Matador Resources Company (MTDR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Matador Resources Company is now called to order. I'm Joe Foran, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. I would like to welcome the shareholders, guests, employees and friends who are in attendance today. I would also like to welcome those listening in via our live webcast. We're in the biggest room that the Anatole Hotel in Dallas has to offer. For those on the webcast, we wish to welcome you and let you know this room is filled with over 300 shareholders in attendance in-person for our 2024 annual meeting. Before we get to the items considered and acted upon this meeting, I'd like to make a few opening remarks, is at the time, first Matador was formed. We started with $270,000. Now I hope you can see the screen behind me, we started with $270,000 and then we sold that 20 years later for $388 million. So it's a nice run, but this run has been better. We sold first Matador on a Friday and started second Matador on Monday, the following Monday. We started with $6 million when we went public in February of 2012 the price was $12, today, it's been up there around $60, but we think it's going to do much better as the market absorbs the quality and the value associated with the Ameredev transaction. The slide before you hear, you can see Matador is the blue line in comparison to the couple of index funds in the market and then what they call the index fund for the oil and gas companies, the outperformance. And want to attribute that to a lot of hard work by the staff, a lot of planning and pressure testing by the Board. And just so much from friends like you who have been sticky. We have some shareholders today who have been in over 40 years or right at 40 years and would like to recognize [indiscernible] are you here, did you slip out after breakfast. Okay. Also, Paul Harvey, Paul would you stand, please, right? Paul and his family is here, the other Harvey. It's not a meeting with that I'm getting the Harvey here from Tyler. Wave your hand, they want to still see you, Paul. All right. Good, another 40-year shareholder. So I don't hope I'm not missing anybody. But we appreciate it so much. It's been -- we've had a long journey together, but it's been a fun ride. Now that I've told you the progress in size that started with $270,000 and now we'll be over $10 billion in assets. Isn't that fantastic? It's a lot of hard work. A lot of people. Matador is now the largest publicly traded E&P company in the metroplex and approximately the 30th largest public company in Dallas among all industry groups. So again, come a long way and we did it together. At the time of our founding of Matador II in June of 2003, Matador had $6 million in cash and no production. Today, we have over $10 billion in assets, and we are producing approximately 150,000 barrels of oil or gas equivalent, with nearly 600 million barrels of oil or gas equivalent, in reserves. So we've come a long way, but we have great reserves to back up our efforts. And we think the ideas generated by our staff and the teams that we have and the way they work together that, that future looks pretty bright to continue on that path, and we're going to go beyond $100 a share to even higher numbers. And we'll discuss that at each of these meetings. Now I'd like to proceed with the formal portion of the meeting. I will act as Chairman, and I've asked Brian Erman, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Head of M&A to serve as secretary of the meeting. Brian, will you do that for us? All right. To begin, I'd like to introduce the members of the Board of Directors of the company in attendance today. They are our governing body. It's an excellent group that is professional, knowledgeable works well with each other and each of them have great personal integrity. Tim Parker is our Lead Director, Tim, he's the former Head of the Energy practice at T. Rowe Price in Maryland, knowledgeable in all aspects of the business and was critical to us being taken public back there in 2012. So Tim, that we wouldn't be here today without Tim being the Jockey a little bit. Our assets weren't as good as what we just acquired. But we were trying to use the cash flow for them to continue upgrades to get us to this point. Gaines Baty is Deputy Lead Independent Director, Gaines and I met coaching our boys in baseball, and he has helped us hire and evaluate the staff we have today, and he's given us great insight in how you interview a candidate and find out the traits that you're looking for, the character, the drive, the ability and fit the culture and Gaines I can show you all some time, I should do this maybe next year, show you how Matador has gone along, we were getting better. But when Gaines joined, it just shot up as he helped me interview. And it's -- if you've been interviewed by Gaines, would you please raise your hand. All right. I think you can see what I mean. He's made a difference. The next director is Shelley Appel, who happens to be my fourth born child, but she didn't get here because of that. She got here because she was a graduate sludatorian of her high school graduate to Yale and the MBA from the University of Chicago, informally worked with the M&A group and other departments at Shell in Houston. Rey Baribault is a reservoir engineer from LSU, worked at Exxon then Netherland and Sewell and then start his own company in the Bakken. And it's one of the best all-around engineers in the business as well as a great consensus builder on our Board. And we are really honored to have Rey as part of our director group. The next director is Bill Byerley, Bill was formerly the head of the oil and gas practice at PwC and led the audit team against major companies like Conoco and Exxon and a true expert in oil and gas accounting and in the auditing practice. And Bill is one of the most honest man, full of integrity that he can hope to meet. And that some I always try to do, have very strong people as Audit Committee chair so that the shareholders and the original were friends and family. I didn't come up through private equity, but you want to be sure that the accounting was right and got right to be sure that the reserves are right because that's what would kill a young company either to have accounting restatement or the same thing, revise your oil and gas reserves downward. It's okay to make him go up, but you just don't want to have to announce a write-off. Monika Ehrman, Monica is a petroleum engineer, a former VP at Pioneer and leader of the oil and gas program at SMU law school. I met her because I listened to her on continuing legal education and thought, wow, she makes a lot of sense and we got to meet her and see if we can get her involved, and we've been fortunate, Monica, thank you for making time for us. Bow Howard. Bow Howard is another long-time friend of Matador and me. He was a long-time trustee of a large family trust, extensive experience in marketing, crude oil, condensate, LNG as an MBA from Thunderbird and has been exposed to all kinds of deals during that time. Ken Stewart, another attorney and friend and shareholders since 1990, formerly Global Chair of the international arm of Norton Rose Fulbright managing partner of the U.S. region and partner in charge of the Dallas office. His practice is focused on merger, acquisition, financing and joint venture activities for both public and private companies and he is the one that helped organize this Matador and did the appropriate filings with the Texas Secretary of the state that got us started. So you can say he's been with us since day 1 and before. And then our newest Director is Susan Ward, a chemical engineer, from Villanova and MBA from Warden, time with Exxon, times in the investment banking business, 20 years at Shell Oil Company, including 12 years as a senior executive, Head of M&A, Commercial Finance for all of Shell's business in America. And she was the CFO when Shell took their pipeline, midstream company public. So quite a resume and she's off to a wonderful start with us. Now I would like to take a moment to thank and recognize Julia Forrester Rogers and then I invite Bryan Erman, to step to the podium to say a few words.

Thank you, Joe. Bryan Erman, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Head of M&A at Matador. And it's a pleasure to get to be the one to recognize Julia Forrester Rogers. I've known Julia for nearly 25 years. I know Joe has known her for quite a few years longer than that, and she's been an important part of our Board. She joined the Board in 2017, she served on a number of committees, including the Audit Committee, the Capital Markets Committee and the ESG Committee. Importantly, she was the Chair of the ESG Committee for the last few years at a critical time when ESG issues became an increasing focus of investors. And she worked with Shelly Appel, who helped develop Matador's sustainability report and really upped our game in that level. So we thank her for that service. She always brought a higher level of rigor and consensus building to the Board. So we thank her for her service. We're going to miss you as a board member, but we hope to continue to see you as a shareholder at these meetings.

It's our practice, Julia, if you would like to rebut that a little bit or add a few details, you are welcome to have the microphone at this time.

What I want to say is just thank you. Thank you to Joe. Thank you to the Board, and thank you to the shareholders for allowing me to serve in this position. It has been a pleasure to work with these people. I also want to thank all of the employees of Matador from our officers to all of our staff in the office and in the field for everything you have done to make this such a successful company, and I have really high hopes for the future. And I will see you here every year because I will be a shareholder. Thank you.

I would like to also thank the shareholders who served on our Shareholder Advisory Committee. And this is a group of shareholders who have either number of qualifications, a large block of stock, experience in the oil business, longtime shareholders, familiar with their culture and they really serve a great purpose because I like to vet and one of the vet times I like to vet is with him on director candidates or other issues that come up because you give them a solid feel about how our shareholders, a large group are thinking. These people in quick order are Barry Banker, one of our original 17 shareholders. Joe Coleman, a long-time counselor and core of our Houston shareholder group. Walter Fister, another longtime friend and core of our Lexington Group, he's a wealth manager, and he also was a letter man at Kentucky on their Raffle team. Bob Garrett, a leading real estate professional in Amarillo and one of the best negotiators that I have known. Bobby Pickard another one of our original 17 shareholders. He was my baseball and football teammate and built one of the largest construction companies in the Western United States and did work all over the Western United States and a great friend for the past 60 years. And when I mention these friendships, and next one is George Yates also a great friend going all the way back to the early '80s as we were getting started. He's a highly decorated oil and gas operator from New Mexico recognized in so many different ways for his contributions to our industry and is now working as [ MATIC ] in Spain and I want you to know, when you have friends like that on the shareholder, they're very, very direct on what they think and how to get better. And it's a great sounding group and I think it's helped our governance. I'm very pleased with the governance that this Board has in their way we discuss issues. People are frank, they're direct but they're open to other views is one of them, as we like to say among ourselves, we reserve the right to get smarter, and they do. But they're candid, and I think that leads to good governance. Now and I thank him for that. Thank you all. So sometimes I have trouble convincing them. I'm really thankful for their candor. But thank you all, and thank you all there, too. Same way with the officers of our company. I'd like to recognize the EVP, so you all know who they are with EVPs, please stand up. All right. Now I'd like to recognize the senior VPs, a few more, they're getting younger. And now all the VPs. So this is -- you can see our core group and the ones that are going to get us to, they've gotten us here to $10 billion to $12 billion, but they're going to get us to $20 billion. And as we keep moving ahead. So if you got ideas, be sure to let them have it. But thank you all very much for all the extra time that you all to vote, and thank you to your families and your wives for lead and your husbands to spend that extra time to keep moving forward. Now all the Matador employees, please stand that are here today. Now I want to emphasize, as you look at them, these are all shareholders. We have an employee share purchase plan which they are eligible to participate in. They don't have to. But this is where they put their money where their mouth is, and we have over 90% participation, which is highly unusual but they're in there investing just like all of us have, and we thank you very much for your commitment and your belief in Matador and the direction business plan that we have. Thank you. We have a couple of other special guests. I want Steve Rochelle will you please stand you're an original shareholder too, you and Paul. And once you know we still got some living after 40 years. He's looking good a friend from U.K. Now I'd like to recognize Chris Stakem and Derek Burns, Chris, Derek? Are you all over there, right? Chris and Derek are with KPMG, and they are auditors, and they every year come in and do a very professional job and that's what we want. Again, when you start out with friends and family, you want to make sure the Audit Committee is strong. The engineering committee is on target and your outside auditors who come in, check and double check to be sure everybody can have confidence in the numbers and the course the company is taking. Chris and Derek thank you very much. And understand Kim, the head of the KPMG office here in Dallas has come here and want to see it was all about. So let's give her a special round. I don't want to miss out on getting another chance to introduce my life of nearly 44 years and cofounder, Nancy. Nancy, will you please stand. As I've said before, one of the nicest things, Nancy has many wonderful attributes, the nice thing is we were getting started, and I was off a little windowless office, the nice thing about it was that she didn't ask me too many questions about how things were going. She just -- how things fine honey. Great. It was good enough. So we really appreciate that, Nancy. All right. And I would like to introduce our Chief who helped organize this and it makes everything run in all parts of Matador. We've moved from a windowless office to now 5 floors in tall office building and I would like to recognize Amanda. And at the same time, Amanda keep standing. I want to recognize Kathy Wein and Gavin Hoover, right, those 2 who have worked with me longer than anybody else. So Amanda is still standing, you all know Amanda, we got all this organized, so let's give them all a big hand. So we've all worked together to push on the rock, but I have one more administrative comment. If you are not receiving the quarterly shareholder letter, or the routine mail from us, let Amanda know we'll add you to the shareholder list, and that applies to those in the room and those that may be listing in. Now having said that, what about one big hand, I would like the deal team on the Ameredev who stayed all night for several nights to get this pushed across the finish line. So Van will you and your gang please stand up. And Brian and Cale. Brian Willey, well, joined that group. You had to authorize the checks. All right. Who else there's team, Bradley, Chris, it's a great group. John really very greatly organized person that makes a train run on time, but great shifting, and it was particularly staying up all of that and try in the middle of the night. They do a little everything. He slipped away in the middle of the night about 3:00, 3:30 a.m. and came back with tacos for everybody. That was breakfast, lunch and dinner that day on the same bucket. So thank you all. That's a lot extra. Now Chris, if you'll please stand and if Sam prior, we're Sam. Okay. Those 2 some always need for me as you hear me talk about the little windowless office that I had to work out of my first couple of years. Well, they're grandfathers each one separately, they have the office space and they rented me the little windowless office, and now they're here working for Matador. And as tempting as it was to put him in a little windowless office. They've been superior performer since the day they walked in the door, and we're so glad to have them. This meeting is being held today pursuant to the notice that we mailed to each shareholder of record as of April 16, 2024, 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 date. Further, the Secretary, Bryan Erman has provided a notice, proxy statement and proxy and an affidavit that such notice, proxy statement and proxy, together with the 2023 annual report of the company were mailed to shareholders of record as of the record date. These documents will be filed with the minutes of the meeting. Cale Curtin, the senior staff attorney and Corporate Counsel, has been appointed to act as Inspector of Elections at this meeting. As inspector of elections, Cale will ascertain the number of shares of common stock outstanding and the voting power of each determine the shares of common stock represented at the meeting and the validity of proxies and ballots, count all votes and ballots and certify and declare his determination the number of shares of common stock represented at this meeting and his count of all votes and ballots. All holders of record of common stock at the close of business on the record date are entitled to vote at this meeting either in person or by proxy. Cale, do you accept this responsibility?

Yes, sir.

Cale, then, please present the attendance report.

Thanks, Joe. As Inspector of Elections, I report that they are present at this meeting in-person or represented by proxy...

Turn and face them so they can hear you better.

As Inspector of Elections, I report that they are present at this meeting in person or represented by proxy the holders of approximately 116,425,802 shares of common stock of the company out of a total of 124,780,249 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote as of the record date. So thanks to the excellent participation of our shareholders, approximately 93.3% of the aggregate outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote are present in-person or represented by proxy at this meeting. Each share of common stock as of the record date is entitled to 1 vote.

On the basis of this report of the Inspector of Elections, I declare a quorum is present for the purpose of conducting business at this meeting, 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, 4 matters will be considered and acted upon this morning. To expedite the actions to be taken in all matters of business as reflected in the notice will be presented first, and then a ballot will be taken afterwards for voting on each matter. The 4 orders of business for consideration today are the election of 4 directors to our Board. We serve on staggered terms. That's the reason there's 4 here, and it continues on. The approval of a nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2023 compensation program of our named executive officers, also known as the Say on Pay, a nonbinding advisory vote on the frequency of future Say on Pay votes and the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2024. Speaking on behalf of the entire Board of Directors, we recommend that you vote for the election of the director nominees 1 year, every year, in other words, on the frequency on the Say on Pay, so you have a comment every year. And for the additional 2 proposals being considered at today's meeting, including the reelection of KPMG as auditor. I would now like to ask Gaines Baty, the Chair of our Nominating Committee to introduce the director nominees for this meeting. Gaines.

Thank you, Joe. First of all, I was going to say that tomorrow is a big day. This is Boy George's birthday, and it's Joe Foran's birthday tomorrow. So I'll be sure and mention that to him afterwards. Thank you, Joe. Our directors serve staggered 3-year terms and are grouped as Class I, Class II and Class III directors. Class I Board nominees to be considered today are Bill Byerley, Monika Ehrman and Ken Stewart. And the Class II Board nominee to be considered is Susan Ward. First, Bill Byerley, he's the Chair of our Audit Committee. He's a CPA served with PwC for over 25 years, serving a number of major energy firms. He's a great leader, a great steward of Matador's financial matters and a great person to be around. We've along felt that, and we're recently -- has recently confirmed or seconded that Bill by someone who is in the know that Bill may be the best audit chair in the business. So we feel that is the case. So second is Monika Ehrman. Monika was appointed to the Board in 2019, Co-Chair of the Marketing and Midstream Committee, Professor of Law, the SMU Dedman School, former in-house legal counsel in 2 oil and gas companies and also worked as a petroleum engineer in her early days for both upstream and midstream companies. Monika has broad, deep understanding, asked great questions in the Board meetings, and that's going to be a close call, but Monika may be the nicest person on the Board. She is [indiscernible]. Ken Stewart was appointed to the Board in 2017. He served for a number of years as partner at Norton Rose Fulbright and its successors, a law firm with over 3,700 professionals. There, he served as Chair for the U.S. practice and previously served as Chair of Managing Partner of the region and partner in charge of the Dallas office. Ken brings years of corporate governance experience to our companies work with many public companies, including a number of oil and gas companies. Ken has a long history with Matador and is a significant shareholder and adds considerable value to the Board, great guy to work with. In addition, in January, Matador appointed Susan Ward to the Board. Susan standing for election today as a Class II Board nominee and as that, she will also stand next year for election. Susan is a great executive. She was a senior executive at Shell Oil Company for 20 years, worked as Head of merger and acquisition, Commercial Finance for the Americas, VP, Chief Financial Officer and Board member of Shell Midstream Partners, which she helped take public. She was VP of Upstream Commerce Finance for Shell International. And previously, she worked as an investment banker with UBS Securities. So as you can tell, Susan has incredible experience for where we are and what we're trying to do as a company, especially in the midstream and across numerous aspects. Susan has already made a big difference and big contribution to the company and as you expect, she's a great person also. So more information is available with respect to the qualifications of our nominees, and we do recommend that you vote for each of the new nominees. Also, second order of business is a nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2023 compensation program for the named executive officers, also known as Say on Pay. Our compensation program is designed to reward in both the short- and long-term performance that contributes to the implementation of our business strategies, maintenance of our culture and values and achievement of our objectives. In addition, the reward qualities that we believe help achieve our business strategies. We believe the 2023 compensation program accomplishes these objectives. More information on that regarding the compensation is included in our proxy statement. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote for the nonbinding resolution approving the compensation of our named executive officers. The third order of business is a nonbinding advisory vote on the frequency of future Say on Pay votes as set forth in your proxy statement. The Board of Directors has recommended that you vote for a 1-year frequency for holding future Say on Pay notes. Now I'd like to introduce Bill Byerley, Chair of our Audit Committee, to discuss the final order of business before us at today's meeting. Bill?

Thank you, Gaines, and good morning. The final proposal before the meeting 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, 2023, and has served as the company's auditors since 2014. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors has approved KPMG as Matador's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024. In turn, the Board has directed that such appointment be submitted to the shareholders for ratification at this meeting. Further information about the services provided by KPMG is set forth in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors recommend that you vote for the ratification of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2024. With that, I'll turn the meeting back over to Joe Foran, our Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you. Bill, and thank you for your recommendations, you and Gaines, both. Now we greatly appreciate all of you all's work and bringing us to this point. Those are the 4 orders of the business and we will distribute ballots to any shareholders present who wish to vote in person today seeing none, Cale will move on. If your stock is held in a brokerage account in order to vote, you must first provide us with a legal proxy. Seeing none, we'll move to the votes have been mailed in or e-mailed in are reported to you.

I am pleased to report that each nominee for director has been elected to the Board as each nominee has received a majority of the votes cast by the shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on the election of directors. The second motion regarding the nonbinding resolution, approving the compensation of our named executive officers has received a favorable vote of the majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on this matter. With respect to the third motion, on the frequency of Say on Pay votes, the greatest number of votes present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on this matter were cast in favor of a 1-year frequency. Finally, the fourth motion ratifying the selection of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2024, has received a favorable vote of a majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on this matter. So therefore, each of the director nominees and the proposals voted on today as described in the company's proxy statement has consistent with the recommendations of our 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. Yes, sir...

Just so everybody knows, on the votes, we were very, very pleased to see the actual count. KPMG, you got the highest votes. I think it was, what, 94%?

Over 99%.

99% excuse me, I didn't mean to short you there, right? Second is the directors were all elected by 90% or more votes. So thank you all for that support shown to our directors because I think they do a really good job. And finally, on the Say on Pay it's continued as 1 year. So each year, you get a vote, and we want you to feel this group is really trying to advance your value first is what we care about and why you have the staff over 90% participating in our employee share purchase plan. So thank you all very much. And where will this be reported, Cale?

Yes. Thanks, Joe. And I would like to remind everyone, shareholders and stakeholders. The specific information regarding the number of votes cast for and against each proposal will be included in a current report on Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the days following this meeting early next week.

Right. There being no further official business before the meeting, the formal portion of the 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders is now adjourned. But a couple of directors have been asked to say a few words from their perspective. First, from our Lead Independent Director and Chair of the Board's Capital Markets and Finance Committee. Tim Parker. Tim?

Thank you, Joe. And I'm Tim Parker, and it's nice to see everybody again. And I want to thank everybody who worked on this Ameredev deal. Because Joe has already done it, but we at the Board are very pleased as well. And I'm going to keep this brief because you guys need sleep, all of you. So the 3 things I just want to touch on are: one, we say what we do and we do what we say. And what we do with Advance is what we'll do with Ameredev. And we're not done with Advance, there's plenty more to do, but look how well that has been integrated and every facet of the company touches that asset just like any other asset. The same thing will happen with Ameredev. It will have its own challenges and opportunities, but it's a very exciting piece of real estate, which has some great rock with some great opportunity and not just for oil and gas but for midstream as well. So that's very exciting. I also want to say that we've repaired our balance sheet before, not that it's in bad shape now. But we will continue to reduce leverage as we have free cash flow over the next couple of years so that we're ready for the next deal, whatever it looks like. There may not be another Ameredev. But who knows what the future brings. We need a strong balance sheet, both for commodity price weakness, which will inevitably come someday, but also to have the strong balance sheet to make deals like Advance and Ameredev. So again, thank you to everybody who's come today to support us. Thanks for all the employees in the audience who work so hard every day. We and the Board really appreciate everything you all do. Thanks.

Thank you, Tim. Tim is a great help and a great one to vet with and get ideas and that is a part of the deal. The Ameredev deal is a different kind of deal than we've sometimes done in the past. You can buy something cheap and then bargain, but we weren't looking for that. We've been strong enough that we don't need that kind of deal. What we were looking for is much like what Warren Buffett talks about. Find a wonderful company and pay a fair price. Now we feel you don't often see quality of this type become available because most people try to sell their less profitable items, and their less valuable properties, but we had a chance here not only to buy a really good rock, exceptional rock, but it was right in the middle of our acreage. As you can see, it's virtually a perfect fit. And what we're going to do, we paid a fair price for it. But what we can do to make it better is we're going to drill the wells, we're going to cut costs on drilling or we're going to get drilling efficiencies from our staff. We're going to get operating efficiencies from our production group. We're going to take advantage of it with our midstream. We've got a little bit of opinion, but we have other midstream options of extending San Mateo. And this is just -- we build scale. And you'll see there's 21 DUCs that have wells that just need to be completed and brought on. So you'll see increased production and over the next year, we'll have times where we're approaching 200,000 barrels of oil or gas equivalent. So anyway, that's the theory of buying, paying a fair price and look to improve it on the cost side and on the efficiencies and the synergies that you get. We won't have to have all the administrative employees necessary. So we have economies of scale there too. So I want you to know it's a -- we feel a very good deal at this point, but it's going to get better. And based on our advanced experience, as Tim says, this is an expectancy that the Board had made clear to me, they'll vote with me to buy this, but they don't want us to stop there on making it better. Next, I'd like to introduce Rey Baribault, Chairman of our Engineering Committee for a brief operations update.

Thank you, Joe, and I want to thank you for your leadership, well appreciated by the Board. Thank you all for attending today and to those shareholders as well that are on the webcast we directors collectively appreciate your interest and investment in the company and supporting Matador staff, both in the office and out in the field. Their talents, dedication and motivation are key to creating new opportunities and continuing to build company value. At last year's meeting, I touched on a few examples that highlight new advancements in the company's operations, and I'd like to expand briefly here with a few slides. How staff continues to advance the ball and leverage their accomplishments even further. First off, as Joe and Tim mentioned, the teams across all disciplines in the company have fully integrated the advanced energy properties into daily operations. If you recall, that acquisition included 118 producing wells in Ranger area of Lea County and 10 horizontal wells in Ward County. Since then, an additional 42 wells on the advanced acreage are now stewarded in the production department, and that includes 21 wells in what was referred to as the Margarita project that was drilling in progress at the time of the closing that was 21, 2.25-mile horizontal wells, the biggest single completion effort the company has undertaken. Those wells are all exceeding original production and reserve projections. And now as of this past April, an additional 21 wells that I'd like to touch on in this slide have been completed in the Dagger Lake South project just south of the Margarita wells on the advanced acreage. Those wells happy to report are cleaning up nicely and performing well. The aggregate oil cut now for those 21 wells is well over 80%. And that's comparable to the Margarita wells that are exceeding performance today at their life at 2 months on flowback. This first slide that you're seeing is an aerial photograph of the frac spread equipment that was used during the simultaneous stimulation of 3 wells, 3 of the 21 wells at 1 time on the Dagger Lake South project. What this represents is a pilot test rollout of the first Trimul-frac operation by the company. The upside here for Trimul-frac is to increase daily completion footage and reduce nonproductive time, which in turn provides additional completion cost savings. In this pilot test, the average daily completed footage was increased an impressive 40% over the company's 2023 average daily completed footage of about 2,500 feet using simul-frac operations. And during this pilot, Matador set a 24-hour completion record of an impressive 4,400 feet of lateral footage in 1 day compared to stimulating 1 well at a time in the past, which was the old standard procedures, zipper-frac operation, which I'll touch on in a second. Trimul fracking results in $350,000 in completion cost savings per well. Moving to the next slide. I'd like to unpack what this Trimul-frac stimulation operation involves. So prior to 2021 on the left-hand side of the slide, what we're showing is kind of a typical pump pressure profile, there's 18 pumps involved typically in a zipper frac. That's what you're seeing and what involves is 2 wells at a time. So while perforating operations are occurring on 1 well on a pad, that adjacent well, which typically is 30 to 40 feet, right across on the pad from a distance standoff, the frac stage would be pumping on that second well. So alternating -- perforating on 1 well and then helping the frac stage on the second well and alternating throughout the frac stimulation of those 2 wells. So Matador introduced in the center of the slide deck is what we're representing what Matador introduced in 2021 into its operations what's called simul-fracking. So instead of 2 wells that are continuously being stimulated 4 wells, more is better. So by taking a 4-well package and pumping frac stages into 2 wells simultaneously on that pad. Then the other 2 wells are simultaneously being perforated in that given stage for that well. So the amount of pumps required are upsized to about 26 to 28 pumps from 18 for a zipper frac. So more horsepower is needed. So moving to the right-hand part of the slide, you're seeing what's now is being used and pilot tested successfully is the Trimul frac. Approximately 30 total pumps are used. And in this case, 3 wells are simultaneously fracked at once instead of 2 and while those 3 wells are being -- having their stages pumped, the other 3 wells on that pad are undergoing wireline perforating operations. An impressive accomplishment and if you would envision by analogy, if you could call a zipper frac, the equivalent of juggling 2 balls in the air, relatively straightforward. Simul frac is juggling 4 balls and then Trimul frac is throwing a 2 more balls into the equation. So juggling 6 balls at a time. So quite a feet, quite a lot of preparation was required to pull this off and went off without a hitch. And to appreciate the daily volume of fluid that's being pumped during a Trimul frac. The target rate is 200 barrels per minute to stem 3 wells simultaneously. So that's equivalent to 8,400 gallons per minute, which is analogous to emptying a standard-sized backyard swimming pool every 3 minutes, during a 24-hour period. So quite a lot of volume being formed. You can imagine the amount of staging that's required, but that's the next tier that the company is excited to take their stem operations too is Trimul fracking. This slide provides insight on the company's successful use of Simul fracking since 2021. Going forward, you'll see improvements to this with Trimul fracking being able to be deployed on many wells going forward. So the cumulative savings that Simul fracking is supported the company is approximately $35 million over the last 3 to 4 years. And at the bottom of the slide, you'll see the pie charts what you're seeing is the improvement in utilizing simul fracking over time and what that's done to provide a more efficient completion effort by staff. They're continuing and looking around the corner for new ways to enhance operations and reduce costs. And to that effect, the next slide taps into the increasing volumes of recycled produced water. That's water produced from the wells that are, in turn, used for stimulation operations and the cost savings, you can see by reducing the need for freshwater resources and trucking water on the highways and county roads. The company has been making an assertive push over the last 5 years to integrate the use of recycled produced water across its asset base since it was initially rolled out in the Wolf area many years ago in Loving County. Almost 90% now of the company's completed wells in 2023 had approximately 24 million barrels of recycled water used for operations. That's 24 million barrels of freshwater that wasn't have to be sourced for STEM operations, quite an improvement over time. And as an important side note, Matador transports on pipe 98% almost all of it's produced water in its operations. It's quite an accomplishment over the years. And like kind, 94% of all produced oil is transported by pipeline as well rather than being trucked. So you can imagine all the trucks that are not running on the highways in these accomplishments. On the next slide, this is my second last slide, moving along. Last year, we reported on the U-Turn wells that were being considered. This is a next-gen development concept of completing what is a 9,500-foot lateral within a 1-mile 640-acre section. So the U-turn wells that Matador has drilled this past year have met and exceeded its cost saving efficiency goals as well as the estimated ultimate recovery reserves for them. In some pockets of the company's acreage, certain constraints don't afford the ability to join 2 sections together to create a 1,200-acre spacing unit for development. So the J.J. Wheat project in the Wolf area in Loving County included drilling 2 wells to 1 target, the Wolfcamp AX. The wells have been online now for about 9 months. And in the bottom right-hand side of the slide is the trend performance of the wells compared to the company's type curve performance. Those 2 type curves that you see, the 2 black lines are bracketed between well over 1 million barrels of oil in each of the wells are projected now confidently to exceed well over 1 million barrels of oil equivalent of reserves. So that performance is comparable and as good as 1,280 or 10,000-foot lateral and a 2-mile spacing unit. So a complete success. And with that, possibly up to 20 to 24 possibly up to 20 wells in the next 2 years, '24 and '25 are targeted for development and drilling on the company's acreage. In the left-hand part of the slide, you can see now the advancement of that is not to just target U-turn wells in 1 formation, but actually target the multiple formations that are present on any given pad, quite a bit of savings that the company will realize going forward with this technique. And the last final slide that I'm presenting here is one I also highlighted last year. It's the 24/7 Maxcom operations center, which is manned by a team of geologists and engineers who provide real-time guidance to the drillers on each of the 8 Patterson rigs the company operates and runs. The staff is helping to land and steer horizontal laterals within the target intervals, increase efficiencies and optimize drilling time. And I'm pleased to report that an additional 65 performance records have been achieved this past year, that now number 280 in total since this Maxcom ops center was rolled out 6 years ago. This requires a total team effort between the field staff and office personnel. And it really is helping to ensure that the best wells are drilled and the highest return on investment on those wells can be achieved. Brian will highlight a slide here shortly that's going to show what we're talking about here. And that all really is truly drilling the best wells in the industry. So the Maxcom Center has generated about $47 million in savings since its inception with about $15 million of that just in this past year. The types of records the team is setting include shaving down drilling times. That first bullet is a 2-mile lateral in 8.5 days or 8.3 days. That means a lot, every minute counts when you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per day on any given drilling site. So shaving down drilling times, increasing lateral lengths. All these, again, are any given records on any given well. But what they represent is they become the new target and the new normal that staff guides to for all future wells. So every day, the team is looking for new ways and innovative ways to drill faster, drill smarter and keep as you see on the bottom of that slide, keep the target well in the zone of interest for the entirety of its lateral, and they've been achieving that successfully day in and day out. I'd also like to recognize 2 other important operations teams, the company's production workover group, the special operations team that we call the spec ops team. They man on average, 8 workover rigs on a day in, day out basis throughout the year. Quite a lot of balls to juggle and they do a great job, maintaining production in keeping the wheels on the cart. The midstream department and the operations staff as well are diligently measuring well over 5,000 recording devices, not only on the midstream side, but also on the production side on a daily basis. So what they're monitoring is measurement, communications, instrumentation and gas control. So this is a dedicated staff and they're ensuring the molecules are keep flowing and the cash register receipts for oil and gas sales are accurately documented. An additional, in 2024, more operations will include the continued expansion and testing of new reservoir targets across asset areas. The teams are not just comfortable plug-in and chug in zones that are tried and true. They're pushing the envelope with the geo teams help and support, and they're able to prove up probable and possible reserves with the drill bit. The first 3-mile laterals will be drilled this year in the company that's advancing the current 2.7-mile record that was achieved earlier this year or last year in the Wolfcamp B. and the Wolf project area. We're execution of Trimul fracs and new U-turn well spuds will be in the offering this year. And the continuing Pronto Midstream asset build-out is ongoing, specifically the Marlin Downy gas plant expansion that's underway. That will add 200 million cubic feet of gas processing capacity. That's scheduled to come on in second quarter of 2025. This is a prime example of unlocking upstream value with an operated midstream solution. That's providing and will provide natural gas flow assurance. And while all this is occurring, the team gets to integrate the Ameredev acquisition into the assets just like they successfully have done with the Advance acquisition. So to wrap up, Matador's premium assets, both midstream and upstream, combined with its talented staff set the company apart in generating consistently high returns and growing shareholder value. There's nothing artificial about the intelligence at work at Matador. Thank you for your interest and support for the company and your time and attention today.

Thank you, Rey. You can see why he is so valuable to the Board as we get into the discussions. And the Board really covers all the issues and has great collaboration. One point I'd like to emphasize as about that Maxcom room is that prior to the Maxcom room, we were staying in zone. It's very important to stay in zone because if you're not in zone, you move out because the land goes up and down, you're not in a productive zone. You're not getting oil and gas. So it's very important to stay in zone as much as you can prior to it without being able to monitor 24/7, it tended to slip a little bit into the mid-80s or low 80s. And then now we're up over 95% and in some cases 100%. Well, what does that mean? That 10% difference on a 1 million-barrel well, that's 100,000 barrels. So obviously, big adds a lot to the revenue. And these guys go 24/7. And if it starts to slip out, they can make an instant change without losing that production. The other thing that has really gained is that historically, people have made jokes about engineers, geologists not getting along. Will you put these young professionals with engineering degrees and geological degrees in a room all night long. So they spend from 9:00 to 7:00 to next morning in the same room, they get to talking, they end up being pretty good friends. And it carries over into the teamwork, the rest of the company enjoys. So only get 100,000 barrels, but you get some real teamwork from the 2 groups that may help learn from each other. So we invite all of you to come see it sometime in action. And I think you'd see what I'm telling, it's a great innovation, and they come up with good ideas while they're monitoring the wells, and it results in these innovations that Rey has talked about. And Rey and Tim and others really pressure test these ideas first. But very proud of the innovations and the U-Turn wells are a good example of that. It's hard to think about getting your head around that, that pop goes, still pop and then it binds comes back around. I would like to recognize Tyler Kenneth and Tyler Brooking. If you all are here, please stand up. Where is your buddy Tyler Kenneth? Okay. Well, he's going to miss out on a round of applause and recognition for a very brilliant improvement. And Tyler, we thank you both for. All right. We like our chances, obviously. We like the innovation. We like the attention to detail. We like the deals that the land people are making on the out there, the brick-by-brick approach as well as the big deals like Ameredev, but they're out there hidden small deals that aggregate into a lot of value increases. Very proud of them. And so I'm going to finish it with Brian Willey, if you'll say a few words about our finances.

Thank you, Joe, and what a wonderful day to be able to be here and celebrate today the 40th Annual Shareholders Meeting of Matador and what a great accomplishment that is for Joe and for Nancy and the great company that you have built. So we appreciate that. And of course, that couldn't be possible without the support of our many shareholders over the years. And so we're grateful for each one of you. And as we think about providing shareholder value, one of the main ways that we are able to provide shareholder value is through drilling better wells for less money. All right. And so there you go. Better wells for less price. So the first part of that equation is the better wells side. And as mentioned by Rey earlier, and by Joe in talking about the 24-hour center we have to drill the wells, the Maxcom room. That resulted in us being right amongst the top of our peer group in the productivity for our wells. So this slide shows the estimated ultimate recovery on an oil basis for the wells that have been drilled since 2020. And it shows it for us as well as for our peer group. Now this is a peer group that is set forth in our proxy statement that we sent out in connection with the meeting today. And as you'll see in 2020, we chose that date because that's when we went to 2-mile laterals and you'll be able to see that we are the very top amongst our peer group. And we're very proud of that. And so that provides a lot of value to our shareholders as we drilled among the most productive wells in the industry. In addition, the other part of that equation is to drill the better wells for less money. And we are also at the very top of the efficiency in looking at our peer group. So whether you look at it on a peer revenue per BOE basis or barrels of oil and gas equivalent basis or whether you look at it after you do a netback basis, which means you take out the costs, the general administrative costs, the lease operating expenses and the other production taxes and costs. If you take those out on a netback basis, we are still top amongst our peer group. And so providing shareholder value through drilling better wells for less money is one of the main ways we are able to continue and grow the company and do deals like we just announced yesterday and like the deal we announced last year. Last year, at this time, we were talking a lot about the Advance acquisition. And we're very happy to report that, that acquisition has been just as good or better than we thought would be. When we acquired the Advance acreage, there are really 2 sets of 21 wells that are going to be coming online. The first set was in the process of being completed, those are called the Margarita wells. And we turned those online last year in the third quarter, fantastic wells, 1,600 barrels of oil and gas equivalent per day on average in an IP test and just really great wells that have stayed up and produced as good or better than we thought since they've been turned on. In addition, as mentioned earlier, we are very excited to be able to turn on and talk about the Dagger Lake South wells. This is a second set of 21 wells. And we expect those wells to have a very similar oil cut, oil cuts over 80% as well as have similar IP rates as the Margarita wells did. And so we're going to be excited to be able to talk more about those in our second quarter earnings call coming up at the end of July. And of course, that acquisition has been integrated well, and we are very excited now yesterday to be able to talk more about the Ameredev acquisition and the great work that was done. And Joe has mentioned it. Tim has mentioned it, Rey, as much as been mentioned by a number of people today. We're very excited about this acquisition. And if we were excited about the past one with Advance perhaps even more excited about Ameredev. And the acquisition consists of 33,500 net acres. There are 13 DUCs are drilled uncompleted wells. In addition, we estimate that during the third quarter, the production will be approximately 25,500 at the midpoint. And so we're excited to be able to bring these production this acreage and these additional locations, these 371 additional locations that are also included as part of this acquisition and integrate these into Matador's operations. As Joe mentioned earlier, this is a very good company. It's a great company and we're paying a fair price for it. We'll be able to make it a really tremendous deal, it's up to us to be able to then continue to execute and be able to implement many of the efficiencies that when we did the Advanced acquisition. And so the Ameredev acquisition will lead us and just improve what I talked about earlier in drilling the most productive, the better wells for less money. And so you'll see on this slide that Ameredev going back to 2020, will only improve the productivity of our wells and the wells that we will drill in the future with the inventory locations. And so we're excited about that opportunity. The Ameredev acquisition continues to provide this value for our shareholders. We recognize that the Ameredev acquisition would not be possible if we weren't able to finance it, and we're grateful today to be able to have attendees from P&C with us and for the support that they provided for us. David [ Dodd ] and Denise Davis. Jonathan is asking the great support that they provided as we increase the electric commitment on our credit facility by $750 million from $1.5 billion to $2.25 billion and then also implement a new term loan A that will be $250 million, and those will be executed at closing of the transaction. And so we're excited for that and the liquidity that it will provide to the company. In addition, we are grateful for all of our banks. I know we have representatives of RBC here as well. We're grateful for that. Then the support of each 1 of our banks as we go and we syndicate this increasing electric commitment and this term loan to the group. So the reaction from the Street in connection with the Ameredev acquisition has been very positive. On the screen, you'll see a couple of quotes. We have one equity analyst that called it a good deal for Matador and that was accretive to cash flow metrics and on a net asset value basis. In addition, a different equity analysts talked about our track record of execution, the asset quality in depth, our balance sheet and the growing upside on the midstream justify a premium valuation from Matador, and we fully agree. And we're excited for that. One of the things about the Ameredev acquisition as well as we have a 19% interest in Pinon, which is a gas gathering system and gas treating system. And so we're excited about that increasing midstream value that will be provided as part of this Ameredev acquisition. In fact, I think since the deal was announced yesterday, we've had multiple analysts actually increase our price target, and we are excited about that. The opportunity brings. And so then ending where Joe started earlier, the blue line shows Matador's results and its performance since the IPO, and it shows it against the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, the price of oil and then an index that covers the XOP Index, different oil and gas companies. And you'll see there that Matador, of course, is performing at the top. And the Ameredev acquisition is in our existing assets provides a great pathway going forward where, as Joe said earlier, we like our chances and we like our tenses for that blue line to continue to go upward and to the right and continue to lead amongst that group. And with that, I express our great appreciation to our shareholders to Jon Nancy again, and I'll turn it back over to you, Joe.

This completes today's meeting. Our staff will be available towards the back of the room. Following our adjournment to meet with you, introduce themselves and answer any further questions that you may have. Again, we invite you to come to the office sometime, have breakfast or lunch with us, see the facilities. And I think you can see the effort by everybody to try to get a little better every day. Thank you again for your time and attention this morning, and thanks for being Matador shareholders. We really appreciate; my wife thank you; my children, thank you, and I thank you and all of Matador. Thank you. And I think that we built a company that everybody can be proud, but there's more to do and there's more wood to chop, and we're going to keep finding those ways to add value. But we think it's a team that's working from all areas and hope that you'll come back next year for the 41st. And again, we'll try to have some good news for you there. I hope the coffee and the breakfast are getting better also year by year. So I've just found if you make it better each year, your attendance seems to improve. So thank you very much. It's a pleasure to serve you. Great to have so many friends in the room, and we hope to keep in touch. Call us any time. Thanks. In favor adjournment can now stand up and show that they are in agreement.