Matador Resources Company (MTDR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right, greetings and welcome, everyone. It's a delight to have all of you here. And we deeply appreciate the interest and your support and deeply appreciate the opportunity to see you all again and shake a few hands and talk about the progress that we have made. I just have a few points to make. The first point is today marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Matador I. And so we did that for 20 years, and then we started Matador II. And as you see up on the screen, that we started with $270,000, which I thought was all the money in the world at the time -- and we feel we've come a long way from there. We have -- I'm looking out over the audience. I know we have Scott Walker here, whose uncle was in that original group; and a few others. It's just harder to pick you out among this crowd. When there was only 17, it was a lot easier to make introductions. So I want to thank all of you for doing that. And to talk about those early days, we have some staffers that were -- they're with us in those early days. Yvonne, where are you, Yvonne? Yvonne, you're going to have to assert your seniority and [ push ] here close to the front. And Kathy Wayne, Kathy? There you are. She doesn't like to get up in front of the crowd. We're going to ask her to speak 200 or 300 words there. And [ BJ ], where are you? [ BJ ], are you -- yes. He -- they're trying to sit close to the door so they could slip out, but these are all people with more than 30 years; and what a great difference. And what a great group that they are, and how special they are to our progress. And we've had a lot of other people [ leaning on ] that rock and pushing on that rock to get us where we are today. We have been through a lot over these 40 years. We've been through 2 or 3 major recessions, a pandemic, 7 different Presidents and 2 wars. And the industry itself has shifted from vertical wells to horizontal wells. A few years ago, we were drilling -- 98% of our wells is 1-mile laterals. And today, 98% of our wells are "2 mile or more" laterals; and some reaching 2.5 miles, 2.7 miles. And if you think about it, that's going from here past beltline, probably up to legacy. And you're [ saying ] in a 30-foot zone. So the technology advancements have been enormous. And as you'll see later on, we will talk about the couple of horseshoe wells that we've drilled. And to think about, if you drill 1 mile this way and then loop around and drill another mile to get to 2 miles -- and you're bending the steel, but it's not so much about bending steel. That angle is easier. It's maintaining that mud weight not too heavy, not too light. [ Tyler Brooking ], are you here, out here? Take your bow. And your team, [ Tyler, Kenneth ] in that group -- [ Tyler? Tyler ] is our favorite Canadian import, right, but it's great work by the team; and led by Billy, who's drilled all over the world and is president of our operations, grew up in an [ oil camp in ] Electra, Texas until he took a 4-year vacation, as he says, in the Marines; and then got it; and returned to the oil fields ever since all over the world. So these are the great teams [ they have ] put together. And we've experienced $20 oil and $120 oil and have worked our way through those days and at each time have come out stronger because we just -- we don't stop. We just keep working that much harder. And as you can see with this group of people, they all know what's coming. David [ and I have ] been through this a number of times, and they know what to do. They just keep going on, so finally, a few years ago when we went public -- it's been just over 10 years. We were approximately [ 155 ] in size among public oil and gas companies. And today, we're in the top 15. We are now over $10 billion in assets from that $270,000. We have a $6 billion market cap. We have 463 million barrels of oil or gas equivalent, not bad. Billy reminds me constantly that, when he got to Matador, we were making 200 barrels. And [ I says ], is having 463 million good enough? Billy says no. He wants us to get a couple more rigs and get really busy [indiscernible], and -- but it's been great working with him. And importantly, beginning with David, when he was CFO and -- is that we've had 35 consecutive quarters where we've met or exceeded Bloomberg consensus guidance. So imagine that, 9 years of beating what the experts thought we were going to do for our financial and production results. And that's not to mention that we have grown our acreage position starting from a standing start in this Matador to 150,000 acres out there in the Delaware portion of the Permian. Our head count. Of course, Nancy and I started in a windowless office many years ago at -- on [ Meadow Road ]. And today, we have 350 employees at Matador. And last year, we had $2.9 billion in revenues and $1.3 billion in net income, so -- and I say often that's really not bad for a company that began with friends and family. And we've never relied upon or had private equity. We've -- this group in here, look around, shows it can be done if you get the right people pushing on the rock. As -- and as Billy says, our President of Operations, we're better together; and I think we all agree with that. And everybody has done their part. And I can look around the room, and if I had time -- in the old days, we were a little smaller. I used to, like, go around and introduce everybody. I'm afraid, if I did that, we'd have to order in lunch, so please understand that I will conclude by simply reminding everybody, in case you needed it, that we are now paying dividends. How do you like that? We started out at $0.05, went to $0.10 per quarter. And now we're at $0.15, so it's $0.60 a year. And we believe, at our October Board meeting, we plan to look very seriously at raising the dividend rate again for next year, 2024, and raise it again. So working our way up the scale. And again it's really a pleasure for us to be able to pass on some of this revenue growth and net income growth back to you. I see several people out there that I like to recognize. My good friend, handball player, Paul Flowers. Coach Randy Allen, coached all of our kids. He's been with his good friend. Sandy and Steve Woods, who's dad, my dad were best of friends. And Steve's been a great friend, too. And it's really fun to go across here. Phelps -- Bill Phelps, where are you? There you are. I didn't want to miss you and your wife. And then my two sisters. And I don't want to miss introducing them because then they'll start asking questions. Would you please raise hand. There they are. So -- and also, I want to introduce Greg Glosser. Greg, if you'd stand, please? Greg takes care of the Friends and Family Group at RBC. And keep standing. I want to embarrass you good. But any of you that ever have problems with your stock or want to buy more, Greg does a wonderful job keeping people informed on various events and has helped -- I mean it just -- it's made it go very smooth, and we appreciate that very much. And in case you think I'm speaking for the Board and getting too generous with dividends, we have our auditors here today. Chris Stakem, if you'd stand. And [ Cam ] and [ Gary ]. Gary's been here at 10 years. So he knows where all the barbie's are and -- but it's great having you, and it's always been very important to us to have auditors who take a real interest and really -- or thorough. I know Bill down there, we'll say something too of how much we appreciate all of you all's extra work. Thank you. All right. So with that, I'm going to sit down. We do have a special guest. I don't think, David, you stood. I think we've called your name. Would you please stand. David goes back to -- I have a test when I'm hiring on whether -- how quickly I can get them to say yes. And the real test is whether I ask -- invite him to breakfast. And then I hope before breakfast is over, they've committed. And when I was interviewing David at breakfast, and I offered him the job, the other guy with us said, "Joe, he doesn't know why he's here." He looked at me kind of curiously. And we thought it was reasonable to give him another day or so to think about it. He's here. We worked together for a long time. A great friend, a great professional and -- now I want to introduce two of our good friends from Amarillo, Bob Garrett and [ Dick Smith ]. And everybody raise your hand. [ Dick ] you all too stand for one moment. This -- hold a second. Wait. All right, okay. Would all those that have had some [ touching of the Terry State ], well either drilling it or producing it or accounting for it, please stand. All right. So there you are. And we've got a list of all shareholders that would like a weld name form. Please let someone in our group have that, and we're working through the list as fast as we can. And it isn't -- the control in always ours. The state of New Mexico regulatory authorities like to think they're going to have a say in it, too. So it affects timing on the permit and the order, but we'll get around to it. If you'll just let us know that's something you'd like to have. So with that, I'd like to -- now that we've entered -- and I'd like to introduce the Board to you. These are a special group of guys that give generously of their time more than they have to. If you give me the next one, Mac. All right. Just running through there. Tim is our Lead Director, and he was one of the most distinguished portfolio managers in the country, a good friend, a very thoughtful guy, a really second and third-level thinker. And we have a lot of fun graduate MBA from University of Virginia, and we have a really good time. And his mother shows you what a nice person he is. He's taking his mother to all the national parks.

Not all yet.

They're getting there. But in that very thoughtful and considerate guy, a big part of our Board. I also like to call out for special, Gaines Baty. Gaines and I coached our boys in baseball. He's a C-suite recruiter and I asked him, I said, "Hey, can I get you to come interview or see what we're doing on hiring?" And he did. And you can see back there, where the line goes up and up and up, before that, before Gaines and I coached baseball together, it was kind of flat. We were going up a little bit. But when Gaines got there, he has such great insight. He's been a big help to us in getting some first-rate talent. The Board would agree with that. Next to him is Rey Baribault. And Rey is one of the top 1% petroleum engineers in America. He started out at Exxon, went to Netherland and Sewell and then started his own company. So he understands drilling operation, reserves, finance, and is a real glue to the Board. Ken Stewart. Ken has been involved since 1990 of the first Gulf War. And he was a Head of -- the Global Head of Norton Fulbright & Jaworski, Norton Rose Fulbright and Jaworski. But Ken, so that's, what, 33 years? And it's a very able counsel all of that and organized this Matador. Bill Byerley, Bill was the senior at PwC and head of their energy practice and did audits on both Conoco and Exxon, among other companies. And has really continued to find ways for our audit effort to improve. And then Monika Ehrman. Monika, I met -- I'd say I met. I attended some of her CLE seminars on oil and gas. And I said, "Gosh, she's really smart. It turns out she's a petroleum -- seems to know the industry. She was a petroleum engineer, then a Vice President at Pioneer. And now Head of the Oil and Gas Department -- Legal Department at SMU and teaching oil and gas there. Her husband is also in the -- Brad also in the oil and gas business. So continuing on. Bo Howard. Bo and I have had a relationship for almost 20 years, been involved in different capacities. He was in marketing for a long time and really understand, so when you're in the ups and downs, he's been very helpful to us. Julia Rogers from Amarillo. She's also on the SMU faculty, a tenured professor, electrical engineering major at University of Texas and was the highest score on the bar exam, as well as the -- making outlays in electrical engineering. That's pretty good. And to conclude, with our newest Director, that I've known for a long time, and this is my daughter, Shelley. Now I couldn't make this up, but all through the voting procedure, she was in the lead. She was getting more votes than I was. And you know I'm competitive. I was trying to be nice about it. And -- but it was her. But last night, she was ahead of me 500,000, 600,000 votes. And I was pretty well accepting my fate explaining to you that she outvoted me on the deal. And the Amarillo precinct came in, and I slid by. All right. So now, and nobody does this alone to start a company and get it to there. I'll very much -- to Scott King. And Scott King was my co-founder here, along with my wife, Nancy. I don't want to step on any toes. But Scott and I were very close in getting this going. And it required a lot of different activities, and Scott was ready for all of them, in any of them. And we worked very well, and we're very fortunate today to have his widow, Mattie. Mattie, will you raise your hand?. There you are. You moved over there. And Scott's brother-in-law, who gave one of the most moving eulogies. I really should just step down and let him see if he restate -- say his. Again, it was one of the most moving eulogies that I've ever heard. And it came from his brother-in-law, which is I thought really special. But anyway, Scott was my friend. And we'd like to have a little remembrance of Scott. He died earlier this year in January. He was my friend, my colleague and co-founder of Matador, too. We would not be where we are today without Scott's personal and technical skills. I liked him from the moment I met him at breakfast one morning years ago. I made him an offer to help head up our technical effort. He accepted the offer before breakfast was over. And the rest is history. Scott had both a good heart and a good mind. He found a lot of oil in his career, and he had a very capable mindset for business, for creative endeavors and for personal relationships. I was fortunate to have Scott as co-founder of this Matador. He can wear many hats and he had a lot of personal and professional integrity. I really enjoyed working with Scott and getting to know Scott and his family. As I said, above all and in every way possible, Scott was a family man. He was a teacher to them, a scout master, a music man, a [ potter ], a skilled woodworker and a world traveler. He was the guy one wanted as a neighbor, as a dad and as a boss. He led from the front. He is greatly missed and we are deeply appreciative of his many contributions at Matador. We all felt we had the honor and pleasure of building a company with him. May he rest in peace as a good and faithful servant. Now I'm going to ask David to come up here. And as David finished his remarks, let's have a moment of silence for Scott at the end of David's remarks. David?

Thank you. So I am delighted to be back with all of you today. And Joe, thank you very much for the honor of getting to say a few words about my friend, Scott King. As I thought about what I might want to say, it sort of conjured up a lot of emotions in me. And I tried to kind of distill that into maybe three things that Scott meant the most to me or that I thought represented Scott. First of all, number one is just gratitude, okay? I'm extremely grateful to Scott to what he meant to me and what he meant to Matador. Joe shows that this company started with $6 million in capital. And that's how this day got to be possible, was with that $6 million. But who's $6 million was that? Well, a big chunk of it was Joe and Nancy's and a big chunk of it was Scott's and Mattie's. And they were the ones that took the risk and that had the courage to get this whole thing started. They didn't have to. They've done really well with the sale of Matador 1. They could have bought a boat and sailed off and just had a really great life, but they didn't. They decided to start something new. And Joe and Scott would tell me that they wanted to build something bigger and better than they had the first time, and I think they certainly did that. And we all benefited from it, whether we were employers, shareholders, friends, whatever our relationship, all of us today benefited from the risk they took and from what Scott and Joe did in founding this company. And I'm extremely grateful for that because it touched my life and Sue's life in ways I never could imagine possible when I accepted the job here at Matador. Scott, not only was the geoscientist and the head of exploration, as Joe said, Scott wear lots of hats. I mean Scott was the IT guy. When it was time to build out new offices, Scott was managing the building construction. So he did so many things in the early days to kind of keep this company going, get it started, make it run. And I really appreciate all that he did. The second thing that came to my mind was just admiration. I admired him greatly as a professional. He taught me a lot about geology and geophysics and what it meant to build a prospect and that sort of thing. I think Scott was a great geoscientist. And I think you can be a good geoscientist and no sedimentary systems and depositional environments and how to find little wiggles and squiggles on the seismic and what they may mean, apologies for that technical term, but you know what really matters if you're in the oil and gas business is, can you find oil and gas as a geoscientist? And Scott could do that. I remember when I first interviewed that day with Joe, him telling me that Scott was his best oil finder of all time. And that was a big reason why I wanted to come to work here at Matador. Because we had a good oil finder. And over the years, we've had lots of good oil and gas finders, and that's what's made us successful. But Scott -- as Joe said, Scott led from the front. He was the one that got all that started. I also admire Scott greatly as a person. He was just a great person, a good man, a good person, a good friend, a good colleague. He was fun to be around. I always enjoyed our interactions together, personal, professional. He was just a lot of fun to be around. And that probably brought me to the third thing that I think about, Scott. I mean when I look at this picture, the word that just comes to my mind is joy. Scott was an incredibly joyful person. Look at that picture. Look at that smile. That's Scott. He always had that little grin on his face like that. There was always a light I felt in him that not everybody possesses, but it was there. It was infectious. You couldn't help but be around it and not feel good. He had a great smile. He had a great sense of humor. Joe is right. He was a wonderful mentor to both employees and to young people. I know he was a Scout master. I know that he was very involved in a program through the Society of Exploration Geophysicists called EVOLVE, which is mentoring young college students in helping them to get ready for their professional careers, reviewing their projects and things like that. But to know Scott was to, I think, really no joy. And I'm going to end with this. One of my favorite movies of all time, even though it is Stephen King, is The Shawshank Redemption, right? I love that film. I'm sure many of you have seen that film, but one of my favorite lines in that movie, probably one of my favorite lines in any movie I've ever seen, is during one of the prison yard scenes. You have Andy talking to Red about what he would do if he ever got out of prison. And Red is telling him, "This is just silly. You shouldn't spend your time, waste your time. You're never going to get out. You shouldn't spend your time on all this frivolity." And Andy looks at him and he says, "Red, you can get busy living or you can get busy dying." And I'm going to tell you, Scott King, my friend, was one of the most get-busy-living people. I ever knew in my entire life. And even at the very end of his life, when I would go to lunch with him, he'd tell you about what was going on with his medical condition. But he'd also tell you about what he was building, what kind of investments he was making. Where he and Mattie were going, good lord, they were going all over the world. And I'm like, "Dude, how do you possibly have the energy to do all of this". But he did it because that's the way he lived his life. I think every day of his life Scott King was busy living. And that's the legacy that I think he left. That's the legacy that I always think of when I think of Scott and I try to -- I hope I do the same because I really do think, Scott, if he was here today, would tell us all I'm gone, but the rest of you just ought to get busy living. And Mattie, God bless you and your family, and thank you so much for sharing our beloved Scott with all of us. Thank you. Thank you Joe.

Very nice. David, I think you captured the thoughts of all of Matador staff, all the people that knew Scott and his troop that he was a mentor to all of them and that all but stayed with him in that troop made Eagle Scout, too. So influencing young people as we all know, is not that easy, but he did. And so let's have a minute of just a moment of silence for Scott, in remembrance and thankfulness of a really fine man. Dear God, please bless this man and his family and know we care and take care of him and know we'll see him again some time. Amen. All right. Now we move into the more formal part of the meeting, and I will now formally call the meeting to order and say that the 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Matador is now called to order and commences. Now I did not call upon our newest elected member, Shelley Appel. Shelley will you please stand. Shelley was salutatorian of her high school. She went to Yale undergraduate, was an honor graduate there in decision-making, which combined disciplines from course training from several different disciplines and then work for the New York Stock Exchange in their corporate finance group. And rose to be the top aid to the CFO there. From there, she went to the University Chicago to get an MBA. And she picked Chicago in part because it's very practically oriented in the numbers, and that she wanted to be able to do more analysis. And after receiving her MBA there, she went to work for Shell in Houston and -- first, in the M&A group and then with the CFO. And then Matador kept calling. I'd like to make that, it wasn't just me. I was doing it on behalf of Matador, and she came. And the real -- the point was when we got to all the ESG requirements that came out, they were new. We didn't have anyone immediately on staff to be able to do it, and we entrusted it to Shelley. Shelley did a good job. And as we look for new directors, it was becoming increasingly evident to us that ESG was here to stay and was going to grow. And we needed a director who could help us understand that. So if you read the sustainability report that we had this year, she was the author -- the principal author of it and has worked with our audit groups and the like, to strengthen our ESG and financial response to that. So we're glad to have her on the Board. And I just wanted you recognized, and of course, I love her. She's my daughter. But I was really proud of her for getting more votes, even though I didn't really want her to win. But we'll be up again in 3 years and you all can voice which way you want to go. Thank you very much. Shelley and I think, Ken, don't you have to ask her if she's willing to serve? She's got to make some affirmative statement? Okay. Now I'd like to introduce, we have an advisory committee of shareholder members on Board nominations. And these have been key shareholders for many years and I express my appreciation to them. Ken Stewart is a member of it. Monika Ehrman is -- was a member. Craig Burkert who's a former Director, a Harvard Business grad and was the CFO of ROMCO. Barry Banker, one of our original 17 shareholders, lives in Nashville and has been a key adviser and shareholder since 1983. He made the mistake of -- we've been friends going back to 1974 or so, but he and his wife happen to be in Dallas for a wedding, he made the mistake coming to see me just as we were starting first Matador. So you get them in the backyard, you tell him, "You can't go home until they commit." And he's been with us ever since. Joe Coleman, an attorney, friend and who's been in a number of businesses and great business mind, Head of the Investment Committee at Baylor University. Walter Fister. Walter is an investor from Lexington, Kentucky. Long-term friend, Kevin Grevey, who was all-American basketball player at Kentucky, but he's been scouting and he spoke to our staff before he and I visited a lot about what he looks for as a scout. It's very telling. It's the same thing applies to the candidates, and great judge of people and have been a great friend. Bob Garrett from Amarillo. I just previously mentioned Bob has been a great friend and I've really enjoyed getting to knowing over these last years. Dave Lancaster is a part of it. Bobby Pickard, Bobby's my teammate in both football and baseball and started a construction company in Amarillo that's worked all over the Western United States, and Bobby was one of the original 17 investors. And finally, George Yates, men's received almost ever honor there is in the oil industry, now working in Spain, and we've done a deal to get -- we've done a lot of deals over the years, principally on a handshake and we did another one when we -- he combined with us, and we're so delighted and we've got some of his former staff here today from the office in Artesia. And it's really been nice the way it's worked out and glad to see his family, Laura and them here and really proud of that. George, we did that so long ago. So now I'd like to recognize some of our senior officers and here at Matador, and I'd like to recognize our 2 presidents first, Billy Goodwin, originally from [ Electro ] Texas, worked all over the world and Van Singleton, Van got here. And I love to tell the story on Van when Van agreed to come up for an interview. It was kind of like weather that we've had in the recent few days, not sure when planes would fly. So Van left down there in South Texas, about 2:00 in the morning, so he could be sure to be here on time. And that kind of drive as you continue to see today. Our other EVPs. Craig, first, like Craig Adams. Now I don't want you to think you have to be from Amarillo to work here. But Craig is also from Amarillo. His dad was Mayor there and is a great lawyer, but a great friend in other ways, too. And then Brian Willey. Brian's been here. He's helped out as a lawyer and as the Head of Midstream and also as now the Chief Financial Officer. Continuing on, Gregg Krug, Gregg, where are you? There you are. Okay. Gregg, the story, and -- I'm sorry for taking this extra time, but I think it's important to know that we didn't really have a midstream until we went public. And as we were going public, we were getting -- everywhere we went, we were getting questions on how we're getting our gas out of the Eagle Ford. We weren't having any troubles at that time. But the fact of virtually every single meeting we were in, people are raising that issue, told us that while we may not have an issue, others were having it and we better get ready. So one night at dinner, we asked among ourselves. Dave will remember this with Matt, "Well, what are we going to do if we have a problem?" And someone said, "Get Gregg. Get Gregg to come back." Gregg said he'd come back if we promise to build a midstream. Now that was just to solve an emergency. Now the last 14 years, we've got a midstream system that stretches for 500 miles in the Delaware and is worth somewhere approaching $2 billion. And started out with a guy who grew up in Hooker or near Hooker in the gas camp. So we got Billy up here from the oil camp. And we got Gregg over here from the gas camp. Now if any of you all grew up in a water camp, we take that, too. Okay. I'm just trying to look around. What other EVPs am I missing here? Who? Rob Macalik. Yes, Rob and Chris, you both might as well stand up together. We're not going to let you all get away. And Tom, those three wise men, may I see? You see what my problem is, these guys -- you know, they're modest and they're trying not to be. But if you look here, this is the brain trust -- best part of the brain trust that we have, Michael has worked with me over 20 years since going back to high school, Ned has built, I think, one of the finest geoscience staff in the country, if not the best. And Glen and I have -- he came in and it's what -- he just said, whatever I can do to help, and we tested him, David and I both had him doing different things. And I remember the day when David said, he thought he was the most talented production engineer that he had ever know. Do you remember that? And -- then Chris Calvert came in from Chesapeake and has taken over our completion, along with Cliff Humphreys. And what a job that they've done? And fracking is a key part of drilling these wells and having 1 million barrel recoveries. Rob Macalik is I think one of the best, if not, the best Chief Accounting Officer in the business. And he plays such a vital role in what we do. Because again, back to the Audit Committee, show hands if he thinks he's first right? Okay. All right. Don't let it go to your head, Rob. And then Tom Elsener and I have been friends for a long time. Tom came over and has come up with year-after-year, great drilling programs where you drill 1 million-barrel well after a 1 million-barrel well, and that has given us a much higher rate of return than most. And so you really see the guys sit -- and everybody is taking on this responsibility. I'm boring the directors a little bit because every day we can see how good these guys are and -- [indiscernible], why don't you say something real quick since you're kind of watching, do a lot of the operations.

This team has been together for so long, they hold us well and worked together well. They're a family of themselves. I started Exxon in 1985 in a down cycle. And I was the beneficiary of quite a few of the older talent at Exxon that's still stuck around. And that same level of integrity and interest in the younger professionals exist here at our company. And passing on the baton to the next generation is always on the forefront of everyone's minds. This team at [ Matador ] Arrivals, the team that I work with at Exxon all day long. So with that said, hats off to you guys.

Wait before you sit down, I want to recognize Bryan Erman too, as part of that group. And again, Bryan is somebody, we have a long history back there. And all these guys pitch in and it's really a team effort. While they're standing to give you a flavor of the core of Matador would all the senior VPs, please stand -- all right. Now I think I have more EVPs and SVPs and we had investors in first Matador. But there are the same thing. You go around the room with these guys, what a terrific job all of them are doing. And now all of our VPs, please stand. So this is a group. And again, we invite you to visit with them when you come back or whatever we can do. But you say these are people who are very committed to building a better company and to focus really on quality and not just numbers. And that commitment goes through that when you have a freeze like Yuri, these guys are up here making sure their computers are working, everything is still progressing. Things are happening in the field. And the dedication on before as we were buying Advance, we'll get to these guys for up here working all night and did an unbelievable job, and I can't really put into words just how good it was [ Kristin ] and the production people, keeping those wells going during that time. And -- so very much appreciate, and I hope all of you will give them a rousing round of applause. I wish I had time to tell a story on everyone. So we may begin a rotation sometime because there are lots of good stories this group as you can imagine. Now I'd like to ask all the other Matador employees to stand. Many of them have 5, 10, 20 years, as I pointed out, some that had 30 years. All right. You'll please stand. This is the future. And of course, I have a dollar that helps in coordination, but also I'm going to recognize Jack Hrncir and embarrass him a little bit. His grandfather was my football and baseball coach, Bobby Pickard, and I learned so much from him. He was a big influence on my life. And so I told Jack, when he started here, I was going to treat him just like Coach Hrncir treated me, but we're glad that we're still joining forces after all for 50 years now. Okay. Chris Stakem and [ Derek ], our independent registered public accounts for the year ending December 31, 2023, and your members of your team, are they here, please stand. So shareholders, I want you to see who's checking on this, and they've done a great job always helping us improve, and we appreciate it very much. Kim, do you want to say something about this team.

I want to say [indiscernible].

Well, I'm getting around the room. I'd also like to recognize my wife and Co-Founder, Nancy. Nancy, would you please stand. Nancy stay standing, and then our daughter Mary. Mary will you please stand. I want to get the whole family in. Now I'm going to introduce a few other people. Please hold your applause in the interest of time. Ed Dougherty -- are you here registered. There you are. Okay. Ed's been a longtime shareholder and was in the business. Dale Gillette, Dale, are you signed up. And the Harvey's have been our shareholders -- original shareholders back to '83. [ Web ], I know I saw you. So there you are. And Okay, Paul, Paul stand, Don't be shy. All right. Okay. Yes, you were behind Chris there, and I couldn't see, but we have the Harvey's here and their dad was one of our first shareholders with Paul and what a great gentleman, he was. But Paul has also noted because Glenn [ Stetson's ] wife work for Paul. So we appreciate the talent scouting to. We try to find people from everywhere. And again, it's just fantastic the relationships. Bruce and Carol Keplinger -- where did Bruce go? Donna was there. Donna, there you are, please stand. Donna and her husband, Craig, been too very, very special shareholders. And he was just a genius at problem solving. Did so many interesting things. Texas Eastern Pipeline, pipelines in Argentina, getting ships, big ships moved around South America. I mean just so many different interesting things and Donna may win the prize for coming the longest distance because anybody been further away than New Hope, Pennsylvania. Well, Donna, you will receive a prize in the mail. Brad Lemis, Brad, where are you? There you are. Please stand. And your friend, Phil Hartigan. Brad was one of my favorite students when I taught accounting at SMU and still been an important part of our fabric over 25 years. We also played, I guess, [ Barley basketball ] down there in Austin, so -- and it turns out his wife and Nancy knew each other, so it shows you always have to behave because you never know who you're going to run into. Richard Neely. Richard and William -- that's my nephew by marriage -- nancy's brother. And Richard has been a good friend and a help to both Nancy and me, we're delighted to have both of you here. And Williams been married, how long. Okay. I don't want you to think that he's new at that. All right. I introduced my 2 sisters, Ronda and [ Donda ] - have you all, you can stand, right. And then I'd like to end by recognizing Mac Smith and Amanda Crawford, Amanda? -- where you are back there. And Mac, back over here. They are the real architect of this meeting, and you all know Amanda and what a fantastic chief of staff, she is, and that's what we call her the chief around there. Okay. And -- and I'd like -- before moving on, just to say to everybody in here, if you're not receiving our quarterly shareholder letter, but would like to, please let Amanda know there in the back, and we'll add you to the address list. So now I need to read some formal comments. This meeting is being held today pursuant to the notice that we mailed each shareholder of record as of April 12, 2023, which is the record date for this meeting. The secretary has made available a complete list of shareholders of the company entitled to vote at this meeting, alphabetically arranged and certified as of the close of business on the record day. Further, the secretary has provided the notice, proxy statement and proxy and an affidavit that such notice, proxy statement together with the 2022 annual report of the company were mailed to the shareholders of record as of the record date. These documents will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. Will [ Cale Curtin ] please rise? [ Cale ], we propose to appoint you as the Inspector of Elections at this meeting. As Inspector of Elections, you will ascertain the number of shares of common stock outstanding and the voting power of East, determine the shares of the common stock represented at the meeting and the validity of proxies and ballots, count all votes and ballots and certify and declare your determination of the number of shares of common stock represented at this meeting and your count of all votes and ballots. All holders of common stock at close the business on the record date are entitled to vote, either in person or by proxy. Will you accept these duties?

Yes sir.

All right. Kyle, please present the attendance report.

As Inspector of Elections, I report that there are present at this meeting in person or represented by proxy, the holders of approximately 109,784,548 shares of common stock of the company, out of a total of 119,183,914 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote as of the record date. Thus, the holders of approximately 92% of the aggregate outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote are present in person or by proxy. Each share of common stock outstanding on the record date is entitled to one person.

All right. On the basis of the report of the Inspector of Elections, I declare a quorum is present for the purpose of conducting business, and the meeting is legally convened and ready to transact business. A certified report of the Inspector of Elections will be attached as an exhibit to the minutes of this meeting. As stated in the notice of the meeting, 3 matters will be considered and acted upon this morning to expedite the actions to be taken, all matters of business as reflected in the notice will be presented first, and then a ballot will be taken upwards for each voting matter. These 3 orders are, first, the election of 4 directors to our Board; two, the approval of a nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2022 compensation program of our named executive officers, also known as Say on Pay; and three, the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2023. Speaking on behalf of the entire Board of Directors, we recommend that you vote for the election of the director nominees and for the additional 2 proposals being considered at today's meeting. I would now like to ask Ken Stewart, the Chair of our Nominating Committee to introduce the director nominees.

Thank you, Joe. As I think our shareholders know, our Board is divided into 3 classes, each with staggered 3-year terms. And at this meeting, it's the end of the 3-year term for our Class III directors. So we'll be nominating 3 directors to fill those positions. And then we are also going to add a Class II director -- the 3 nominees for the Class III directors, we are recommending the nominating committee, the Shareholder Advisory Board and the Board have unanimously recommended that we reelect Joe, Tim and Rey to their positions as Class III directors. And then for the Class II Director, all that group is unanimously recommended that Shelley Appel the nominee for that position. So there's a little background on the directors. As you all know, Joe founded Matador Resources Company in 2003 and has been its Chairman and CEO since inception as well as the Chair of the Board of Executive Committee. Joe began his career as an oil and gas independent in 1983. And as he's stated before, he and his wife founded for an oil company with that $270,000 from Magic 17. And it's been progress forward every day and every year since then. Today, Matador is one of the top 20 public exploration and production companies in the country by market capitalization in one of the top 10 natural gas producers -- oil and natural gas producers in New Mexico. And as the Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, forever leader of Matador Resources Company, Joe provides the Board with leadership and industry experience and long relationships with this group of people and others that are shareholders of this company that couldn't be replicated in any other way. Rey Baribault was elected to the Board in 2014 and is Chair of the Board's operating and Engineering Committee and his prospect committee, as you heard Joe indicate some of his background. He served as lead independent director for the Board from 2016 to 2019 and cofounded a number of energy companies and has operated those after his careers at both Exxon and Netherlands Sewell. So his background in oil and gas and particularly operations and engineering have been indispensable to the Board and the company. Tim Parker was appointed to the Board in 2018 and is the Independent Director and Chair of the Board's capital markets and finance committees. And Tim serves as a contractor in charge of research for Works Wealth Management and that is after his long career with T. Rowe Price, he retired in 2017, and he had managed several of their funds as well as being their Chief Analyst for Natural Resources, and he brings invaluable insights to the -- from into the institutional investor community that we have as shareholders and has done an excellent job in guiding the Board as the Independent Lead Director. Now Joe stole my thunder about Shelley. I was going to talk on for hours and hours of her background. But I will just say, as Director and as Chair of the Nominating Committee, when I saw her educational background, yield and Chicago Business School, her business background in terms of the New York Stock Exchange and Shell and then her work and witnessed our work directly in our environmental, social and governance area and the reports she's put out, absolutely no doubt she would make an excellent director and I really look forward to working with her. And yes, Joe, we have already confirmed that if elected, she'll serve. So that's our group, and we recommend, as Joe said, that you vote for all of these nominees. And with that, I think I'm going to turn it over to Gaines for the next proposal.

Good morning. The second order of business is the nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2022 compensation plan for our named executive officers, which is Say on Pay. Our comp plan is designed to reward both, in the short and long term, the performance that contributes to the organization's success and the implementation of business strategies, the maintenance of our culture and values, the achievement of our objectives. We believe that the 2022 compensation plan does accomplish these objectives. More information about the comp plan is available in the proxy statement. If you want to look about more -- look more about that. And the Board has recommended that you vote for the nonbinding resolution approving the 2022 compensation of our named executive officers. I'd like to introduce Bill Byerley, Chair of our Audit Committee, who will discuss the final order of business. Bill?

Thank you, Gaines. Good morning. The final proposal before us today is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm. KPMG served as Matador's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, and has served as the company's auditor since 2014. The Audit Committee has appointed KPMG as Matador's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2023. In turn, the Board of Directors has directed such appointment to be submitted to our shareholders for ratification at this meeting. Further information about the services provided by KPMG is set forth in the proxy statement. The Board recommends you vote for the ratification of KPMG as the independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2023. I'll now turn the meeting back to Mr. Foran. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Bill. On behalf of everyone on the Board and the Matador staff, we thank you for the rigor and expertise that you bring to the Audit Committee. And Ken and Gaines, we greatly appreciate all your hard work and expertise in your Board and committee assignments as well. To review the three orders of business are: the election of four directors, the nonbinding advisory note to approve the 2022 compensation program of our named executive officers, also known as Say on Pay, and the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2023. We will now distribute ballots to any shareholders present who wish to vote in person. To avoid confusion in counting the votes, a ballot should be cast at this time only if you have not previously given a proxy. Are there anybody wanting to vote in person? Seeing none, is that collecting the ballots. Kyle, do you have a report on the vote?

I'm pleased to report that each of the nominees for director has been elected to the Board, as each nominee has received the majority of the votes cast by the shareholders present in person or represented by proxy, that are present at this meeting entitled to vote on the election of directors.

Can you indicate when you get to the Say on Pay and the audit how many votes that they received, the proportion of votes, please?

Yes, sir. I can give those numbers. We won't have the final number until our 8-K comes out a little bit later, but I can give what we've got.

Okay. That sounds good.

So I'm pleased to report additionally, that each of the other proposals, the nonbinding resolution, approving the 2022 compensation of our named executive officers, has been approved by approximately 97% of the votes represented here or by proxy, and that the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2023, has received a favorable vote of the majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy, over 99%. And with those results, we can say that each of the director nominees and the proposals voted upon today, as described in the proxy statement has, consistent with the recommendations of the Board of Directors, been approved by the shareholders and will be recorded as such in the minutes of this meeting. We'd like to remind our shareholders and all the other stakeholders here today, the specific information regarding the number of votes cast for and against each proposal will be included in our current report on Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission [ in the days ]...

Thank you, Kyle. This completes the scheduled items of business to be conducted at this meeting. I want to recognize George Jones, one of our long-term multiple 20 years -- 25 years shareholder. And sitting next to him is Jason Schumacher, who has rendered exceptional service on our midstream matters, and delighted to have you here today. All right. There being no further business before the meeting, the formal portion of the 2023 Annual Meeting is now adjourned. And I have, again, just a few remarks that if Mac will set them up, I'll get through this quickly. There have been many questions about the Advance purchase. And what does it really do for Matador? And I'm trying to give you an idea, with the addition of very few employees, we'll be able to handle it essentially with our current staff. We have increased the reserves on here from 357 million barrels of oil or gas equivalent, by over 100 million, 106 million, which gives us the 453 million barrels of oil or gas equivalent. So you can see its impact, and this is really great rock. We can go to the next one. You'll see our acreage is in red. Advance is in blue, and you see how it all fits together. It's the adjoining ranch, so to speak. And all of this is just A+ rock. And that's what we've done as a company, have focused in on trying to limit our drilling only to those A+ locations. Now that isn't just a rock that needs to be A+, but you can make an A location or A- into an A+ by lowering the cost, eliminating the casing strength. Billy, why don't you comment on what you do to make them A+?

Joe, I think we talk about all the people here in the room and talk about our A+ people but those people out in the field to making this acquisition, our superintendents and their leadership and all the people out there working 24 hours a day -- this was a big deal. It was hundreds of wells. And operations going on 24 hours a day, and they got after it. And boots on the ground there, making things happen and made sure that all the production kept going, and every barrel was counted. And so that all that counted up for the shareholders and really proud of them and keeping everything going, Joe.

Billy, how many drilling records as your team set currently?

We're up to 300 now, Joe. Lots of records and more to come, and we appreciate having the boardroom for the MAXCOM room there and ever 24-hour day monitoring there. And they stay after it, stay on top of things. And like I say, every barrel counts. And we're drilling these 10,000, put 2-mile laterals and they keep us in zone and keep us in the preferred target zone. And every extra barrel we get, that's an extra $70. And you multiply that times 10,000 feet, that's a lot of dollars. So you get 5 or 10 extra barrels, that really adds up and taking advantage of this A+ rock. And we've always thought working all around the world, like you mentioned earlier, that the Delaware Basin is the best. And what I like about it is all the stacked pay zones out there. And Ned and his group and working with reservoir and asset teams, they keep identifying more and more rock, and more and more pay zones, and just makes it more and more valuable. And really appreciate all their work and like I say, working with all those people out in the field, getting it done.

Well, -- and to give you an idea of this MAXCOM room, it was supposed to be our boardroom. And it's turned into a 24/7 where they're watching the wells being drilled in real time. And to give you an idea. They've moved -- the time you stay in zone, you got to be in zone to get oil out of it. If you move out of zone, then you're not getting anything. Well, they moved to increase the time as you drill these long laterals of staying in zone from 85% to over 95%, in some cases, as much as staying in zone 99%. Well, if you increase the recovery by 10% on a 1 million-barrel well, that's 100,000 barrels. So it adds up to real money an extra 100,000 barrels at $70 is $7 million. So you really have a very important facts. And it's the same thing in the measurement room that Anton or Rick Anderson here can tell you that we're discovering -- we're trusting but verifying their production, and we found 5,000 barrels, 7,000 barrels. And of course, this is real money that goes to the bottom line. So -- and they go -- as you said, all night. And it's just a lot of extra effort. And boy, we appreciate you and your operations and Gregg, the marketing group to get it right. Now keeping things very simple, the arithmetic, very simple for everybody, we began the year, and you may get tired of me saying this, but emphasizing, we began the year making 100,000 barrels of oil a day, and that had been a longtime goal, get to 100. Well, we got to 100. It's actually 101,000 barrels a day. We closed on the Advance deal. And now we are producing about 130,000 barrels a day, and we will finish the year at 140,000, a 40% growth. So you can see why we're so excited by the transaction without adding people, we're increasing the production 40%. So prices stay in this. It's going to be another banner year. But even more exciting, 2024 is pretty much in the bucket. We will have 21 wells that have been drilled, but not completed. And another 28 that Tom has scheduled for us to drill. So 48 wells coming on beginning first of the year to continue the momentum through 2024. And our aim is to continue on the path to 200,000 barrels and on to a path of $100 a share. Next, I just want to -- you saw this briefly before of how well the properties fit, and then the pipelines that we have going through our acreage and connecting the San Mateo line with the Pronto system, giving us the 500 miles of 3-stream water, gas and oil. Next, this probably what you've been waiting. This is maybe the sexiest thing we'll talk about today is you can drill four 1-mile horizontals or you can drill two of the horseshoe wells. And the horseshoe wells are savings up to $10 million by drilling those instead of the four traditional -- horizontals that are just straight line. And this has been a big development. We're not through, we're testing it and -- to see how well it works, but just the fact we've been able to make the turn is important, and we await completion. Billy, do you want to add anything?

I'd say that we teamed up with Patterson to customize some rigs, to take out to the Delaware Basin, with high torque top dry, walking rigs and also set them up for managed pressure drilling and kept up with technology -- leading technology out here. We showed up out here with all the high-tech equipment rigs. And now you look around and you see them all over the horizon there. Everyone else figured out it's the right thing to do and cutting days off these wells. I mean every day we cut off $100,000 plus or minus. So it's a big deal and moving this direction into the horseshoe wells, that's another big step for us. And having that technology out there to take advantage of it is definitely worked in our favor in all of our A+ hands. And so as we move forward with this, there's like 80 single mile wells that are just kind of sitting there, not as economic, and we'll be able to drill those. They've already been identified and looking at permitting and all, and we'll only have to drill 40 wells to get them. And just growing up as a kid, having a milk shake, I always want to get all that milk shake out of there. We set straw around in there, all the corners. I wasn't leaving any. And that's kind of what we're doing here. We're going to twist it around and get it. And for over two of them we do, then the next one is free. So savings on top of it.

What can I say? How about that. Put in monetary terms, you drill these 40 wells, and you save $10 million for each horseshoe, that's $400 million. So they can have a big impact on our stock if we can complete this innovation. Next and here, trying to give you a feel that when we bought Advance and bought it for $1.6 billion, we did not use financing for everything. We had $600 million in the bank in cash at the time. And we told people we will pay it down just like we had done previously. And this is -- although this is a past history of showing what we did on the RBL, which is a reserve-based lending, with the banks, we paid it down so we were in position to do the Advance with cash in the bank. And we expect to do the same thing as we did before. You don't have to worry about will it work. Will we really be able to pay down the debt? And we already have. We've only owned it for 2 months, but we've already made a significant -- what I think is a significant reduction in the debt of over $100 million. So if prices stay up there, it will have this kind of behavior. And then when we get to October, we can see what we can do on the dividend. Next, to give you an idea, we put a lot of emphasis on recruiting at getting the best and the brightest, and we recruit from a number of different schools: A&M, Texas, Colorado School of Minds, University of Oklahoma, Texas Tech, University of Wyoming. And we're really pleased with the caliber of hires that we've made over the last 10 years in these recent classes. And you can see it's beginning to pay off. In our 2022 intern class tenant, we made 11 offers, 10 accepted. And in 2023, we have 14 interns, and they're off to a good start. And I make the point with all of our officers, vice presidents and treasurer and everything else that there are probably football coaches that know their X's and O's as good or better than Nick Saban at Alabama, but nobody recruits better. Year after year, he's getting the best players. Well, we're trying to be selective like that. The bigger companies, they've got to just hire for the masses, and they'll go in and make 50 offers at each school. We try to be very select and improving the recruiting. This is something that Gaines and I felt going back changing things in the early '90s to build the Matador that we have today. All right. Next, I'd like to introduce Tim Parker. Tim is our lead director and does an extraordinary job. And it's such an honor and pleasure to work with him. He retired in 2017 from T. Rowe Price and he had joined them in 2001 as an equity analyst. And from 210 cap value small-cap stock and new horizon funds from 2013 to 2017. Prior to joining T. Rowe Price, Tim was an investment banking analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company, Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Science from University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration degree from Darden School of Graduate Business at the University of Virginia. His experience with large institutional shareholder, his extensive familiarity with the capital markets and his knowledge of Matador from inception to present provide the company with a unique and valuable insight. Tim?

Thank you for that kind introduction. And I just want to say this is a great Board. I love working with them. So that's what I'm going to talk about. This is what I think is a very functional Board that we're all -- we have different strengths, different backgrounds. That's why we have different committees. And we chair different committees, but we all serve on different committees as well. But nothing passes until we all, as a Board, talk about it, socialize it, debate it, pressure test it. That's really what we're trying to do as a Board. We're here to be the guide rails for all these good people that are really doing everything today, the brain trust, as Joe calls it. We want to be those guide rails to keep them on track, to pressure test, to be the sounding boards, be the people that can offer new ideas from our backgrounds. And if we can do that, we're doing what we can to keep this moving in the right direction. Like all of you, we're pushing on the rock, too, on the way we can. And so I'm really appreciative to have a chance to serve on this Board, and I'm really appreciative that you elected all of us. Because I think the world of all of my colleagues on the Board that we all have, whether it's raise engineering and public -- private company experience, bill auditing the books of Exxon, it's amazing to have people with these sorts of experiences serving for the betterment of this company. And so I just want to say thank you for your confidence in all of us. That we're not the rubber stamp board. We're always under pressure test ideas. We're not going to let Joe run all over us, but he generally has good ideas and so does the rest of the team. So thank you again for your confidence in us. And with that, I'll turn it back over.

All right. I'd like to have Rey speak. And Rey came from Exxon. He helped cofound NP Resources, which also operated in the Williston Basin and served as EVP of Engineering, helping oversee the sale of its assets in late 2021. In addition, he serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of IPR Energy Partners, a plan of -- Texas-based oil and gas natural production operator with current operations in the Fort Worth Basin. He previously served as Vice President, Supervisor and Petroleum Engineering Consultant with the Netherland and Sewell and associates. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from LSU and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Texas. He provides valuable insight to our Board on drilling, completions and reservoir engineering operations as well as growth strategies, midstream operations and administration. And Rey is just man not only with many professional attributes, but also extraordinary common sense. Rey?

Thanks, Joe. Appreciate the kind intro. And just one more call us to add LSU, we're adding that to the recruiting program. So hats off to the team that's managing. That's a lot of man hours involved and a lot of sweat equity for the betterment of the company moving forward. But thank you for taking the time to attend today and to listen in also on the webcast. On behalf of all of the directors here, we appreciate the Matador shareholder family and also your continued interest and support in the company and in the talented employees, both in the office in Dallas and Carlsbad and dedicated field staff, keeping operations safely moving forward every day. A common theme at Matador resonates with all its employees from the seasoned veterans that you've all met here today, to the new recruits, new to the company. That common theme, the day's challenges and obstacles encountered along the way are handled opportunities for improving profitability, increasing efficiencies and optimizing returns on investments. And I'd like to shine a light on several examples here with a few slides that reflects this work ethic that carries through all ranks of the company. The first slide, first off, is focusing on the operational integration of Advance Energy acquisition. Happy to report the integration is in play and is moving forward in good order. And things are rolling right along as expected since the closing in April. As Joe noted a few moments earlier, the strategic and accretive acquisition increases the company's proved reserves 30%. And it also boosts the ranger area drilling locations in Lee County. The acquisition included 128 producers and two solar disposal wells, along with the associated production facilities. And all of those facilities and wells are now assimilated under Matador's daily surveillance. Drilling continues to the right with over 100,000 feet of new rock drilled and 300 frac stages completed using simul-frac methods since the April closing. This slide specifically shows Halliburton's equipment on a simul-frac spread on a 5-well pad on the [ Margarita ] project. Once completion operations are finished on the 21 Margarita wells, initial production will follow later this summer. The production contributed from this project and other pads that are in the queue on the Advance acreage will benefit also from Matador's Pronto midstream system and the Marlan gas plant that was acquired last year. Moving on to the favorite slide of the day. I can't let this one go for another couple of comments. This slide, I'd like to bring visibility to what we call a next-generation acreage development tool that Matador is an early mover on in the Delaware Basin. There are a couple of other operators that have attempted this, but heretofore with not great results. So the drilling and completion, the drilling has been completed on two wells in the J.J. Wheat Lease in the Wolf area. Those two wells are part of a 9-well drilling program. Three of those wells are yet to be drilled. And once all nine are completed and stimulated, we'll be able to see results from the horseshoe wells here today. So a little bit of getting in the weeds. In certain areas of the company's acreage, the land team, for various reasons, cannot combine to 1-mile sections into a 1,280-acre spacing unit that allows a 1,280-acre 2-mile lateral to be drilled. So there are about 40 of these wells, as Billy and Joe mentioned, that the team has identified across all the asset areas in the Delaware Basin to take advantage of this new technique and this new technology to, as Billy said, get all the milk out of the milk shake. So it's a novel approach. It's a next-generation plan, and it affords quite a lot of new development ideas for areas of the company's acreage where what do we do with a 1-mile stranded section. So looking forward to the results coming up later this summer. And one of the rigs that is in this 9-well program at Wolf is going to move on to the [ Buzz Rochelle ] pad, and that will be a 4-well 2.7-mile lateral length program that will commence drilling here in the next few weeks. Another major milestone for the company, just inching forward and moving from 2-mile lateral to 2.5-mile lateral, now 2.7-mile and ultimately, sometime in the next year or so, 3-mile laterals will be part of the development plan. So if you'd like to take a deeper look into the horseshoe design itself, visit with Matador staff that's manning the drilling table outside the meeting hall area. They'd be happy to discuss it with you and they can run a 3D video rendering of the drilling and prosecution of the well itself. The next slide provides an update on the company's continued successful rollout of simul-frac operations. And in this instance, in this slide, we're showing a highly profitable Rodney Robinson 1,280-acre unit. That was a key part of the 2019 BLM leasing program. You're looking at a pad -- at the two pads that are developing the north end of the 1,280-acre standup unit. And this challenge that Matador faced here in this drilling campaign was to complete stimulation operations on eight newly drilled wells in the Bone Springs carbonate and Wolfcamp B targets in as quick and efficient manner to minimize the required shut-in time to frac protect the other 17 existing producers in the unit that were completed back in 2020 through 2022. So this was strategically planned out and prosecuted and conducted using remote simul-frac operations with two separate frac crews consecutively. Halliburton's frac spread is what you're looking at here on the north end of the unit pad. The horsepower and equipment is on the Northwest pad, and then in the distance off to the north and east. And the right-hand side of the slide is the remote pad. And the right of way that I'm showing in the dark red line is the 7-inch steel line that is laid between the two pads. And through that 7-inch steel line, it's the conduit for the frac load that's being pumped from the horsepower equipment over not only on the four wells on the near pad, but the four wells on the far pad that are being remotely simul-frac. So through that steel line, the average pumping rate is about 60,000 barrels of fluid and about 3 million pounds of frac sand per day. And on the peak pumping day for this remote simul-frac operation with Halliburton again, on the north side of the unit and Patterson's universal frac fleet on the South pad, the combined 2-day -- the combined 1-day peak rate, the company stimulated a total of over 6,300 feet of horizontal lateral, again in 1 day, and deployed 15 million pounds of proppant and 300,000 barrels of fluid, again, all in one 24-hour period. So I want to bring that out because that's day in and day out. This is SOP, Standard Operating Procedure. It's an immense planning program, and it's replicated day in and day out with the talented team that you see here today and also in the field. So with this operation, you can see the notes there, remotely simul fracking rather than sequentially fracking one after another, using the zipper frac technique. So the company saved $2.5 million, and more importantly, minimize the amount of shut-in time for the other 17 wells on the Rodney Robinson spacing unit by 17 days. So it's a huge impact, and it underscores just every nuance of every operation that the teams go through in planning and maximizing what the return on investment can be for a project like this. So hats off to everyone that's involved. And so in 2023, on that bottom right-hand callout box, you see Matador will be conducting over half of its well completions with simul-frac operations. So it really is a key added component to executing in the field, and it's generating substantial savings and optimizing returns on the capital programs. The next companion slide, building off on this importance and significance of remote simul-fracking as well as simul-fracking. So in 2023, the remote fracking process that I just described on the Rodney Robinson unit is estimated to double the amount of available well inventory that will be simul-frac with the company. So it's an excellent example of how staff is continuing looking around -- looking ahead around the corner for new ways to enhance operations by reducing costs. So for more background on the Rodney Robinson remote simul-fracking, the staff manning and the completions table can describe that in more detail. And they have a 3D drone video that they can roll for you that rolls you through that operation that slide presented. And lastly, on my last slide here, a shout out to the MAXCOM operations center. The many -- this highlights some of the many successes that have been achieved to date. We're showing 215 records that the team at MAXCOM has been a part of in the 5 years that it's now been in operation at the company. The dedicated engineers and geologists are manning at 24/7. They work 7-day shifts, 7 days on, 7 days off, a night crew, a day crew. So it really is providing very important horizontal steering guidance to the drillers on the rigs. So the collective geosteering, drilling, planning and monitoring efforts that the teams have been involved with in the 5 years have generated over $30 million in savings. And as we said, led to well over 200 drilling records, and that number grows every month. No one is ready to just rest on their laurels and just look at past performance and say that's good enough. So every day, everyone is agents for positive change, not only in this room, but in the entire company. So the success of the MAXCOM operation center served as a catalyst for the kickoff in 2019 of the midstream team's 24-hour manned measurement and commodity or control room. Those team members monitor over 5,000 devices that are covering measurement, communication, instrumentation and gas control in the field. So quite a lot to cover, but it's an important parameter to minimize downtime and improve performance of the company. So in wrapping up Matador's high-quality assets, both in the reservoir rock below ground and with a unique mix of production and midstream facilities above ground, combined with the dedicated-driven and talented people, are generating consistently high returns and growing shareholder value. Thank you for your time and attention today and for your support and interest and confidence in Matador. Thank you.

Thank you, Rey, for your -- all your extra work and your friendship and dedication to Matador. We're very lucky to have all of you. And now I'd like to introduce Brian Willey to give a financial report. Brian?

Thanks, Joe. It's a true privilege to be able to be here today as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of Matador 1 and the 20th anniversary of the founding of Matador 2. So what a tremendous privilege it is for all of us to be able to be here. And I will focus primarily today on what has occurred over the last 11 years since we became public in 2012. And so it doesn't matter which metric you look at, whether it's acreage, production, reserves, the midstream business, would be again paying a dividend, whichever metric you look at, the growth has been tremendous. It's incredible. And we'll go into a little bit more detail on a number of those. But I think that growth has led to this increase in share price. The IPO price back in 2012 was $12 per share, and you'll see that's grown over 300%. Where today, we're trading over $50 per share. What a tremendous growth and a testament to the people of this company and their work and vision and efforts that they've been able to build a wonderful and tremendous asset. And all of that's been done, as you can see, while oil prices have actually decreased. So when we went public, we are right around $100 a barrel on oil, and that's decreased now where we're hovering around 70. And so despite the headwinds, despite these challenges with oil prices, we continue to grow and have these great opportunities. And so being more specific about some of these items, I think they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I think maybe this one's worth 150,000 net acres. But we're able to see the growth from 2012, and you'll see there's just a few red spots on the map when we had 7,500 net acre. And then as it moves forward into 2017, we've now done the HEYCO deal, and we have implemented the brick-by-brick approach. And so you'll see more red in the middle section. And then today, in 2023, you'll see the red. And you also see the blue, which is the Advance acres that we've talked about. And we get to 150,000 net acres. And so what a great goal is we kind of have this progress as we've gone throughout over the years. And that acquisition of the acreage has led and corresponded to a growth in our production. We have a saying that we see often here at Matador profitable production growth at a major pace. You'll hear that about production. You'll hear about other stuff as well, profitable growth at a major pace over and over again. And you'll see that on this slide, where it goes kind of up from the left to the right, increasing every single year where we have this production growth. Even in 2020, you'll see, despite the pandemic, we continue to have this profitable growth at a major pace. We began with about 5,700 barrels of oil and gas equivalent per day. And then now this year, we expect to have 124,000 -- 110 barrels of oil and gas equivalent per day in our production. And so it's this great tremendous growth. Now the acreage and the production then leads to this reserves growth, it's the same thing. You'll see the same kind of chart, up and to the right, where the reserves when we were initially public, were 27 million barrels of oil and gas equivalents. And today, as we've already talked about, it's now at 463 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. And that's just incredible growth. That's over 17x if you go from the beginning to the end that we've just increased and been able to grow over the years. And so in addition to growing the E&P business, we've also had this opportunity to grow a complementary midstream business. And Joe talked about earlier, when he was introducing Gregg about the vision for the midstream, back when we went public and being able to hire Gregg and him saying, "He would come if we build a midstream business." And it was great to be able to have that vision, and then to hire people to be able to implement the vision and be able to build the midstream business. Back in 2015, I joined the company in 2014, and I think the midstream business was something we were just talking about. So that's very beginning. In 2015, we had about $4 million in EBITDA. And you can just see over time how last year, we had nearly $200 million in EBITDA. A business that's grown from negligible, almost nothing, to now it's worth approximately $2 billion. And that doesn't even include the Pronto Midstream business, which we bought last year, and we are continuing to build. So there's an opportunity that as we continue to grow upstream on the E&P side, we have that opportunity to continue to grow midstream as a complementary asset. So as we think about the recent Advance acquisition, and we just talked through a number of metrics that we've grown since we've been public back in 2012, each of these metrics were increased in connection with the Advance acquisition. The Advance acquisition was accretive on every front. It was accretive from an acreage standpoint as we added 18,500 net acres and 203 net locations. It was accretive on a production standpoint, as we added 25,450 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which was at the high end of our expectations when we bought it. That's for the first quarter, and it continues to be at the high end of our expectations. In addition, from a reserve standpoint, as we talked about earlier, it was accretive to our reserves, 160 million BOE of net reserves, with nearly 3 billion in PV-10 value as of December 31. And we just talked about the midstream. I mentioned Pronto Midstream, and this really does give value to Pronto Midstream and increase that asset as well. And Pronto was able to bring additional value to our acquisition of Advance, and as we looked at the numbers and what we would pay for Advance. And in addition, Advance, as it grows and as we develop those assets, they will be able to bring value to Pronto and be able to help it to grow as we expand over into Northern Lee County. And that acquisition was made possible because of the strong balance sheet. For many years, we focus on the balance sheet and been very careful with it to make sure that it is a stable, strong balance sheet. You'll see, as of now, we have about $600 million in liquidity, actually a little bit over that. At the end of last quarter, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio was near a record low as is 0.15x. Of course, since then, we did do the Advance acquisition and we took on about $700 million in debt, which our last public disclosure was that we had repaid that down to [ 625 ], and we continue to make meaningful repayments in connection with that debt. And our goal is that, at the end of next year, we'll be able to pay down that debt completely -- that the RBL debt will be back down to 0 where it was before we did the transaction. And as we go forward, we target that leverage ratio of 1x. That's something that as we look at different transactions and deals, that's something that is important for us to be able to keep the balance sheet strong as we go forward. And because of that strong balance sheet, we're able to do acquisitions like Advance. We're also able to pay the dividend. It was back in the first quarter of 2021 when we instituted the first dividend. It was $0.025 per quarter or $0.10 on an annual basis. Later that year, the Board doubled the dividend so that it was $0.20 on an annual basis. A year later, it was doubled again to $0.40 on an annual basis. And this year, it's been increased by another 50%, so $0.15 a quarter or $0.60 on an annual basis. I know, last week, we got paid the dividend. I think it was on June 1. So my wife wants to thank Joe and the Board because -- I'm sure she's bought something very nice as soon as they hit the account. But I think very meaningful here is up in the corner you'll see the amount of money that we have returned to shareholders in dividends. So starting from $270,000 40 years ago, in only dividends, we've returned $85 million to shareholders since the beginning of 2021. I think that is very impressive and worth appreciating. So as Joe said earlier, as we look towards the future. Last year, in the fourth quarter, and kind of beginning this year, where our exit rate was, and then looking to where we'll end this year, we will be at a 40% growth rate on oil, which is almost unprecedented in the industry. We'll have 143,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, really with that target of 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent within our sites. And hopefully, we're here next year or the following year and we're talking about hitting that next milestone and then looking at 175,000 and, as Joe said earlier, 200,000, and continuing to go up on that progress. And so it's been a great 11 years since we've been public. And we look forward to continuing to serve our shareholders as we go forward and continuing to build value both through dividends and returned value and also as we grow the company as we go forward. Before I turn the microphone back to Billy and to Joe for closing remarks, I want to just take a moment to thank Joe. I think, earlier, as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of Matador, we clapped for a number of people. We clapped for officers. We clapped for directors. We clapped for longtime shareholders. And in typical Joe fashion, I think the one person we didn't clap for was Joe. And it is his vision, his sacrifice, his leadership over the last 40 years that has led us so that we're able to be here today, so on behalf of employees, investors, shareholders and families and the thousands of lives that have been blessed, thank you, Joe.

You were able to do that because my brother-in-law was out of the room. But I want to recognize my wife, of course, Nancy, who, when we got started, didn't ask me too many questions about how things were going. But it's been a team effort. I've always like teams. Those are the sports I enjoyed most or the teams, and I think we really have one. Over 40 years interviewing people, Gaines and I tend to think there are 2 main buckets of people. There are all kinds of bucket but 2 main ones: either people who want -- just want a job and want to come in and want to do their thing. They [ want to leave it that ]. They don't want to have other responsibilities. And the others are people who really want to build a career and build professional expertise and be a part of a team and learn from others, and that's really what we're blessed with. We've got guys and women -- men and women who come in. And they start out as -- I pick on Kathy all the time. She came in as a revenue accountant and now she's our controller, that she just kept learning more and more about accounting. We got geologists who learn different areas and engineers who learn more than just reservoir engineering. And so it's just yearning. And I think you all's attendance at this meeting -- and I see so many good faces, Mike Breard and [ Larry Walfish ]. And the interest that you all take in them leads to inspiring them to go on and do more. And [ Evan George ] here to work with -- and we just got a lot of help, and so I want to turn back. That applause was nice and I appreciate it. Make no mistake: I appreciate it, but what I'm really excited is celebrating on -- in next few years when we hit $100 a share. Someone said, "Your progress is nice, but dividends are better." That's a more sincere way for us to show that things are headed our way, but there's great progress and great friendships. And everybody is doing their part. Everybody is working together, and that's something you just can't create with just going to work every day. Everybody is ready to step up. And we appreciate you all so much because -- you can imagine the first meeting with 17 of us here saying, "What will we do next?" And -- but so thanks. I think we're headed for bigger and better things. I like our chances. Some of the statistics are just fantastic when you look at it, almost 500 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. I mean that's terrific. And the profitability and the technical knowledge, everything has come a long, long way. We look forward to getting with you next year. [ Tyler ], I want you to stand up. In case you have horseshoe questions, that's the man. And his team will tell you it's a remarkable innovation, but Billy's group, for all of his modesty, has had a lot, managed pressure drilling system, changed the game out there. And this -- and Chris coming with his dual-fuel systems and remote frac savings, enormous amounts of money, so we're going to have, next year, a lot more to tell you and share with you, but we like our chances. And things are going. And I haven't fully recognized Van, our dealmaker. And Van is one of those guys who can go out after lunch and come back with two deals. And he does whatever it takes. And we have three asset classes that are fairly overlooked by the analysts. We sometimes wonder why is our stock not traded. There's three things that really -- that they tend to overlook. One is the midstream. They tend to look at the oil and gas assets, but they overlook the midstream, and that's $1 billion to $2 billion and -- which we have 51%. Well, that adds a lot, $10 per share almost. The second one is our behind-pipe reserves that we have in the Cotton Valley in Northwest Louisiana. We have proved reserves here of 200 to 300 Bcf, but they're behind pipe, not going anywhere, held by production. And being gas with the fluctuations that you've had, it's a more dependable bet to put our CapEx to work in New Mexico on primarily oil properties. But you've got 200 to 300 Bcf. We've proved it. We had one vertical well that's made about 5 Bcf. So there's real opportunity there when gas prices stabilize on a more predictable future. And then the third thing is the value of the undeveloped acreage itself that we have. We know we can drill it. It's good rock and it's 150,000 acres. So that has a lot of value. It's hard to put a precise number, but I can tell you, having started with no acreage in doing 1-acre mineral deals, it's really nice to have the choice of 150,000 acres. As Billy says, the best basin in the world that give -- and have what I believe is the staff that's probably one of the 2 or 3 best and getting better every day, because these guys are learning every day. We have a corny saying around there that I challenge them for each of them to get better every day and each of them to help their team get better every day. And they're on their way. They're doing it. And I think you can see the useful nature of our officers and our people and would like all the other Matador employees who haven't been called upon specifically to please stand. That -- all right. Finally -- you see how they respond. Look around. Should we or should we not, right? But anyway, you all are doing a super job, and we're all so proud of you. And I think the shareholders will express their appreciation. Everybody is doing their part. And Craig, are we at that point to move for adjournment?

Yes, sir.

Okay. I will entertain a motion for adjournment.

So moved.

So moved. Second?

I second...

We Got a second. Okay, all of those in favor, please signify by standing. And please come back next year.