Vitesse Energy Inc (VTS) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings and welcome to the Vitesse Energy third quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call conference over to Ben Messier, Director of Investor Relations and Business Development. Thank you. You may begin.

歡迎參加 Vitesse Energy 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。此時，所有參與者都處於只聽模式。正式演講後將舉行問答環節。請注意，本次會議正在錄製中。我現在將電話會議轉交給投資者關係和業務發展總監 Ben Messier。謝謝。你可以開始了。

Good morning and thank you for joining. Today, we will be discussing our financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2023, which we released yesterday after market closed. You can access our earnings release and presentation in the Investor Relations section of our website. We've filed our Form 10-Q with the SEC yesterday. I'm here this morning with Vitesse's Chairman and CEO, Bob Gerrity; our President, Brian Cree; and our CFO, Jimmy Henderson. Our agenda for today's call is as follows. Bob will provide opening remarks in the quarter. After Bob, Brian will give you an operations update. Jimmy will review our third quarter financial results. After the conclusion of our prepared remarks, the executive team will be available to answer any questions.

早安，感謝您的加入。今天，我們將討論我們昨天收盤後發布的 2023 年第三季的財務和營運業績。您可以在我們網站的投資者關係部分存取我們的收益發布和演示。我們昨天已向 SEC 提交了 10-Q 表格。今天早上我和 Vitesse 董事長兼執行長 Bob Gerrity 一起來到這裡。我們的總裁布萊恩·克里；和我們的財務長吉米·亨德森。我們今天的電話會議議程如下。鮑伯將在本季致開幕詞。鮑伯之後，布萊恩將為您提供最新的營運。吉米將審查我們第三季的財務業績。在我們準備好的發言結束後，執行團隊將可以回答任何問題。

Before we begin, let's cover our Safe Harbor language. Please be advised that our remarks today, including the answers to your questions may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control that could cause actual results to be materially different from the expectations contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our earnings release and periodic filings. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

在開始之前，讓我們先介紹一下我們的安全港語言。請注意，我們今天的言論，包括對您問題的回答，可能包含《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述受到風險和不確定性的影響，其中一些風險和不確定性超出了我們的控制範圍，可能導致實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述所設想的預期有重大差異。這些風險包括我們在收益報告和定期文件中描述的事項等。我們不承擔更新這些前瞻性聲明的義務，除非適用的證券法可能要求。

During our conference call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, net debt, net debt to adjusted EBITDA, ratio and free cash flow. Reconciliations of these measures to the closest GAAP measures can be found in the earnings release that we issued yesterday.

在電話會議期間，我們可能會討論某些非公認會計準則財務指標，包括調整後淨利潤、調整後 EBITDA、淨債務、淨債務與調整後 EBITDA、比率和自由現金流。這些指標與最接近的 GAAP 指標的調整可以在我們昨天發布的收益報告中找到。

Now I will turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Bob Gerrity.

現在我將把電話轉給我們的董事長兼執行長鮑勃·格里蒂。

Thanks, Ben. Good morning, everybody. Thanks so much for being on our call. With Brian Cree and I today is Jimmy Henderson, who joined us two months ago, and we are thrilled. He's had a wonderful successful career as a CFO in the oil business, which is rare. And Jimmy, not only brings a deep skill set to the test, he's a wonderful guy and just has fit in wonderfully. So he has really moved the needle in improving our capacity so welcome Jimmy.

謝謝，本。大家早安。非常感謝您接聽我們的電話。今天與布萊恩·克里和我在一起的是吉米·亨德森，他兩個月前加入了我們，我們很興奮。作為石油行業的首席財務官，他的職業生涯非常成功，這很罕見。吉米不僅擁有深厚的技能，而且是一個很棒的人，而且非常適合。因此，他確實在提高我們的能力方面發揮了重要作用，所以歡迎吉米。

The test is a return of capital company, not the first time you've heard that from me won't be the last time you heard it from me. And payment of our fixed dividend is our top priority. We paid our third quarter cash dividend of $0.5 per share in September and earlier this week, the Board declared our fourth quarter cash dividend of $0.5 to be paid in December. We continue to look at a lot of near-term development drilling deals and larger asset acquisitions that continue to be supportive of our dividend. During the third quarter, we're able to complete several impactful acquisitions that meet our very high return hurdles. As previously discussed, we buy whatever we can within our stringent economic parameters, and we're not limited by a budget. We are only limited by opportunity and economics. We put hedges in place to protect these returns when the opportunities present themselves.

考驗的是公司的資本回報，這不是你第一次聽到我的消息，也不會是你最後一次聽到我的消息。支付固定股利是我們的首要任務。我們在 9 月支付了每股 0.5 美元的第三季現金股息，本週早些時候，董事會宣布將於 12 月支付每股 0.5 美元的第四季現金股息。我們繼續關注許多近期開發鑽探交易和更大規模的資產收購，這些交易將繼續支持我們的股息。在第三季度，我們能夠完成幾項有影響力的收購，以滿足我們非常高的回報障礙。正如前面所討論的，我們在嚴格的經濟參數範圍內購買任何我們能購買的東西，並且我們不受預算的限制。我們僅受機會和經濟的限制。當機會出現時，我們會採取避險措施來保護這些回報。

With that, I'm going to turn this over to Brian Cree, my longtime partner and Vice President and President of Vitesse. So Brian.

接下來，我將把這個問題交給我的長期合作夥伴、Vitesse 副總裁兼總裁 Brian Cree。所以布萊恩.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. As Bob mentioned, we acquired additional oil and gas interest through our near-term drilling acquisition program during the third quarter that will result in approximately $50 million of additional CapEx, primarily in the second half of 2023. These acquisitions exceeded our internal hurdle rates and are expected to provide material increases to production and cash flow in both Q4 '23 and across 2024. The wells associated with these acquisitions have either already started producing or are in the process of being turned on to production in the fourth quarter. So the time between CapEx spend and revenue receipt will be shorter than our typical acquisition. Additionally, we see we continue to see consistent pace of development on our existing assets. The organic conversion of our inventory of undeveloped locations remains core to our business model.

謝謝。大家，早安。正如Bob 所提到的，我們在第三季透過近期鑽探收購計畫獲得了額外的石油和天然氣權益，這將導致約5,000 萬美元的額外資本支出，主要是在2023 年下半年。這些收購超出了我們的內部門門檻，預計將在 23 年第 4 季和 2024 年大幅增加產量和現金流。與這些收購相關的油井要么已經開始生產，要么正在第四季度投入生產。因此，資本支出和收入收到之間的時間將比我們典型的收購更短。此外，我們看到現有資產的發展速度持續一致。未開發地點庫存的有機轉換仍然是我們業務模式的核心。

Since we'd like to provide insight into our pipeline of drilling and completion opportunities as of September 30, 2023, we had 7.7 net wells that were either drilling or in the completing phase and another 10 net wells that have been permitted for development by our operators. I want to touch a little bit on hedging. Over the last two months, we added to our oil hedges for the remainder of 2023, for all of 2024, and for the first half of 2025. We now have approximately 50% of our estimated fourth quarter 2023 oil production and close to 40% of our estimated full year 2024 oil production hedged at $79 per barrel.

由於我們希望深入了解截至 2023 年 9 月 30 日的鑽探和完井機會，我們擁有 7.7 口淨井正在鑽探或處於完井階段，另外 10 口淨井已獲得我們的批准進行開發。營運商。我想談談對沖。在過去兩個月中，我們增加了 2023 年剩餘時間、2024 年全年和 2025 年上半年的石油對沖。目前，我們預計 2023 年第四季度石油產量約為 50%，接近 40%我們預計2024年全年石油產量的避險價格為每桶79 美元。

Thanks for your time. Now I'll turn it over to our new CFO, Jimmy Henderson, to review our financial highlights. Welcome aboard, Jimmy. Great to have you here.

謝謝你的時間。現在我將把它交給我們的新任財務長吉米·亨德森，以回顧我們的財務亮點。歡迎加入，吉米。很高興你來到這裡。

Thanks, Brian, and thanks, Bob, for all the kind words. I'm certainly happy to be here and good morning, everyone that's listening in today. It is great to be back and involved in this industry that I continue to feel is so important and provides a vital resource. It's been wonderful reconnect with many of you in the investment, in the banking, and research arenas as we continue to tell the exciting Vitesse story. I especially want to thank the Vitesse team for making me feel welcome and helping me get up to speed since I joined. And lastly, congratulations to the Texas Rangers on an exciting win in the World Series last night.

謝謝布萊恩，謝謝鮑伯的所有善意之言。我當然很高興來到這裡，今天收聽的各位早安。很高興能回到並參與這個行業，我仍然覺得這個行業非常重要，並提供了重要的資源。當我們繼續講述令人興奮的 Vitesse 故事時，與投資、銀行和研究領域的許多人重新建立聯繫真是太棒了。我特別要感謝 Vitesse 團隊，自從我加入以來，他們讓我感到受歡迎並幫助我加快步伐。最後，恭喜德州遊騎兵隊在昨晚的世界大賽中取得令人興奮的勝利。

And now on to a quick review of the financial results for the quarter and our financial status. I assume you all can refer to our earnings release and our 10-Q, which were filed last night for all the details on the quarterly and year to date results, so I won't bother repeating all the details that are included in those documents. But just to highlight a few items, as both Bob and Brian described, we've continued our return of capital program through the dividend and strengthen our future cash flows with several acquisitions, which obviously supports the dividend. Both activities continue to be cornerstones of our strategy. As for the results in the quarter, our production levels remain fairly consistent at just over 11,000 Boe per day with about 67% of that being oil. As we've previously reported, we expect the fourth quarter of this year to increase to 12,300 Boe to 13,000 Boe per day with further increases in product production next year in 2024, primarily due to the recent acquisitions that we announced.

現在快速回顧一下本季的財務表現和我們的財務狀況。我想你們都可以參考我們昨晚提交的收益報告和 10-Q 報告，了解有關季度和年初至今業績的所有詳細信息，因此我不會費心重複這些文件中包含的所有詳細信息。但只是為了強調一些項目，正如鮑勃和布萊恩所描述的那樣，我們通過股息繼續我們的資本回報計劃，並通過幾次收購加強我們的未來現金流，這顯然支持股息。這兩項活動仍然是我們策略的基石。至於本季的結果，我們的產量水準相當穩定，每天略高於 11,000 桶油當量，其中約 67% 是石油。正如我們之前報導的那樣，我們預計今年第四季度的產量將增加到每天 12,300 桶油當量至 13,000 桶油當量，明年（2024 年）產品產量將進一步增加，這主要是由於我們最近宣布的收購。

Likewise, adjusted EBITDA was flat sequentially at $34.7 million and adjusted net income was $11.1 million. GAAP net income was a loss of $1.5 million and you can see the reconciliation of those numbers in the press release that we filed last night. Cash CapEx and acquisition cost in the quarter were approximately $34.1 million. We've funded this investment with operating cash flows and withdraws on the credit facility. This resulted in outstanding debt increasing by $15 million in the quarter, which put us at $56 million drawn as of September 30. We do expect further outstanding Q4 as we fund the remaining CapEx and acquisition costs as we disclosed a couple of weeks ago. We'll continue to fund these costs as well as our dividend through operating cash flow and on our credit facility.

同樣，調整後 EBITDA 與上一季持平，為 3,470 萬美元，調整後淨利潤為 1,110 萬美元。 GAAP 淨利潤虧損 150 萬美元，您可以在我們昨晚提交的新聞稿中看到這些數字的對帳。本季現金資本支出和收購成本約為 3,410 萬美元。我們透過經營現金流和信貸額度提取來資助這項投資。這導致本季的未償債務增加了1500 萬美元，截至9 月30 日，我們已提取了5,600 萬美元。正如我們幾週前披露的那樣，我們預計第四季度的未償債務將進一步增加，因為我們為剩餘的資本支出和收購成本提供了資金。我們將繼續透過營運現金流和信貸額度為這些成本以及股息提供資金。

With that, let me turn it over to the operator for any Q&A that we might have today. Thank you, all.

就這樣，讓我將其轉交給接線員，以進行我們今天可能進行的任何問答。謝謝你們。

Thank you.

謝謝。

(Operator Instructions) One moment please while we poll for questions.

（操作員說明）請稍等一下，我們將輪詢問題。

John White with Roth Capital Partners.

約翰懷特與羅斯資本合夥人。

Good morning and congratulations on the quarter. And congratulations to Mr. Henderson for his new position.

早上好，恭喜這個季度。並祝賀亨德森先生就任新職務。

Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

謝謝，約翰。欣賞它。

You said you're, as you put out in your press release, you said acquisition activity accelerated in the quarter. Do you want to provide some more details on those acquisitions? Or are they all producing properties? And were they all in the Bakken?

正如您在新聞稿中所說，您說本季收購活動加速。您想提供這些收購的更多細節嗎？或者他們都在生產財產嗎？他們都在巴肯嗎？

Thanks, John. This is Brian and I'll handle that. As we've always said, the acquisition pipeline is something that we've developed over the last 10 years, but it can be lumpy. And we were just fortunate to see several different transactions come together, kind of toward the middle and latter part of the third quarter. And they weren't really producing assets, although what I would tell you is that because our near-term development program is typically about buying AFEs or wells that are in the process of drilling. And that's really what the majority of these were on. But there was a little bit of uniqueness to them in that several of these wells that we acquired were further along that drilling process and so we were really happy with the rates of return, especially given that the wells started to come online kind of toward the latter part of the quarter and more of them will come on in the fourth quarter. So even though they were near term development acquisitions, they were just coming online faster than our typical acquisition would indicate.

謝謝，約翰。這是布萊恩，我會處理的。正如我們常說的，收購管道是我們在過去 10 年開發的，但可能會很不穩定。我們很幸運地看到幾筆不同的交易在第三季中後期聚集在一起。他們並沒有真正生產資產，儘管我要告訴你的是，因為我們的近期開發計劃通常是購買 AFE 或正在鑽探的油井。這確實是其中大多數人所關注的。但它們有一點獨特之處，因為我們獲得的其中幾口井在鑽井過程中走得更遠，因此我們對回報率非常滿意，特別是考慮到這些井開始上線本季度的後半段以及更多的內容將在第四季出現。因此，即使它們是近期的開發收購，它們的上線速度也比我們典型的收購所顯示的要快。

Thank you. And all of them are in the Bakken?

謝謝。他們都在巴肯嗎？

Yes, all of those were in the Williston Basin.

是的，所有這些都在威利斯頓盆地。

Okay. Thank you. I'll pass it back to the operator.

好的。謝謝。我會把它傳回接線生。

Thank you. Donovan Schafer with Northland Capital Markets.

謝謝。多諾萬‧謝弗 (Donovan Schafer) 與北國資本市場公司 (Northland Capital Markets)。

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. I want to start off by asking about natural gas price realizations. I know that natural gas is a very small part of the overall production for you guys, but just with how wide the -- how significant price swings have been over the last 12 months, being something like 10 x, what they were this last quarter, you take all that into account like it could still be somewhat material to the top line even as a small piece of the picture. So I have to ask about your realizations being $0.88 per Mcf in the quarter. I mean, I know you do it net of transportation expense, so that maybe makes it not like an apples to apples comparison with, say like a peer or someone else producing the basin, but I just want to understand kind of what drove that lower -- what would it maybe be if you treated -- if there's a way to compare it to someone who doesn't report the net of transportation expenses. Just trying to kind of wrap my mind around and compare to whatever -- what I see elsewhere?

嘿，夥計們，感謝您提出問題。我想先詢問天然氣價格的實現。我知道天然氣在你們總產量中只佔很小的一部分，但過去 12 個月的價格波動幅度有多大，大約是上個季度價格波動的 10 倍，你們將所有這些考慮在內，即使它只是圖片的一小部分，它仍然可能對頂線有一定的影響。因此，我必須詢問貴公司本季每 Mcf 的實現額為 0.88 美元。我的意思是，我知道你是在扣除運輸費用後才這樣做的，所以這可能不像是與同行或其他生產該盆地的人進行同類比較，但我只是想了解是什麼導致了這種下降如果你接受治療的話，如果有一種方法可以將其與不報告交通費用淨額的人進行比較，那麼情況可能會怎樣。只是想集中註意力並與我在其他地方看到的任何東西進行比較？

Yes. Thanks for the question, Donovan, and good morning. Yes, so unfortunately, practices vary in how you handle transportation as well as two-stream versus three-stream reporting. For us, we report two-stream, meaning that we have crude oil and natural gas only and not the NGLs and the natural gas includes the NGL component of that. And I think one of the biggest were a couple of impacts in the third quarter that reduced our realized price, and one is that and NGL prices were very low as storage levels continued to be high coming out of the summer. That's certainly a seasonal thing and we expect to improve as we go through the winter, assuming that it does continue to get cold on the East Coast, especially. So that should improve certainly quarter over quarter here in the fourth quarter.

是的。謝謝你的提問，多諾萬，早安。是的，不幸的是，處理運輸以及兩流與三流報告的方式有所不同。對我們來說，我們報告雙流，這意味著我們只有原油和天然氣，沒有液化天然氣，而天然氣包括其中的液化天然氣成分。我認為最大的影響之一是第三季度的一些影響，這些影響降低了我們的實際價格，其中之一是，由於夏季後存儲水平繼續保持高水平，液化天然氣價格非常低。這當然是季節性的事情，我們預計隨著冬天的到來，情況會有所改善，假設東海岸確實繼續變冷，尤其是這樣。因此，第四季的情況肯定會比上個季度有所改善。

The other component is, as you mentioned gathering transportation and downstream costs. We net that out of our price, not all producers do some show that, as I said, separate G&T price. But the way that we are paid that's really just a part of the net revenue we receive at the wellhead so that's how it's handled here. So that's -- I have to make that adjustment as others might show it as a different line item in the income statement. The other way that affects our netback price is that a lot of those costs are fixed by the operators. So they have fixed fee versus like a percentage of proceeds type contract, which most people have gone to. And as prices of gas or NGLs goes down, obviously, that fixed fee becomes a higher percentage of the net price. And so it has more of an impact at lower prices than it does at higher prices. So hopefully that's helpful. But we'll happy to follow-up with you if that doesn't get you where you need to be.

正如您所提到的，另一個組成部分是收集運輸和下游成本。我們從我們的價格中扣除了這一點，並不是所有的生產商都會做一些表明，正如我所說的，單獨的 G&T 價格。但我們獲得報酬的方式實際上只是我們在井口獲得的淨收入的一部分，所以這就是這裡的處理方式。所以，我必須進行調整，因為其他人可能會將其顯示為損益表中的不同行項目。影響淨回值價格的另一種方式是，其中許多成本是由業者固定的。因此，他們有固定費用，而不是大多數人都選擇的收益百分比類型的合約。顯然，隨著天然氣或液化天然氣價格的下降，固定費用佔淨價的比例會更高。因此，較低價格的影響比高價格的影響更大。希望這對您有所幫助。但如果這不能讓您到達您需要的位置，我們將很樂意與您聯繫。

Okay. That is -- that's very helpful. And I want to ask about the hedge book additions just between the release yesterday and then the update released with the recent near-term development acquisitions.

好的。這非常有幫助。我想詢問昨天發布的內容和最近近期開發收購發布的更新之間的對沖賬簿添加情況。

So it looks like -- I think the only, as I'm -- my notes are correct -- the only change to the hedge positions between those two was really the addition of the hedges in 2025, and it's not a huge quantity in terms of the total, yes, maybe it's like 10% or something of the total volume at that point. But I'm guessing maybe it's sort of tied to the addition of these acquisitions. So you sort of looking out and saying, okay, we underwrote things at a certain strip, and then what can we hedge that same strip -- what can we hedge that at compared to how we underwrote it. So I guess, first, am I kind of thinking about it conceptually the right way? Or was it just an opportunistic thing to pick up some smaller volume of hedges in '25. And then how does that 25 --sorry, $75 swap price, how does that compare to what how the curve where STIR prices were for that time period when you underwrote some of these?

所以看起來——我認為唯一的，因為我——我的筆記是正確的——這兩者之間對沖頭寸的唯一變化實際上是在2025 年增加了對沖，而且這在2025 年並不是一個巨大的數量。就總量而言，是的，也許當時總量的 10% 左右。但我猜測這可能與這些收購的增加有關。所以你會向外看並說，好吧，我們在某個條帶上承銷了一些東西，然後我們可以對沖同一條條帶的東西——與我們承銷它的方式相比，我們可以用什麼來對沖它。所以我想，首先，我在概念上的思考方式是否正確？或者說，在 25 年購買一些較小數量的對沖只是一種機會主義行為。那麼 25 美元——對不起，75 美元的掉期價格與您承銷其中一些產品的那段時間 STIR 價格曲線相比如何？

Thanks, Donovan. This is Brian, I'll take a crack at that. You had several questions in there. So is it opportunistic? It's kind of a combination of both, right? I mean, we did see a nice run-up of oil prices starting in September and into early October shortly after we've made those acquisitions. And so it was a great opportunity for us to lock in prices associated with the expected production from those acquisitions at much higher prices than we had underwritten those acquisitions at and that is part of the 2025 hedges. But also keep in mind that historically, our company has like to be closer to having hedges in place for approximately two years out. And so it just kind of part of our normal process of starting to lock in hedges. There's still a lot of backwardation in the market as you get out into 2025 so we took advantage of an uplift that we saw over a couple of days and got above $75 in 2025 so we pulled the trigger on that on.

謝謝，多諾萬。這是布萊恩，我會嘗試一下。你在那裡有幾個問題。那麼這是機會主義嗎？這是兩者的結合，對吧？我的意思是，在我們進行這些收購後不久，我們確實看到油價從 9 月開始一直到 10 月初出現了良好的上漲。因此，這對我們來說是一個很好的機會，可以以比我們承銷這些收購的價格高得多的價格鎖定與這些收購的預期產量相關的價格，這是 2025 年對沖的一部分。但也要記住，從歷史上看，我們公司希望在大約兩年內更接近對沖。所以這只是我們開始鎖定對沖的正常過程的一部分。進入 2025 年，市場上仍然存在大量現貨溢價，因此我們利用了幾天內看到的上漲，並在 2025 年達到了 75 美元以上，因此我們開始了這一行動。

I just want to touch on your comment about the '23 and '24. We actually did add quite a few hedges for '23 and '24, increasing our average price. I think at the end of the second quarter, we had hedges in place for 2024 that accounted for maybe about 20% of our expected production. Now we're hedged at closer to 40% of our expected production, and we increased that average price from $76, which is where we stood at the end of the second quarter, up to a little bit over close to $79. So again, it's a combination of both opportunistic. When we see those prices go up, we'll take advantage of it. And I think from our hedge book, you can see that we kind of like to be in that mid to upper 70s before we lock in hedges. And that's kind of historically how we've handled it. And my expectation is that that's how we'll look at it on a go-forward basis.

我只想談談您對“23”和“24”的評論。實際上，我們確實在 23 年和 24 年添加了相當多的對沖，提高了我們的平均價格。我認為在第二季末，我們為 2024 年制定了對沖措施，約占我們預期產量的 20%。現在，我們對沖了接近預期產量的 40%，我們將平均價格從第二季末的 76 美元提高到略高於接近 79 美元。再說一遍，這是兩者機會主義的結合。當我們看到價格上漲時，我們就會利用它。我認為從我們的對沖手冊中，您可以看到我們有點喜歡在鎖定對沖之前處於 70 年代中期。從歷史上看，這就是我們處理此事的方式。我的期望是，這就是我們在未來的基礎上看待它的方式。

Okay. And then lastly, just -- I'm curious if you can comment on kind of the state of the M&A market. What is your assessing -- a lot of opportunities still, I guess you can comment both on ground game or near-term drilling -- near-term development as well as something larger or package type deals in both those kind of opportunity sets. Have you seen directional changes or were you seeing more potential in one versus the other (technical difficulty - audio cutout) the time or going forward? Just kind of in general trends in what kind of the state of affairs are there and opportunity versus not, you know, sometimes it's better to just sit things out for a while.

好的。最後，我很好奇您是否可以對併購市場的狀況發表評論。您的評估是什麼 - 仍然有很多機會，我想您可以對地面遊戲或近期鑽探進行評論 - 近期發展以及這兩種機會集中的更大或一攬子類型的交易。您是否看到了方向的變化，或者您是否看到了一種與另一種（技術難度 - 音頻剪切）相比的更大潛力？只是關於事態的總體趨勢以及機會與否，你知道，有時最好暫時擱置一段時間。

Yes, Donovan. Thanks for the question. This is Bob. We are seeing a lot of deal flow, both in the near term and in the larger asset class. It's possibly because the price of oil has been fairly stable. But this is the most --this is the biggest deal flow we've seen in years. Now that said, that doesn't always correlate to us closing those deals. But it's great. There's a real nice smorgasbord of opportunities. About half the company is engaged in some form of reviewing and analyzing and closing deals. So we're very busy. But again, I can't promise that we're going to close those things but at the end of the day, we are underwriters. So we're having a lot of fun.

是的，多諾萬。謝謝你的提問。這是鮑伯。我們看到大量的交易流，無論是在短期內還是在更大的資產類別中。這可能是因為石油價格一直相當穩定。但這是我們多年來見過的最大的交易流。話雖如此，這並不總是與我們完成這些交易相關。但這很棒。這裡有很多機會。大約一半的公司從事某種形式的審查、分析和完成交易。所以我們很忙。但同樣，我不能保證我們會完成這些事情，但最終，我們是承銷商。所以我們玩得很開心。

Yes, I'd actually prefer that you promise that you don't close on any of the ones that are (multiple speakers) if coming at it from an economic standpoint. Okay. All right. Well, great. Thanks, guys, I'll follow up on any other questions.

是的，我實際上更希望您保證，如果從經濟角度來看，您不會關閉任何（多個發言者）。好的。好的。嗯，太好了。謝謝大家，我會跟進任何其他問題。

Thanks for your support, Donovan. Thank you.

感謝您的支持，多諾萬。謝謝。

Jeff Grampp with Alliance Global Partners.

傑夫·格蘭普與聯盟全球合作夥伴。

Morning, all. Thanks for the time. Was curious on the cost side of things, well cost specifically, just an update there in terms of what you guys are seeing, what -- how does the -- a leading edge AFE maybe compared to this time last year, maybe first half of this year? And then relatedly, what kind of costs are you guys baking into that '24 guys? Thanks.

大家早。謝謝你的時間。對事物的成本方面感到好奇，特別是成本，只是就你們所看到的情況進行更新，與去年的這個時候（也許是今年上半年）相比，領先的 AFE 可能會如何？今年？與此相關的是，你們為 24 歲的傢伙付出了什麼樣的成本？謝謝。

Sure. Thanks, Jeff. This is Brian. I'll take a crack at that and let Bob add anything that he wants to add. But we've talked about this on most of our calls. We didn't see as much cost inflation in the Bakken as I think some of the other basins have seen over the last year, year and a half. But as we mentioned on our 2Q call, the difference between the first quarter and the second quarter, we were starting to see a nice small, but nice trend back to two lower AFEs. I don't know that I would say that that trend necessarily improved into the third quarter, but I think it's been consistent. I think we started to see the price of oil go back up. Your drilling and completion costs are going to have some correlation to the price of oil.

當然。謝謝，傑夫。這是布萊恩。我會嘗試一下，然後讓鮑勃添加他想添加的任何內容。但我們在大多數電話中都討論過這一點。我們在巴肯地區沒有看到像其他一些盆地在過去一年半中看到的那樣嚴重的成本通膨。但正如我們在第二季電話會議中提到的，第一季和第二季之間的差異，我們開始看到一個不錯的小但良好的趨勢，回到兩個較低的 AFE。我不知道我是否會說這種趨勢一定會在第三季有所改善，但我認為這是一致的。我認為我們開始看到石油價格回升。您的鑽井和完井成本將與石油價格有一定的相關性。

But I think we're happy with the AFEs that we've been receiving in terms of where they're where their costs are coming in. Our operators are doing a good job. My sense is that, sometimes it takes a while for us to get all the actual cost in. It's one of the benefits of being a non-operated working interest owner is you don't see the costs as quickly as the operators do, but the trends that I think we're seeing is certainly the operators are doing a very good job of managing costs out there in the field. And I don't think we're seeing the inflation that we saw in 2022. I think the 2023 third quarter is kind of a continuation of the second quarter.

但我認為我們對收到的 AFE 感到滿意，因為它們的成本來自何處。我們的操作員做得很好。我的感覺是，有時我們需要一段時間才能獲得所有實際成本。作為非經營性工作權益所有者的好處之一是您不會像運營商那樣快速看到成本，但是我認為我們看到的趨勢肯定是運營商在管理現場成本方面做得非常好。我認為我們不會看到像 2022 年那樣的通膨。我認為 2023 年第三季是第二季的延續。

Got it. Great. Thank you. And for my follow up on the, I guess tangentially related to your own M&A aspirations; Hess is obviously one of your larger operators. There's going to be a changing of the guard there soon. You guys have an opinion on that positive, negative, non-event as it relates to how it'll impact the tests and prospectively, just curious how you guys are thinking about looking at opportunities underlying Hess acreage given that change.

知道了。偉大的。謝謝。對於我的後續行動，我想與您自己的併購願望無關；赫斯顯然是你們規模較大的營運商之一。那裡很快就要換崗了。你們對這個正面的、負面的、非事件有自己的看法，因為這關係到它將如何影響測試，並且前瞻性地，只是好奇你們如何考慮考慮到這種變化，尋找赫斯面積背後的機會。

Well, you must have been in our conference room the last week, Jeff, because it's been a big topic of conversation. We know Chevron for what they've done in the DJ. And we think that they're a very good operator. We are under Hess in a lot of a lot of wells. And we -- I can't predict if it's a good thing for us, Jeff or a bad thing, but we do like Chevron and we got our head on a swivel. Usually when M&A like that happens, it's beneficial because the smaller assets do shuffle, but we haven't seen that yet. So we're looking out, we don't know yet.

嗯，傑夫，你上週一定來過我們的會議室，因為這是一個很大的話題。我們了解 Chevron 是因為他們在 DJ 領域所做的事情。我們認為他們是一位非常優秀的營運商。我們在赫斯的下面有很多很多井。傑夫，我無法預測這對我們來說是好事還是壞事，但我們確實喜歡雪佛龍，而且我們的頭腦在旋轉。通常，當發生這樣的併購時，它是有益的，因為較小的資產確實會洗牌，但我們還沒有看到這種情況。所以我們正在尋找，但我們還不知道。

Yes. I know it's early, I thought I'd ask. So thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it.

是的。我知道現在還早，我想我應該要問一下。謝謝你們抽出時間。欣賞它。

Thank you, Jeff.

謝謝你，傑夫。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，目前沒有其他問題了。我想將電話轉回給管理階層，讓其結束語。

Well, thanks, everybody, for your time. Ben does a terrific job in answering any questions that you have. And we really appreciate your interest and support. See you in a couple of months. Bye bye.

好的，謝謝大家抽出時間。本在回答您的任何問題方面做得非常出色。我們非常感謝您的興趣和支持。幾個月後見。再見。

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝。今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與。