Mach Natural Resources LP ($MNR)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us, and welcome to MACH Natural Resources First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. During this morning's call, the speakers will be making forward-looking statements that cannot be confirmed by reference to existing information, including statements regarding expectations, projections, future performance and the assumptions underlying such statements. Please note a number of factors may cause actual results to differ materially from their forward-looking statements, including the factors identified and discussed in our press release and in other SEC filings. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those in such forward-looking statements, please read the company's filings with the SEC. Please recognize that except as required by law, they undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements. They may refer to some non-GAAP financial measures in today's discussion. For reconciliation from non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please reference their press release and supplemental tables, which are available on MACH's website and their 10-Q, which will also be available on their website when filed. Today's speakers are Tom Ward, CEO; and Kevin White, CFO. Tom will give an introduction and overview. Kevin will discuss MACH's financial results, and then the call will be open for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Mr. Tom Ward. Tom?

Thank you, Daryl. Welcome to MACH Natural Resources first quarter earnings update. Each quarter, we reiterate the company's 4 strategic pillars that have guided us since our founding in 2017. The first pillar I will discuss is disciplined execution. We bought only free cash flowing assets at discounts to the producing properties PV-10. This allowed us to purchase producing assets without paying for any upside even though, over time, we have proven significant upside exists. Each year, MACH publishes every well we've drilled the overall IRR based on the year's price for oil and gas. We've averaged approximately 50% rates of return on drilling program since our program started in 2018. Said another way, we've invested more than $1.3 billion of properties, so others would give no value to and recurrent excellent results. You can see that on Page 9 of our investor presentation, that our free cash flow breakeven pricing is best-in-class for both oil and natural gas. It is rare, if not unheard of, to be a leader in both. It would be difficult to duplicate what we have built. In 2017, we had a strong opinion that the market was entering a time of distress. We focused on buying free cash flow at valuations, most sellers would not even consider it first. We called it the stages of green. Ultimately, we did not deal with management teams, but they're lenders. Either through fourth sales or the 363 bankruptcy process. We did not anticipate the COVID event, but we did anticipate investor rejection of our industry from the poor results of the previous decade chasing growth with high debt levels. The result was that our initial unitholders prospered by receiving more than twice their investment through distributions and still owning a company with an enterprise value of more than $3 billion. The purchases we have made continue to bear fruit through their cash flow streams, midstream systems land that is held by production and continued drilling on properties we did not have to pay for. Even our purchases since the IPO have been contributing to our drilling program, one would have thought that host the 2022 run up in prices that would be hard to purchase any valuable drilling locations without paying for upside. However, as we review our potential 2026 locations, we're drilling on acquisitions from XTO Paloma, Cheyenne flycatcher, Savino and ICAV, which were all made post December 2023. The second pillar to discuss is disciplined reinvestment rate. We maintain a reinvestment rate of less than 50% of operating cash flow to optimize distributions to shareholders. We did not establish MACH to grow our production through drilling. Our drilling program is set to stabilize our production. As I mentioned, our inventory is best-in-class for both oil and natural gas reinvestment. In 2026, moved down the natural gas being offset by a move up in oil prices. MACH has the unique ability to react to these commodity price changes by pivoting from one commodity to another to maximize rates of return. Therefore, we have prioritized our drilling schedule to take advantage of these price changes. Starting May 1, we moved in our first rig to start drilling for oil in the Agogo formation in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma. This is an area that's well known to us. We've drilled more than 250 Oswego locations since 2021 with very good results. In the presentation, we're showing that a $75 flat oil. The changes in 2025, Oswego rates returned from 39% to 90%. $85 flat oil prices move the program returns to 145%. We let pricing dictate where we spend capital. We will also move in a rig to drill Southern Oklahoma or more basin assets that we acquired from Cheyenne and Fly Catcher purchases in 2024. The third oil-weighted rig will be moving into the Red Fork sand of Western Oklahoma. The majority of Red Fork locations were acquired by our limited leasing program and trades with others from our Cimarex acquisition in 2021. This shift in drilling will amount to adding 3 oil-weighted rigs by postponing the deep Anadarko dry gas program. We may also delay the completion of our San Juan Mancos program until 2027 to add another oil rig in the Clearfork formation from the Sabinal acquisition. By making these changes, we can keep our reinvestment level below 50% of operating cash flow in 2026 even though we remain optimistic about the long-term potential of our natural gas assets in the Deep Anadarko Basin and San Juan Basin. We now have 5 wells with more than 9 days of production in the Deep Anadarko. These 5 wells have averaged 90-day cumulative production of more than 12 million cubic feet of gas per day, while our 15 bcf gas type curve is projected to be 10.6 million cubic feet of gas per day. In the San Juan, we've begun our 2026 drilling program where we have 1 rig working drilling Minco shale wells. The San Juan Mancos is fast becoming known as a world-class natural gas asset with potential for meeting the growing demand that we expect to see in the Western markets over the next 5 years. We have 575,000 acres that are held by production that can be developed at any time the market allows. Currently, we will drill 7 wells during the summer's drilling window. We continue to believe that we will be substantially lower than historical drilling costs as we bring in new service providers from the Mid-Con and work with existing service providers in the San Juan to work with our dedicated staff. Our San Juan drilling program in 2025 was exceptional. We drilled 5 wells that came online last fall and have produced more than 14 Bcf of gas and continue to produce over 60 million cubic feet of gas a day. These wells have been compared to the best set of wells drilled in the U.S. The San Juan gives us long-term natural gas optionality. When we acquired ICAV, we inherited a volume production contract that runs through 2030. Even with our limited drilling program, we can keep our production in the San Juan flat of approximately 300 million cubic feet of gas per day. We currently have approximately 65% of the volumes from the San Juan producing on this contract at a price of $1.72. If basis continues to be low, we have an effective hedge and a basis move slower that will benefit from our drilling program and time as production payment amortizes. This is one of the larger volumes of natural gas that has access to the growing Western markets as they develop. MACH has 3 million acres of land that are not going anywhere. We have time because our assets are held by production with few lease expiration dates. This large inventory of investment opportunities was the result of acquisitions made over time since 2018, and gives us maximum flexibility to choose where and when to drill to deliver the best-in-class results. Our third pillar to discuss today is to maintain financial strength. This pillar is designed to keep our leverage in check, Historically, we have kept our leverage at or below 1x. The iCabin/Sabbonol acquisitions last September have moved our leverage up to approximately 1.3x. Our goal is to move that ratio back to our desired double before we make any more acquisitions that require substantial debt. Therefore, our acquisition strategy is currently on hold unless we find an acquisition that's accretive to our cash available cash go for distribution using equity to lower our debt levels. In the meantime, we can continue with our drilling program and let time move on as our leverage was showed down. We continue to have interest by sellers to exchange production for equity where we might be able to lower leverage by increasing our cash held for distribution to maintain the status quo. Our goal is to not move away from our current method of distribution unless we feel it is necessary. In that case, we can always use some of our distribution for debt reduction. It is safe to say that our debt levels are very manageable, but are a pebble my shoe that I'd prefer to move away from and get back to 1x leverage. Our final pillar continues to be the most important, maximize distribution to equity holders. This pillar is the culmination of all we work for. Since inception, our goal is to find and acquire cash-flowing assets at distressed prices, reinvest less than 50% of our operating cash flow, keep our leverage low and maximize this pillar. We have been and continue to be successful. The evidence is in our industry-leading distribution. You can see this in 2 ways. Our company has had a cash return on capital invested of more than 20% every year since our inception. We have averaged 35% [indiscernible] over the last 5 years. I believe we're in rare error here. Only a few tech companies can match our [indiscernible]. We have also averaged 15% yield since the beginning of 2024, both are industry leading. I'll now turn the call over to Kevin to discuss the first quarter financial results.

Thanks, Tom. For the quarter, our production of 158,000 BOE per day was 16% oil 70% natural gas and 14% [indiscernible]. Our average realized prices were $59.73 per barrel of oil. That's a 20% increase from fourth quarter $2.74 per Mcf of gas and $23.75 per barrel of NGLs. Of the $366 million total oil and gas revenues, the relative contribution for oil was 42% to 45% for gas and 13% for NGLs. On the expense side, worth pointing out our lease operating expense was $101 million were only $7.12 per BOE. Cash G&A was approximately $5 million or only $0.37 per BOE. We ended the quarter with $53 million in cash and $305 million of availability under the credit facility. Total revenues, including our hedges and midstream activities totaled $286 million, adjusted EBITDA was $195 million, and we generated $170 million of operating cash flow, spent $75 million in development CapEx, which represents 40% and of our operating cash flow after interest. And in the quarter, we generated $107 million of cash available for distribution, resulting in a distribution of $0.64 per unit, which will be paid on June 4 to holders of record on May 21. And with that, Darryl, will turn it back to you to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Bert Donnes with William Blair.

I want to see if your shift back to the kind of oilier Oswego drilling program. How quickly can that move the needle? Are you maybe at 16% oil now? Can that get to 20% to 25% oil over the next few years? Or does maybe the productivity from your gas assets kind of just offset that with higher volumes, but at the same mix?

No, not really. So it basically keeps our oil production from declining by moving to the oil side of the business. So we might grow 1% or so a year. But really, it's maintaining oil production rather than continue to see a decline.

That's fair. That makes sense. And then the second one, your low CapEx requirements continue to impress. I just want to maybe understand, is there inflation built into that or maybe built into your LOE just with some of the cost changes we're seeing as a result of the Iranian conflict that maybe some of that spending may move? Or do you have some of that locked in with your vendors and maybe over certain durations?

We don't have anything really locked in. We can move rigs at really 30- to 45-day intervals. So we really can move back and forth from different areas as needed for higher rates of return. We are seeing some oilfield inflation. Thus, I think why it's important to move quickly before inflation hits. As always, the oilfield services job is to get our rates return down to 20% and we want to drill wells that still have. In fact, the lowest we have on the 430 curve of the oil wells we'll be drilling this year as of the 430 curve was 80% So it's really just chasing the best areas and spending CapEx as the -- as our operating cash flow allows us to. I think the goal of the company is that will allow growth if it happens, like if prices move up, but spending more than 50% of our operating cash flow. So it's not that we're restricting growth. It's our high rates of return allows us to grow by spending less, and that's just what we anticipate to continue to do. But remember, that's really because of all the assets we bought during the darker days. They continue to throw off free cash flow anytime you're making acquisitions at $20 oil, it just pays big dividends in years later. We'll reap those benefits for decades.

That makes sense. It sounds like you're staying flexible.

Our next question is come from the line of Michael Scalia with Stephens.

I just wanted to see with the new plans, maintained your guidance. Do you anticipate putting out any new guidance with the shift in the drilling plans and it sounds like you might change your completion plans in the San Juan Basin. I guess when would you make that decision if you do decide to hold off on completing those wells.

Yes. Sorry. I think -- do you have the -- I don't think I can we are going to delay -- we're planning on delaying the Mancos, but go ahead, Kevin.

Sure. Just -- and Mike, just to answer your question around guidance. We think the CapEx guidance is -- as you noted, as we shift to oil, we may actually see an acceleration of production versus spending the CapEx on the gas drilling, particularly in the Mancos. So we'll look to revise guidance as we get moved to the oil program, probably mid-year it's if and when it's appropriate. But it does just as we look at the model, those cycle times on these wells are shorter than some of our deep gas drilling. So it should actually help this year's cash generation.

And it's not that hard of a decision. I mean, usually, I would want to -- once we spend the capital to drill a well to not leave it as a [indiscernible] but whenever we can move to a Clearfork location that today's prices is going to have 100% rate of return. It's just really difficult not to defer the gas whatever basis today to San Juan is low, and we think it will improve. But still, we don't want to just guess going into the winter. So we'll probably move that until after the first of the year, then it will really depend on the Mancos weather provides us when we can move, when we can frac. We can't do anything in the New Mexico side until April, I believe. But we can on Colorado side as long as we're on the Southern new tribes, weather permitting. Sorry, Mike, if I didn't catch all your questions, just please ask again.

No, that addresses it. I guess it sounds like even with the shift, there's no change to the CapEx is going to remain the same. We probably anticipate some minor shift in the mix of production is what it sounds like in certainly leave some upside for cash flow with the higher oil mix.

Yes, that's correct.

Wanted to follow up on the Mancos. The 5 wells that you completed last year, looks like based on what you have in your presentation and what you said, Tom, they're performing extremely well. I think I have completed a couple of those, and you guys completed, I think, 3 of them. I wanted to see if you did, in fact, cut back on the proppant on the wells that you completed? I know you had said you felt like they were being overstimulated, and you could save some money there and want to see if those results played out the way you thought?

We did not change the amount of proppant that iCAD was using now. [indiscernible] did use and we will use less profit than kind of the industry was earlier. I think that's moving towards what we're going to do. But our -- if you look at San Juan in general, there were proper sizes up to 3,000 pounds a foot that we were using closer to 2,000 pounds. And I think it was totally adequate. So that we were able to save some money even last year just through a little -- a few other different methods, but not in the profit size.

Okay. So that line of state....

I think we're saving about $1 million per location. Yes, $1.5 million per location just from our changes we made, but it was not in proppant.

Got you. So you still feel good about that $15 million target that you talked about.

Yes, I feel good about something lower, but we'll see. Yes, I feel good about $15 million. There's no reason it's been $15 million drilling in these wells.

Our next questions come from the line of Jeff Grampp with Northland Capital Markets.

Tom, I have a question for you on the distribution strategy. It seems like in recent history, you've kind of been comfortable maintaining the 100% payout with current leverage kind of mid, but the pebble in your comment makes it seem like perhaps you're maybe reconsidering that to retain some cat for debt paydown. Is that a fair comment? Or how do you think about payout ratio over the next few quarters?

Yes, I hope not. I do think that over time, it takes care of itself. If you were to look at our model, actually, debt-to-EBITDA goes down as oil prices have moved if oil prices move higher or gas goes to where I think it will. It naturally takes care of it by itself. So we always -- so the reason private credit really likes us so well is because we have so much free cash flow. And so does if you have a 19% yield, then you may get a 10% for a while as you pay down the debt it's not the worst thing. But I'm a holder just like the rest of the unitholders, and I like having Christmas 4 times a year.

Fair enough. That sounds good. For my follow-up, it kind of sounds like the bias based on today's commodity price dynamic is to defer those gas completions and and add that clear 4 rig. But I just wanted to dive into that a bit more. When are you guys kind of targeting potentially adding that clear rig? And is it as simple as looking at gas and oil prices over the next few months in the strip in making that decision?

Yes, fairly well made it so that it was just like yesterday. But it was -- yes, so the Clearfork is clearly a superior rate of return at today's prices than completing the Mancos, and we could start that July 1 and have a 30-day turnaround. So more than likely, unless something changes really dramatically between now and a month from now, will delay the Mancos and bring on a Clearfork rig.

Our next question come from the line of Carson Coronado with Raymond James.

I just wanted to see if you were trying to continue to focus M&A in the current basins you operate in? Or is there a willingness to step into new basins, and does the current commodity price environment make it harder to get deals done with bid as spreads potentially widening?

No, I don't think it's any harder to get deals done, especially the ones that we have a niche in which is really staying away from asset-backed security projects where they can fund. So larger deals were not so good at areas of -- where you pay for a lot of upside, not so good, like the Marcellus or Haynesville or now even the San Juan. The areas we are pretty good at is finding assets that are $100 million to $300 million in size that others aren't chasing that we can see some distress for whatever reason. It might be that gas goes to Waha where and ABS really can't go in and hedge very well over a period of time and they can't compete with us. There's always a way to find things that work. Our issue right now is that we have too much debt to really take on more debt. So that we want to move down our debt levels so that we can get back into making those $100 million to $300 million type acquisitions. We can be more aggressive not on having to pay for upside but more aggressive in size if the seller would want to take equity. But that's the only way we could really compete at any size.

Great. And I also had a follow-up question on maintenance CapEx. So the low decline rate definitely helps keeping the reinvestment rate under 50%, but what would be a reasonable maintenance CapEx estimate for FCUs.

Yes. I think looking at our existing CapEx guidance really ending if we're measuring that based on volume, then when we're drilling gas wells, there's more volume that come into the system. And if we're drilling oil the equivalent volume is a little bit lower. But again, as you mentioned, our base decline rate is probably among the lowest, if not the lowest, among the independents, and that gives us the ability to essentially stay the same size grow a little bit or shrink a little bit, but based on just half of our operating cash flow after interest. So I'd largely equate our guidance CapEx with being kind of maintenance CapEx, if not a little bit more productive than its CapEx.

Yes, that's right. Our drilling program is designed to keep our production flattish that could be up to down to up 3 or 4 down 3 or 4 depending on what prices are, but you really won't see a tremendous growth from drilling and then that allows us to distribute back more to unitholders.

Our next questions come from the line of Ron Sanchez.

I was just wondering what would be your average breakeven price on natural gas can do -- I mean, yes, that's all.

Sure. It's basically around $1.72, and we've just today posted a new investor presentation, and we have a slide on that on Slide 9, where we show our breakeven for both gas drilling and oil drilling. And it's among the best of the peers for us, as Tom has mentioned many times before, we those are good numbers that we're able to achieve with good cost control, but we're generally just chasing the highest internal rate of return in our portfolio.

Our next questions come from the line of Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital.

You're going back to your 4Q commentary on divestitures, does the current higher price crude environment seen today, does that change your view on the need to pursue some of the monetizations you were talking about during 4Q?

Yes, Derrick, we were talking about maybe having a partner in the deep Anadarko. I don't know if that's going to happen or not. We did go out to a few parties the gas prices have been lower. I'm not sure that we would get paid enough to give up any production that's already flowing now, and I'm not really a seller at today's gas prices. So it is -- it becomes harder to do until prices move. We really weren't looking at selling any oil projects. But it was really more around could we sell some non-EBITDA generating assets like leases in order to pay down some debt. And doubt that happens, but we'll know more next quarter.

That makes sense. Maybe just with respect to the Permian, will not as economic as your Oswego are there levers there you're considering to increase production in the current environment?

Yes. The Clearfork is in Robertson County on the shelf. So we're having a rig there depending on what our operating cash flow looks like and how much we -- how close we can get to 50% we could keep a rig there for the rest of the year. We'll see how it all looks. But right now, we are going to have a rig there moving down from Oklahoma in -- by the first of the year. So that is in the Permian and those wells are right at 100% rates of return.

That's great. I'm sorry, I didn't pick that up, Tom, I'm just joining the call away. But maybe one more if I could on service costs. I know you commented a little bit earlier on it, but just -- could you speak to what you're seeing in the Anadarko at present? And what your expectations would be if oil prices remain elevated as they are today?

Yes. If oil prices stay where they are, it would take a fairly high gas price to make us move back to drilling gas wells. Last year, that happened as oil prices fell, but today, even at the Colstrip 27 strip is $72, that's good enough for us to keep rigs working. So the flexibility of the moving between oil and gas is good. We have a tremendous backlog of oil locations as you're seeing now. we can move in several rigs and drill different locations across Western Oklahoma and in the Permian. So it's really just price dependent, but the it's really astounding that we were able to put together 2 million acres without having to pay for it in one of the most oil and natural gas rich basins in the world in the Anadarko Basin. So that is another -- like our production, that will pay dividends to us for decades.

Great. And Tom, just on the service cost, like what was your expectations to be in Anadarko if we remain in this oil price environment?

Yes, we're seeing -- you say service cost?

Yes, service cost.

[indiscernible] are going up, steel is going up, labor costs from are going up fuel surcharges are going up. So we are starting to see the effects of inflation. We know from 2022, that, that comes fairly quickly. So it'll all have to be put into the calculation for how much we can drill depending on what prices were paying. So we're still using our current AFEs. We change AFE every month. depending on where prices are. We price out for every well series of wells we do. So we're very quick to react to both oil and gas prices and service costs.

Our next questions come from the line of Charles Meade with Johnson Rice.

Kevin, I got dropped from the call for some reason, too. But Tom, you mentioned 4 oily plays here today. The OsoBio, which you gave us a lot of detail on, but also the armor, which I guess is really more the location rather than the play. But the red work and also the Clearfork. So can -- not to get down into all the details, but can you give us an idea how those plays rank in your appetite for more drilling? And how much running room you have on those?

Sure. The Sycamore with a Mississippian member of the SCOOP in the -- what we call the Arbor Basin that Shameel basically in Stephens County, Southern Oklahoma, that's going to have very, very high rates of return at today's oil price, and they're fairly deep expensive wells, but very good. Continental has most of that area and maybe a private 1 Citadel. But the -- it's good, very -- but we only have 3 locations to drill. So then we look to have the consistent operating the next best is the Oswego, and that's more consistent and we have dozens, if not hundreds of locations left to drill in the Oswego. And we could even move from the Stephens County after we complete those wells to 2 rigs in the Oswego if oil prices remain elevated. Then the Clearfork was -- we picked up from Sabinal would be #3. And that, as I mentioned, I have a rig going there in July. And then lastly, because of just a little more gas as the Western Oklahoma Red Fork and that if gas prices will move up, it could move up in the HIF parade today, that would be our fourth. Even there, the red for is going to be about 80% rates of return.

Got it. That's great detail what I was looking for. My follow-up is on San Juan Basin, I guess, supply-demand in marketing. When you bought that asset from ICAV, in that earlier presentation, you gave us a lot of detail about where that gas can go and what the options are. But the prices are pretty tough out there right now. And you think a lot of gas wants to get to the Gulf Coast, but you've got the Permian and Waha between you and the Gulf Coast, if you wanted to go that way. So that's, I guess, a long intro to say what are the dynamics that we can watch from our seats on -- that would signify or could be precursors to more favorable pricing in that basin?

Yes. I mean, at the time we bought the ICAV assets last summer in closed in September. I wouldn't have thought that our basis -- our hedge was a benefit. So basically, we have 65% that we bought on a long-term contract from that BP has that expires in 2030. That effectively is $1.72. And then -- but since that time, really due to weather, winter, not coming to the west, basically we almost stand alone in having the low basis of public companies with the San Juan. So the -- that now has hovered around dollar what we receive now. But I do think that's coming back. So -- but to answer your question, it's really more pipe getting out going west, having a larger LNG facility in Mexico, getting gas. I think the Asian sales point will be wanting more Western gas coming across LNG to Asia. And that all happens over time. And so it's really a pretty good for us now that we didn't have to pay for that gas, and we bought it at $1.72 or less. And so as it amortizes out over time, that gives us time to not only have the LNG market expanding, which I believe it's going to. There's a new pipe going across the Navajo Nation, I believe, or will be -- and then along with that, getting gas to the data center build-outs in Southern California, especially the Phoenix market, which seems to be expanding. There's some interest in even getting our gas up to the west into more of the I guess, the upper western markets and even into the Pacific Northwest. So there will be and expansion of gas coming out of the West and really between Hilcorp and us in San Juan, we control the vast majority of it. So it's a good place to be as long as you're patient. It's a 5-year program.

Thank you so much. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And with that, that does bring our call to a close. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.