SM Energy Co (SM) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SM Energy Fourth Quarter 2022 Results and 2023 Planned Q&A Discussion. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Jennifer Samuels, Vice President, Investor Relations and ESG Stewardship, you may begin your conference.

早上好。我叫 Rob，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線員。此時，我想歡迎大家參加 SM Energy 2022 年第四季度業績和 2023 年計劃問答討論。 （操作員說明）謝謝。投資者關係和 ESG 管理副總裁 Jennifer Samuels，你可以開始你的會議了。

Thanks, Rob. Good morning, everyone. We come to you this morning from a chilly Denver, it just warmed up to minus 2 degrees. Thank you for joining us today to answer your questions. We have our President and CEO, Herb Vogel, and CFO, Wade Pursell. As usual, before we get started, I will remind you that our discussion today may include forward-looking statements and discussion of non-GAAP measures. I direct you to Slide 2 of the accompanying slide deck, Page 8 of the accompanying earnings release and Risk Factors section of our most recently filed 10-K, which describe risks associated with forward-looking statements that could cause actual results to differ. We may also refer to non-GAAP measures, please see the slide deck appendix and earnings release for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and discussion of forward-looking non-GAAP measures. As a reminder, we have posted to our website an investor presentation and the transcript to our prerecorded call that we may reference today and also look for our 2022 annual report filed on Form 10-K this morning.

謝謝，羅布。大家，早安。我們今天早上從寒冷的丹佛來找你，它剛剛升溫到零下 2 度。感謝您今天加入我們來回答您的問題。我們有總裁兼首席執行官 Herb Vogel 和首席財務官 Wade Pursell。像往常一樣，在我們開始之前，我會提醒您，我們今天的討論可能包括前瞻性陳述和非 GAAP 措施的討論。我將您引導至隨附幻燈片的幻燈片 2、隨附收益發布的第 8 頁和我們最近提交的 10-K 的風險因素部分，其中描述了與可能導致實際結果不同的前瞻性陳述相關的風險。我們也可以參考非 GAAP 措施，請參閱幻燈片附錄和收益發布，了解非 GAAP 措施與最直接可比的 GAAP 措施的定義和調節，以及前瞻性非 GAAP 措施的討論。提醒一下，我們已經在我們的網站上發布了一份投資者介紹和我們今天可能會參考的預先錄製的電話會議記錄，同時也在尋找我們今天早上在 10-K 表格上提交的 2022 年年度報告。

With that, I will turn it back to Rob to open it up for questions. Rob?

有了這個，我會把它轉回給 Rob 以打開它來提問。搶？

(Operator Instructions) And we have our first question from the line of Zach Parham from JPMorgan.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自摩根大通的 Zach Parham。

I guess, first off, you started buying back stock a couple of quarters ago. You ended -- you've met your balance sheet goals and exited the year with almost $450 million in cash on the balance sheet. Can you just talk a little bit about your plans for cash return going forward and what your plans are for allocating that cash balance?

我想，首先，你在幾個季度前開始回購股票。你結束了——你已經實現了你的資產負債表目標，並在今年結束時資產負債表上有近 4.5 億美元的現金。你能談談你未來的現金回報計劃以及你分配現金餘額的計劃嗎？

This is Wade. Yes, good question. We -- I think we mentioned in our remarks that we're very pleased to continue with the return of capital program, which we were happy to announce last year as we met our leverage targets, and we feel that's a very sustainable program, and we even reminded everyone that we ran that at $60 and $3 so the dividend, obviously, that will continue to be paid in the $500 million that we committed to on the stock buyback and we said through 2024, we'll continue that program. And it will be methodical. People like to ask, how do you -- how are we going to write that and we're saying the same thing we said before that it will just be a methodical buyback, we will support the stock looking at it on a daily basis.

這是韋德。是的，好問題。我們 - 我想我們在我們的評論中提到我們很高興繼續實施資本回報計劃，我們很高興在去年實現我們的槓桿目標時宣布該計劃，我們認為這是一個非常可持續的計劃，並且我們甚至提醒大家，我們以 60 美元和 3 美元的價格運行，因此顯然，股息將繼續以我們承諾的 5 億美元股票回購支付，我們說到 2024 年，我們將繼續該計劃。這將是有條不紊的。人們喜歡問，你如何 - 我們將如何寫，我們說的是我們之前說過的同樣的話，這只是一次有條不紊的回購，我們將支持每天查看的股票。

As far as anything beyond that, that will -- obviously, that will have a lot to do with commodity price and the level of free cash flow that we generate and there's clearly some upside to that given the fact that we stated that we ran it at $60 and $3. And beyond that, we'll just monitor conditions going forward. We did mention at one time that -- and we still believe it that running the balance sheet in a -- kind of in a one-in-one area is a prudent place to be. So the -- one of the reasons that cash is so high is because that's -- it's a net debt number. So at some point, we could reduce absolute debt. We could do that any time, a lot of flexibility with those bonds. But for now, there's a lot of uncertainty as we enter '23. So it just feels prudent to have some cash on the balance sheet and just kind of monitor things and how they develop.

至於除此之外的任何事情，那將 - 顯然，這將與商品價格和我們產生的自由現金流量水平有很大關係，並且鑑於我們聲明我們運行它這一事實顯然有一些好處分別為 60 美元和 3 美元。除此之外，我們只會監控未來的情況。我們確實曾經提到過——而且我們仍然相信，在一個——在一個區域中運行資產負債表是一個謹慎的地方。所以——現金如此之高的原因之一是——這是一個淨債務數字。所以在某個時候，我們可以減少絕對債務。我們可以隨時這樣做，這些債券有很大的靈活性。但就目前而言，我們進入 23 年時存在很多不確定性。因此，在資產負債表上保留一些現金並監控事物及其發展方式只是一種謹慎的做法。

Got it. And then for my follow-up, just wanted to ask on LOE. The guidance for the year was up pretty significantly, a little higher than we were modeling. I know you mentioned workovers in there, but can you just talk about the drivers of LOE moving higher year-over-year?

知道了。然後對於我的後續行動，只是想問一下 LOE。今年的指引大幅上升，略高於我們的建模。我知道你在那裡提到了修井，但你能談談 LOE 同比上漲的驅動因素嗎？

Yes. Zach, this is Herb. Yes, the capital inflation last year was much stronger than the operating cost inflation, but there are certain cost areas that went up not, but workovers increase is probably the single biggest. Then we've got water and just general inflation. So that's really the contributors there. Labor is also up and we've got that integrated in that estimate also both of those are really the major components. The good news is diesel is way down and that will play into capital and operating expense on a downward trajectory right now.

是的。扎克，這是赫伯。是的，去年的資本通脹比運營成本通脹要強得多，但有些成本領域沒有上漲，但修井成本的增長可能是最大的一個。然後我們有水和一般通貨膨脹。這就是真正的貢獻者。勞動力也增加了，我們已經將其整合到該估計中，這兩者都是真正的主要組成部分。好消息是柴油價格一路走低，這將對資本和運營費用產生影響，目前處於下降趨勢。

And your next question comes from the line of [Alisa Dong] from Bloomberg. It just disconnected. I'm sorry. (Operator Instructions) And we have no further questions at this time. I'm going to turn it back to Herb Vogel -- Oh I'm -- yes, to Herb Vogel for some final closing comments.

你的下一個問題來自彭博社的 [Alisa Dong]。它只是斷開連接。對不起。 （操作員說明）此時我們沒有其他問題。我要把它轉回給 Herb Vogel -- 哦，我 -- 是的，讓 Herb Vogel 發表一些最後的結束評論。

Okay. Well, thank you for joining the call and your interest in SM Energy, and we're looking forward to an outstanding 2023.

好的。好吧，感謝您加入電話會議以及您對 SM Energy 的興趣，我們期待著出色的 2023 年。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。