22 budgets based on a certain price outlook, and that just kind of helps the analysts understand directionally how CapEx could change if prices change, oil prices change. So is your updated $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion budget, is that based on a certain oil price? And do you have an update on what percent of 2022 or 2023 is locked in on price?

Sure, Jeanine. I would say we don't pick a specific price, but I think that capital budget range of $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion is you can kind of target around $100 to $120 Brent is where we generally say that probably fits into.

The biggest variable on that is tied to oil prices is really diesel because it will fluctuate with that. In terms of 2022, capital in terms of locked in, obviously, the longer we go through the year, the more of it is locked in. I think last quarter, I talked about being 60%. I don't have the exact number, but my guess, just given where we're at, we're in that probably 70% to 80% range at this point. So most of it is pretty well locked up or on order or purchase orders have been put in place.

In 2023, we're still in the midst of contract (inaudible) is still a little bit early. I mean, I think just in general, as we think about 2023, I mean we're -- as I think we've talked on previous calls that we're probably going to see another roughly 10% increase for inflation in 2023 just based on early indications, still early. But just for planning purposes, I think that would be a good number to plan around.

(Operator Instructions) Now I'll go to Neil Mehta calling from Goldman Sachs.

I just wanted to build on that last comment around how you're thinking about 2023. And Scott, given we have a little bit more visibility, it seems on the oil markets into 2023 as we've worked our way through the year. Do you think it makes sense to grow as in 2023? How are you thinking about the production profile at this point and both for your company and for the broader U.S. E&P industry?

Yes. I'm still very optimistic that the oil price is going to continue to march forward with probably more upside than downside demand coming back around the world. People are flying more. China is going to come back. And as you know, there's not much supply. The OPEC agreement, OPEC+ announced a miniscule increase today, obviously, to give the buying administration. So important ammunition even though it was miniscule today. They just don't have the supply, very little left in UAE and in Saudi.

And so on the basis that oil price will continue to march forward, our focus will be on that 5% production growth of oil. So I see if we enter every iterate downturn, that's a different question. We can actually ratchet back in that regard. But we're still focused on that long-term 5% production on oil and next year should be one of those positive years to do it.

Okay. That's helpful, Scott. And then the follow-up is around the share repurchase program, and you highlighted that you ended up buying back stock here opportunistically in July. Just talk about your framework around it. Should we think of this as a level-loaded program, which supplements the dividend or one where you're going to look to use weakness to add?

Yes. I mean, we've averaged about 2.5% over the last, call it, 7 call it, 9 to 10 months. We bought back 2.5% of our stock, a lot of it is in the, what I call, opportunistic. Obviously, it depends on where share price goes. As I said in the past, we'll always continue to buy a little bit each quarter. And then when we see pullbacks is when we will step up. And that's really our policy, and we'll continue to do that. We've got the firepower and the free cash flow to be able to transact on that policy.

The next question is coming from Bertrand Donnes calling from Truist Securities.

I'm just going to piggyback on that last one on the share repurchases. You characterized it as opportunistic. Obviously, oil pulled back and so did the stock. So I'm just wondering, is it a nominal level of the Pioneer stock or it was Pioneer in a better relative position during the pullback? Or is it just maybe your optimistic view on oil, so any time oil pulls back, it kind of creates an opportunity?

Yes. I mean, we do run our net asset value on the company. We like to get a great return when we go into the market and buy a lot of the stock like we did. Obviously, we don't know where the stock is going to go based on the marketplace. So our policy is to continue to buy back a little each quarter. And if for some reason, we see big dips, whether it's in oil or something else affecting the marketplace, then we'll be more aggressive like we have. So hopefully, that's about as simple as we can describe it.

It sounds good. And then maybe shifting gears, across your acreage position, could you maybe talk about what the returns look like in Martin & Howard versus your southern position versus your JV? And maybe how that will influence where you run your rigs maybe at the end of this year and next year?

Yes, you can really look at where we have our rigs running across the basin, and we spread the rigs out to manage water and supply and moving things around. And so -- but our returns when you look at our top-tier inventory and the depth of our inventory that we've talked about, mean it's really consistent across the basin for our acreage position. So we're just less in that regard that were Tier 1 acreage, over 15,000 locations, 20-year inventory. And so they just don't look that different amongst locations. So that's really how we have -- you've seen over the last couple of years, we're not concentrated in any one area. We put our activity out and the returns are great in all those areas.

Okay. So is it fair to say that the infrastructure is more important because of the kind of uniformity of the returns?

Well, yes, that's what I think really separates fine here is the water infrastructure that we -- was really the ability to move water around so we can actually add be at 2 simulfrac fleets consistently and get to that third simulfrac fleet is really that infrastructure allows us to do it at scale, where others may not have the ability to do that at the same scale.

We'll now go to Derrick Whitfield calling from Stifel.

For my first question, I wanted to touch on the Inflation Reduction Act, which could be voted on this week, focusing on the minimum tax and methane key components, could you speak to the expected implications for Pioneer?

Yes, I'll hit the math thing and Neal can talk about the tax thing. Really, we've looked at it. And if past, we don't expect the proposal a material impact on Pioneer just based on our goal of continuing to reduce methane emissions and where we are on that curve so far and what we've done to reduce emissions. We'll continue to monitor, but I feel that we're well positioned to reduce our emissions intensity with our production. We've laid out in our sustainability report and our goals that we outlined this morning. So really not expecting anything material based on our analysis of it so far.

Derrick, this is Neal. As Rich said, we took a look at the act. And as we anticipate becoming full cash taxpayers in 2023, our effective tax rate is going to be above that 15% threshold. So we wouldn't anticipate this proposal to have any impact on us in our cash tax profile.

Terrific. That's what I was expecting on the tax side. But -- maybe as my follow-up in thinking about the second half '22 and 2023 capital projections, could you help frame the degree of self-help you're attaining in your simulfrac operations and long lateral development?

Yes. Well, I think the simulfracs, we've talked about, say, is about $200,000 per well. So the cost benefit is there, but we're also -- what's driving that we're completing roughly 50% more feet per day. So it's just been a big benefit. And as I mentioned earlier, our water infrastructure really supports that operations and is allowing us to get to that third frac fleet early next year. And then longer laterals is really one, we've seen great productivity out of the wells. But it just saves us 15% on a drilling and completion cost per foot and so it's just a more capital-efficient way to do it and our contiguous acreage position and the blocking some acreage allowed us to -- we've got about 1,000 of those locations that we've identified today with trades and small acquisitions that we continue to work out. We're adding to that inventory. And our acreage position just sets up well for just given how contiguous it is.

Terrific. Great update, and thanks for your time.

The next question is coming from Arun Jayaram calling from JPMorgan Chase.

Scott, on Slide 13, you highlight some of the efficiency gains you're getting on the frac side. I want to get your thoughts on just Pioneer's kind of future procurement strategy on frac. We all know that your relationship with pump kind of ends around year-end. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on what you plan to do with your future frac needs is electrification in the future or a shift towards more Tier 4 DGB equipment? So I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Yes, Arun, I'll take that. And really, as I mentioned earlier, we are in the midst of contract in 2023. As you mentioned, we have a good relationship with pump did a terrific job. And they'll definitely part of our 2023 program. Will it be 100% of it, probably not in the agreement, but they're going to still be part of it. And in terms of moving to electric fleets and DGC, we're in the process of moving that we're definitely looking at contracting some electric fleets. I think it will be a transition to get to high-line power. We'd love to get there sooner, but the infrastructure in the invasion is going to take some time to build that out. And so it's probably going to be a progression where we'll move off the (inaudible) move to CNG, LNG that we're evaluating right now first and then get to high line power later next year 2024 time frame. But it's definitely the path we're going on, and in the midst of that, we'll also have some DGB equipment. So we're going to have -- we're moving that way and ultimately, we'll be more 100% electricity, but that's still a couple of years out. I don't know where that helps.

That's super helpful. And just my follow-up would be -- we've been getting just a couple of questions around well productivity as you have completely integrated the Parsley and the Double Point assets. But Rich, I was wondering if you could give us a sense of how you would gauge year-to-date well productivity for Pioneer relative to historical trends? I'll leave it there.

Yes. We're continue to complete our wells across the field and so each bench has a little bit different profile. But overall, the returns that you're seeing from our free cash flow per BOE that we generate are significant. And so I'd say they're consistent with the last year or so of production profiles. They're probably not quite as high as they were in '18, '19. We're just seeing Wolfcamp A and Wolfcamp B because we're doing the full stack because it's just avoid some parent-child issues longer term and a better way to develop the field and maximize NAV. But overall, we've had consistent results relative to the last couple of years.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Sheffield for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

Again, thank you for participating in the call today and look forward to seeing everybody at either on the road or next quarter's call. Again, thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a good day, and goodbye.