Permian Resources Corporation (PR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Permian Resources conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and full year 2024 Earnings. Today's call is being recorded. A replay of the call will be accessible until March 6, 2025 by dialing (888) 660-6264 and entering the replay access code called 75050 or by visiting the company's website at www.permianres.com. At this time, I will turn the call over to Hays Mabry, Permian Resources Vice President of Investor Relations, for some opening remarks. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Yna, and thank you all for joining us. On the call today are Will Hickey and James Walter, our Chief Executive Officers. And Guy Olefin, our Chief Financial Officer. I would like to note that many of the comments during this call are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results or plans. Many of these risks are beyond our control and are discussed in more detail in the risk factors and the forward-looking statement sections of our filings with the SEC. Although we believe the expectations expressed are based on reasonable assumptions, they are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially. We may also refer to non-GAAP financial measures. For any non-GAAP measure we use, a reconciliation to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure can be found in our earnings release or presentation. With that, I will turn the call over to Will Hickey, Co-CEO.

Thanks, Hays. We're excited to discuss our fourth quarter results as well as lay out our 2025 plan this morning. We reported a record quarter in both production and free cash flow per share in Q4, demonstrating that the business continues to perform extremely well, led by outstanding execution in the field. Additionally, we saw our relentless focus on cost control manifest into lower D&C cost and controllable cash cost when compared to Q3. Over the full year of 2024, our team delivered outstanding results, resulting in a nearly 50% increase in free cash flow per share compared to 2023. Even more impressive, we achieved this without increasing leverage, reflecting the strength and consistency of our core operations. As a result, we believe 2024 represents a highly repeatable year positioning us for sustained performance and growth. As we look to 2025, we expect to continue maximizing shareholder value by executing on our highly capital-efficient Delaware Basin drilling program. We're proud to lay out a 2025 plan which expected to continue to generate significant free cash flow per share growth. Moving into quarterly results. Q4 production exceeded expectations with oil production of 171,000 barrels of oil per day and total production of 368,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Our D&C team also continues to execute at an extremely high level, which led to 275 wells tilled in 2024. Importantly, we executed on this plan with CapEx remaining well within our original guidance range of $1.9 billion to $2.1 billion. In addition, we delivered leading cash costs supporting strong margins with Q4 LOE of $5.42 per Boe, cash G&A of $0.93 per Boe and GP&T of $1.49 per Boe. Strong production results paired with low cash costs and CapEx of $504 million in the quarter, resulted in an adjusted operating cash flow of $904 million and adjusted free cash flow of $400 million. Turning to Slide 4. We wanted to provide a quick review of how strong a year 2024 was for PR. We were able to beat and/or raise production guidance every quarter on just the base outperformance. When including the bolt-on acquisitions we closed throughout the year, we delivered 8% higher oil production when compared to our original 2024 guidance. Our cost controls also performed extremely well as most recent well costs were almost 20% lower compared to 2023. Most importantly, a little over half of this reduction was a direct result of structural efficiency improvements gained throughout the year with the balance a result of service cost deflation. We also rolled out an enhanced capital return program during 2024 that prioritizes a leading base dividend for our shareholders. This change is underpinned by the material improvements in free cash flow per share generation of our business, which we will touch on more in just a little bit. Lastly, during 2024, we were able to increase our liquidity by approximately $1 billion, showcasing our ability to maintain a very strong financial position with no change in leverage while executing on $1.2 billion of accretive M&A. We have and will continue to prioritize maintaining a fortress balance sheet as we believe this allows us to maintain flexibility and be opportunistic through the commodity price cycles. Slide 5 illustrates our expertise and cost leadership in the Delaware Basin. Our relentless focus on low-cost leadership allows us to drive both D&C and controllable cash costs to peer-leading levels. Our 2025 plan, which James will outline here in a minute, benefits greatly from the reduction in all-in cost we've seen over the past year. Given the marginal nature of free cash flow running a low-cost business, is critical in supporting strong free cash flow per share. Turning to Slide 6. We want to highlight the success of our 2024 M&A program. We executed on approximately $1.2 billion of acquisitions for 50,000 net acres and about 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day across our acreage position. The mix of acquisitions consisted of a large asset deal in Barilla Draw, several smaller bolt-on acquisitions and finally, a substantial ground game that consisted of over 500 transactions for 4,000 net acres. We believe that expertise in executing each of these type of transaction provides PR the means to continue to replace our drilled locations with high rate of return inventory that immediately competes for capital. As you can see, these acquisitions more than replace the inventory that we drilled throughout 2024 with similar or better rates of return to our 2024 development. We plan on continuing our strong track record of pursuing accretive M&A that adds near-term, midterm and long-term value to shareholders. Now looking at Slide 7, we want to highlight a big reason for why we've been so successful at M&A that creates value for shareholders. One of our sustainable competitive advantages is our ability to buy acreage in areas where we can apply PR's leading cost structure to the acquired assets immediately. Specifically, when we compare the last several months of LOE on assets prior to acquisition, we've already driven a $3 per Boe reduction of that asset base. This was largely achieved through our lean field organization, technical expertise in artificial lift, optimized chemical programs and a leading field compression team that maximizes production while reducing downtime. Similarly, on the D&C side, we've reduced costs by over $300 per lateral foot when compared to the prior operator's most recent wells. Our leading cycle times, completion optimization and sourcing of key materials with scale support these improvements. We're confident that our ability to execute at this level will allow us to continue to find Delaware Basin opportunities at attractive rates of return. With that, I will turn it over to James to go over our '25 plans.

Thanks, Will. Turning to Slide 8, we're excited to discuss our 2025 business plan, which is focused on maximizing returns and free cash flow per share through consistent, thoughtful capital allocation and low-cost execution. Our plan is a result of a tremendous amount of effort from every department of Permian Resources, we want to thank our entire team for the hard work that went in to pulling this all together. For the full year 2025, we expect total production to average between 360,000 and 380,000 Boe per day and oil production to average between 170,000 and 175,000 barrels of oil per day. This plan delivers 8% higher annual oil production compared to full year 2024. Our capital program consists of approximately $2 billion, which is less than 2024 despite the higher production base, showing materially improved capital efficiency year-over-year. 80% the capital program is allocated to drilling and completion operations, where we expect to turn in line approximately 285 wells this year with roughly the same DUC inventory as we carried in 2024. The remaining 20% is primarily investments in infrastructure that position PR to continue to drive value in 2025 and beyond. Our development program in wellness will be largely the same as last year, and we'll continue to be focused on our high-returning Delaware Basin asset, with New Mexico accounting for about 65% of our activity. The Texas Delaware accounting for about 30% and the Midland Basin getting the balance. We expect our average working interest to be approximately 75%, which is in line with 2024 and our average lateral length to increase to approximately 10,000 feet. We expect our controllable cash cost to be approximately $7.75 per Boe, which as we mentioned earlier, we believe to be the lowest cost in the Permian. Additionally, we've continued to optimize our tax planning strategies and expect approximately $25 million in current taxes for 2025 at strip prices. The combination of the same or better well productivity with lower costs across the board, drive meaningfully improved capital efficiency and lower breakevens in 2025. Turning to Slide 9, our balance sheet reflects the same philosophy around low leverage and high liquidity we have shown since the founding of our predecessor company. We maintained leverage right at 1x through the course of 2024 while doing $1.2 billion in acquisitions, and we expect to exit 2025 at approximately 0.5x levered assuming current strip prices. As mentioned earlier, we exited the year with $3 billion in liquidity, including approximately $500 million of cash. This positions us to be opportunistic in any environment, as we believe market dislocations represent some of the greatest value creation opportunities in this sector. We've also protected our downside through hedging. With approximately 25% of our crude oil heads at $73 and strong oil and gas hedges for the next few years. The next strategic priority for our balance sheet is the achievement of investment-grade status, which we think has come before the end of the year given our consistent conservative financial policies and lower leverage than many of our investment-grade peers. We paid our first $0.15 per share base dividend in November, and our current base dividend yield is over 4%, highlighting the relative value of the Permian Resources stock represents today. Importantly, the improvement in business fundamentals we have highlighted throughout the deck have driven our post-dividend free cash flow breakeven down to approximately $40, which highlights the sustainability of our plan. Turning to Slide 10. We want to go back to 2023 to highlight some of the performance metrics that have helped drive the outsized investor returns we'll highlight on the following slide. As those of you know, our sole focus is creating value on a per share basis. our team has positioned us to deliver substantial peer-leading growth on key per share metrics by production per share and free cash flow per share. From 2023 to 2025, we will grow production per debt adjusted share by approximately 50%, or reducing our cost structure in a material way during that same time period. And the end result is our free cash flow per share almost doubled from just over $1 per share in 2023 to over $2 per share in 2025. Slide 11 shows the public results of the improvements to our business we highlighted on Slide 10. Our team's tireless focus on value creation and free cash flow per share growth has led to best-in-class total shareholder returns every year since the Colgate Centennial merger in 2022. As you can see, turning to Slide 12, the majority of the shareholder value has come from improvements in the quality of our business rather than a re-rating of our multiple. Even with our industry-leading TSR in the past 2 years, we believe that Permian Resources is well positioned to continue to create outsized value for investors. Our go-forward value creation potential is underpinned by an industry-leading cost structure, low breakevens and long-dated higher turn inventory, which together have driven leading returns for investors. Thank you for tuning in today, and now we will turn it back to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Scott Hanold from RBC Capital Markets.

You discussed a little bit about your plan into 2025 and a lot of regional similarities. Can you give a little color around the target formations and co-development to -- that provide you confidence in sustainability of the economics as you move forward? And what's your visibility on that right now in terms of like duration?

Yes. I mean it's shockingly similar, both the kind of allocation across states, basins and zones. I mean you'll see average pad size may creep up a little bit just some of the blocks we're drilling set up for larger scale development. But really, it's the same zones. It will be a lot of the same zones in New Mexico, Texas and Midland Basin that we've done for previous years. And really, I'd say our inventory position has not changed. We follow kind of the M&A slides in there. We've been able to basically replace everything we've filled for 2 years in a row now. So we still sit with high confident 15-year inventory was kind of the first half of that showing very little degradation from what we're doing today.

Yes, and that's great. And that kind of leads me to my next kind of question in terms of the M&A strategy going forward? And as you replace this inventory, you're replacing [ those ] very similar quality stuff. And what is your view on larger scale M&A? It seems like sort of the trend in the sector is getting bigger deals to enhance your scale, enhance the duration of the inventory and lower cost. Like when you look at larger scale deals in the Delaware, how much do you all see is left that could be targeted?

I think the M&A landscape overall, I think we see a pretty interesting and attractive kind of market backdrop as we head into 2025. I think it looks pretty similar to the last couple of years and the years before COVID, which have been kind of fruitful if people can find and do the right deals. I think in terms of scale, we've been more focused on the kind of smaller deals. I think the biggest deal we've done on the cash side was the Oxy Barilla Draw deal we announced in Q3. And I think we find those deals tend to have higher quality inventory and represent better values. I think the bigger deals we've seen, especially on the private side in the Delaware, have tended to be very production heavy and probably not as long lives on the inventory side of things. And so I think our focus has been more on the smaller deals, kind of the hundreds of millions of dollars and smaller. That's it. I mean, we'd be happy to look at bigger deals. We've looked at quite a few of them. And if we found one that was the right fit, the right quality, and we believe truly made our business better over the long term. I think we'd be excited to do something bigger, but we see more value on the smaller end and probably the same going forward, but you never know what the market is going to bring, and you can assume we're looking at everything.

And your next question comes from the line of Neal Dingmann from Truist Securities.

Well, maybe my first question for you just around the operational efficiencies. You continue to [indiscernible] now do yourself a just sort of quarter in quarter I'm wondering, is part of this driven by the continued integration of new assets and does that help? Or really what continues to be the driver of just and you guys are able to do this in recent quarters?

I'd say, really, that's just the culture that we've built around here. We've got a team of highly motivated, highly skilled people that are really working every day to try to better what they did the quarter before. that's the culture that's ingrained in PR. That's what we've been doing for a long time. And M&A, I'd say M&A allows us to showcase that. M&A allows us to leverage our cost structure to buy deals at a higher rate of return and kind of immediately apply that cost structure where you can see kind of the synergies as quick as the first month after acquisition. But I wouldn't say M&A makes us better. I think on the margin, it probably gives us some scale and some purchasing power, but really kind of the day-to-day grinding out hours, days, minutes on the drilling side and finding ways to optimize completions to lower cost is really just a cultural thing ingrained in PR. And I think we benefit a lot from being in Midland and really being focused on one basin. There's a lot of value in being kind of hyper focused on one basin in Midland, and I think kind of the culmination of the culture with that is what drives the performance.

Great point. And then, James, maybe just a second one for you on shareholder return. I'm just wondering I -- for one is, you all just haven't gone [ crazy thinking ] you have to pay out 100% or you have to have a 15% yield dividend. Just wondering when you sort of see the free cash flow shaping up as it is, how do you think -- what do you think is the appropriate shareholder return value this year by going to next year, how do you sort of see that strategy?

Yes. I mean I think we -- obviously as we said, a lot to base dividend is the core of our shareholder returns program. And we paid our -- we all got our first $0.15 per share base dividend in November. So I think we're all really excited about that. I think we like the strong dividend yield. I think it reflects the kind of value proposition of PR stock today, and it feels really sustainable. Like I said on the call, I think that's sustainable at a cash flow breakeven, post dividend down to 40%, I think, feels really, really good. I think going forward, look, I think our #1 goal is to continue to increase the base dividend on an annual basis. We don't think that's kind of a key criteria to have a healthy, high-quality growing business is a sustainably growing base dividend. So I think that's our first priority. And then beyond that, I think that kind of capital allocation post base dividend is going to depend on the opportunity set in front of us. I think that could be what it's been in the last couple of months is putting cash on the balance sheet and paying down some debt. I think over time there could be interesting opportunities on the share buyback side or on the strategic acquisition side. And we're looking at all that. And I think we're kind of making that soon every day, every week, every month what we think is going to drive the highest return for shareholders, and that's where the kind of rest of the cash is going to go.

And your next question comes from the line of Gabe Daoud from TD Cowen.

I was hoping for us to get started with CapEx, a couple items I wanted to ask about, I guess, first is just the level of facility spend of -- I guess it's about $400 million on an absolute basis. Just curious if that's a good number to use annually on a go-forward basis? And then your D&C per foot numbers targeting $750 a foot. Are you there now? Or is that a level that you expect to get to at some point this year.

Cool. Great questions. Facilities, yes, I think kind of right around $400 million, maybe slightly above that is kind of where we think we'll be this year. That's $100 million off of where we were last year, if you remember, there was a kind of a lot of onetime spend associated with the Earthstone integration. So I think $400 million is probably the right, call it, short to midterm run rate. Obviously, acquisitions can move that around. I do think that if we didn't do any acquisitions and just continue to prosecute developing our own inventory that once you get, call it, 3 plus, 4 years out, you could see that drop further to kind of call it maybe as low as $300 million a year, but that's probably the right kind of base case, no acquisition run rate. And I think based on our history, there's likely to be some acquisitions that happen between now and then. And then the D&C side, $750 a foot is cutting-edge real-time cost today. So we are there, we were -- as we were looking at kind of what to put in the budget and the guide, I'd say we've got confidence based on what we're seeing real time in the field today that $750 is achievable, and we are there today.

Awesome. Okay. So I think it would be fair to say you could probably move that lower as we move throughout the year.

Yes. You said that, not me. I think that I trust my team will continue to find ways to get better. But at the same time, I kind of -- it feels like we've squeezed probably a lot of we can out of the deflation side of the equation. People are talking about tariffs. There's kind of a lot of other factors at play. So I think $750 is the right guide based on where I stand today. And hopefully, we can go find ways to cut costs from here. But it's not quite as clear as it maybe was 3 or 4 months ago.

Okay. Okay. No, that's fair. Understood. And then just a quick follow-up. Is it fair to assume just given a pretty static level of equipment and activity relative to where you just were. So maybe no real lumpiness in the program this year. Is that a fair statement?

I think there's a little bit of lumpiness. I would say CapEx is probably slightly front half weighted and production is slightly back half weighted, Something like that, production is probably on the low end of the guide for the first half of the year and then high end of the guidance for the back half of the year. And CapEx you probably could move a couple of percent to the first half and drop the back half by a couple of percent, something like that.

And your next question comes from the line of Zach Parham from JPMorgan.

Just a follow-up on some of the other questions on D&C cost. You're at $750 a foot now, that's down over $100 a foot from where you were kind of coming into '24. Can you just detail what the drivers and those reductions in D&C costs have been over the last year? How much of that's efficiency gains versus on the cost side?

Yes, happy to do it. I'd say just real high level, I'd say probably slightly over 50%, maybe 55% is going to come from the efficiency side with the balance being more kind of real per unit cost deflation. On the efficiency side, it's drilling weighted. You can see it kind of however you want to pull our drilling times as we've continued to cut days and days and days on both the Delaware Basin and Midland Basin side of the equation. And we've talked about this a lot. But on the drilling side, days, directly affect dollars, spread rate, call it, $90,000, $100,000 a day every time you cut it, you save about that much on a gross basis per well. On the material side, it's really just kind of tangible stuff like sands come down, casings come down and then a little bit of, call it, like deflation on true services. Simul-frac helped a little bit, you kind of add all that together and used to get to the numbers you're quoting.

Got it. And then maybe just an update on the Midland asset and kind of how that fits into the portfolio. It seems like it's about 5% of turn-in-lines this year. But how are you thinking about that asset fitting into the portfolio over the longer term?

Kevin, I think we're obviously very focused on the Delaware Basin. That's kind of our backyard. That's where we've spent the majority of our time, the majority of managing, the majority of our capital. That's turned out to be a good little asset. I think our team has done a really good job bringing kind of costs in line with the leading operators in the Midland Basin. Frankly, when we acquired that asset a couple of years ago, was in a fine position. But I think our team has really taken that and made it a lot better kind of applied the PR secret sauce, if you will. I think it's not an area of focus for us, but I think it fits well in the portfolio today. It's a little bit of our capital activity. It provides a nice little cash flow stream. And I think over the longer and longer term, if there's something to do to optimize the position that included that. I think we'd obviously be open to it. But I think we like having in the portfolio. I think it's not really good gas price optionality, obviously, kind of Permian gas prices haven't anything to be that excited about. But that business has a real amount of leverage to kind of in-basin gas pricing that I think plus kind of makes it more attractive to hold and probably requires a different environment to do something worse. But tell you truth, our team has done such good work. I think we're pretty happy with it sitting where it is. And if there's a way to do something to make it -- make our business better. Obviously, that's what we do every day, we'd be open to it, but happy with it in the portfolio as it stands today.

And your next question comes from the line of Kevin MacCurdy from Pickering Energy Partners.

It looks like you're taking your efficiency gains in shorter cycle times from 2024 and using it to increase turning lines year-over-year. This is slightly different than some of your peers who I think are banking those efficiency gains and keeping production flattish. And I wonder if you could just share your thought process on activity levels and how you reached the decision you did?

I'll at the beginning of it, I'd say kind of what -- first of all, we look at as we're making capital allocation decisions, especially with respect to the drilling program, it's just kind of the all-in return of the program and we've talked about this in the past, but also kind of the payback of it. When you add an incremental rig, how fast that rig pays for itself to where you're in a net better cash position because of it. And I think what you've seen over the last 9 months or 12 months is commodity prices have moved against us. But at the same time, our cost structure has more than offset it. We have -- we're earning better returns at the pad level today than we had -- than we were a year ago, just given the overall return profile of the business, really with the cost structure being the biggest tailwind. I think as we look at the plan for '25, I wouldn't -- I'd call this more of a tweener program, like we are from year-over-year, it's 8% growth, but there's a lot of acquisitions in it kind of from Q4 levels, it's less than that. And we could easily dial it up to show meaningful growth, much more than this to kind of the high end, 10% as we've talked about, or dial it back a little bit, but it feels like kind of the return profile of the business justifies a little bit of growth, and that's where we landed.

And really, the way we're thinking about it and the way we focus on [ other ] thing is per share growth. And I think we've got the debt adjusted per share growth in the deck of 11% year-over-year, which I think feels really healthy. So I think kind of our focus, like we talked about a lot is on the per share metric, if you like that kind of fits with the position of our business today and the macro environment.

I appreciate that answer. And yes, I think the growth certainly separates you from your peers. For a follow-up, I wanted to touch on the minimal cash taxes in 2025 because I think that's a meaningful piece of the free cash flow. How are you guys able to mitigate taxes again this year? And do you have any thoughts on how long you can kind of continue to defer the majority of your cash taxes?

Yes. this is Guy. So for '24, we really just kind of continue to optimize our tax planning. And we learned a lot with Earthstone that ultimately resulted in nominal cash taxes paid in '24 and '25 is just a carryover of that what I call, improved planning and probably optimization of Earthstone. As we go forward, cash taxes will be more meaningful in '26 and by '27 closer to a full cash taxpayer. So we're going through all that now. So that will change. But '25 was a meaningful improvement relative to what we thought 6 or 9 months ago.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Derrick Whitfield from Texas Capital.

Over the last 2 quarters, you guys have added 2,500 net acres via grassroots leasing with the majority of that coming in 4Q. Kind of looking forward across your expanded position, is it reasonable to think that you could continue to add 5,000 to 10,000 acres per year via grassroots leasing, really negating the need for larger bolt-ons?

High end of that sounds pretty high. I think we're confident, like we've been doing this a long time, and it's lumpy. I think we could have replicate what we did in Q4 a couple of quarters in a full year period. But I think probably the kind of 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 in that acre is probably the better base case. I'd say 10,000 an acre would be a really good year -- 2,000 acres would be a really good year. I think just kind of the way that these deals come through and the kind of opportunity set being largely tied to the drill bit in our drill schedule like you do have some outsized quarters like we saw in Q4. But I think we're certainly confident we can continue doing it at the scale we've done in the last couple of years, which I think is probably closer to that 5,000 acre plus or minus 5,000 acres, plus or minus run rate. But who knows. I mean our team we've done an incredible team out here in the Midland on the ground every day looking for opportunities. So I think a really good year could look like that, but probably not every year.

Makes sense. And for my follow-up, I wanted to ask a capital efficiency question. One of your peers recently introduced a new measure where they evaluated the price in 2025 that would allow for a similar free cash flow per share is achieved in 2024. I guess with respect to that capital efficiency measure, if you've seen it, I'd love your take on it. And secondly, if you have a view on what crude price would deliver a similar level of free cash flow per share for you in 2025, if you have it?

Yes. I mean I think for us, we actually like looking at this. I think one thing that's really important as we talk about running our business every day is that our business is getting better year-over-year and kind of the ultimate arbiter of quality as we see it as free cash flow per share. I think that metric that we talked about is generally in the context of absolute free cash flow. But I think from our perspective, if we were trying to generate the same, call it, $1.4 billion, we generate in free cash flow on an absolute basis, last year, which is at, call it, a $75 crude price, we think we could do that this year in the kind of low to mid-60s, call that $63 plus or minus. And feel like that shows the quality of the business, the kind of step change that we've seen in operational efficiencies and capital efficiency across the board.

And your next question comes from the line of Neil Mehta from Goldman Sachs.

James and team, thanks for the time here. I guess big picture question. You show in the deck, despite multiyear outperformance, the stock does still trade at a 2-turn discount to a lot of the peer set including your big brother in the Midland. And I guess the question is, what do you think the market is -- needs to better understand to start thinking about Permian Resources differently and more in the context of other pure-play Permian stories.

I think, to be frank, I think we don't spend a ton of time guessing what the market is thinking. You're probably closer to that and better answering that question than we are. I'd say where we spend all of our time is focused on how we can make our business better. I think if I had to speculate, and I'm probably not the best person to do this. I think it's a combination of, one, Permian Resources is still a relatively new story. Like I think if you want to talk about the guys across the street, they've been doing this for well over a decade, probably closer to [ 2s and the 1 ] and doing it tremendously well year in, year out, quarter in year -- and quarter out. So I think like that multiple is deserved by the kind of both the quality of the business they run and the duration they run it for. We're still a relatively new story. I think it's a 2.5-year mark or so for Permian Resources, and we're still doing a lot of investors. So hopefully, we've built a lot of trust. We've obviously, we think created a lot of value for shareholders. And I think over time, the kind of multiple uplift will come as people see -- I think people see the quality of our business today, but continue to see quarter in, quarter out and year in, year out execution. So I think the only other thing we get occasionally from investors is the outperformance to date, which is shown on Slide 11, has been so strong 3 years running that I think people have a hard time reconciling that with Slide 12, which is still a relatively low multiple compared to the peer set. So I think I think it all works itself out over time. And now, I'd say for us, we're really focused on how we grow free cash flow per share and think everything else will take care of itself.

Yes. Great answer. And then just a follow-up on lateral lengths. You're moving from 9,300 feet to 10,000. Just talk about what -- how do you continue to drive this higher? And what's your approach to continue to extend those laterals.

Yes, I'd say this is just the way the acreage position is set up this year. I think we've always Delaware Basin, at least in kind of the deeper Wolfcamp type benches targeted 2-mile laterals as just kind of the optimal Delaware Basin lateral length. I think some of the step-up from 9,300 to 10,000 is just -- we're drilling very, very few sub 10,000-foot laterals as well this year as well as there's a few 3-mile laterals that in some of the shallower benches actually does drive incremental economics and when so that's what we'll do. I think if the verdict is still a little bit out on the Delaware Basin, if you'll see the big shift change from targeting 10,000 feet to chart targeting closer to 12,500 feet that you've seen in the Midland Basin. I'd say most Midland Basin operational synergies or efficiencies do end up translating to the Delaware a couple of years later. So I probably wouldn't bet against it. But we -- Delaware basin productivity makes a lot more fluid per foot than Midland. And so at some point, if you really, really start to push lateral lengths, your food deliverability is constrained and it kind of hurts the economics. So I'd say that's the stuff we're looking at every day, but I do have the confidence that our drilling team could easily go drill 2.5, 3 miles, if needed, it's more of just that makes sense of the acreage position and the economics.

Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Huang from TPH.

Just wanted to kind of look back at the 2025 budget and the non-D&C portion, that 20%, it sounds like most of that is facilities infrastructure related. But just any sort of color you all can provide with respect to the magnitude of the non-op CapEx within that budget?

Yes. non-op is pretty small. We've done an awesome job over the years, I think kind of coring up and focusing on our operated business. I'd say it's -- the non-op spends less than $50 million a year.

Okay. That makes sense. And for a follow-up, maybe just on gas realizations. Last quarter, you all put out a slide speaking towards focusing on optimizing the gas netbacks. Just kind of wondering if there's been any progress updates to kind of offer up on that front that you're able to speak to.

No. I mean, I'd say it's definitely still a priority. I think kind of better marketing of all of our hydrocarbons across the board is a priority. I'd say on the gas side, that just takes time. I think you saw us on the crude side kind of guide up our oil realizations by 1% at the midpoint from our guidance last year. And I think we made some real progress there, $0.10, $0.20, $0.50 a barrel in different places really moves the needle on free cash flow at the end of the day. On the gas side, I think, to be frank, I think our -- the way we're going to sell our gas this year probably looks a lot like it did last year. I think the kind of real step change that we think we'll see is probably in 2026 and beyond as we're looking at some longer-term longer-haul deals, ways to access, a couple of different things on the plate that could allow us to access different markets than WAHA, but that just takes time. So I think our gas strategy is very in focus for us. I think kind of optimizing our realizations over the next decade is at the very top of the strategic priorities list, but I think you'll see that more in '26 and '27 than you will in 2025.

And your next question comes from the line of Josh Silverstein from UBS.

You mentioned potentially getting the balance sheet to [ 0.5x ] turn of leverage by the end of this year. Do you see benefit in getting to this level from a rerating in the stock? Or does it make sense to stay closer to 1x and use that cash for buyback and acquisitions?

We're definitely not kind of solving for balance sheet issues because I think because of implications for how the stock trades, I'd say as we think about balance sheet, it's positioning our business to optimize value creation in all environments. And I think having a stronger balance sheet, I think everyone would agree, positions you well to be able to be opportunistic and aggressive if there's a downturn. And also have dry powder as well if the right opportunity comes along, be that a buyback, be that acquisition in a kind of normal market as well. So I don't think it's a stock positioning. I said we're very comfortable at 1x. We've been at 1x the majority of our business life cycle the last 9 or 10 years. And during a fortunate position where the business is generating so much cash, it's going to delever more quickly. this year, absent any extra acquisitions or buybacks, but there's certainly no strong view that we're going to trade better at 0.5x than 1x.

Got it. And then on the royalty side, you guys have a pretty chunky position now almost at 90,000 net royalty acres. A couple of questions here. Just as you're thinking about M&A, are you thinking about potentially targeting more royalty acreage? And then for the drilling program this year, how much drilling is on that royalty acreage to enhance returns?

Yes. I think, look, we -- I'd say we look at all acquisitions on the lens of what's the all-in total return we think we can achieve. And I'd say the majority of the acquisition dollars we spend have been on working interest. I think we look at a lot of royalties deals. That's a pretty competitive landscape and competitive market where it's often perceived lower cost of capital. But I think we're definitely active buying royalties under the Permian resources where we can. I think where we've had the most success is buying working interest packages that come with royalties alongside it. I think that's been -- you saw that in the Barilla Draw deal and we announced last year and kind of I think probably more likely to be the base case. And then when it comes to activity, I'd say the activity goes towards the highest rate of return development that we have. And more often than not those tend to be on the high NRI package that we have with the kind of royalties advantage. You'll see on 15, our kind of 2025 guidance has at about a 79%, 8/8 kind of NRI. So we're definitely allocating more capital to those higher return, higher NRI packages.

And your next question comes from the line of John Abbott from Wolfe Research.

Well, I want to go back to the cost per lateral foot. Ignoring tariffs, you mentioned the risk there at $750 per lateral foot to achieve further efficiencies from here, do we really need to see more of a technological change at this point in time? Or are there other things that you could potentially do just see a major change in costs?

Yes. Look, I mean, if I was to make the bull case for cutting costs from here, I'd say there's small changes in continued to kind of reduce flat time on the drilling side. There's small changes on water sourcing, recycled water is a meaningful savings and water has become a really, really big part of our capital budget on the completion side. And then yes, there's always the breakthroughs. Like if you follow drilling costs for PR or the predecessor company that we ran over time, it's kind of a flat to very marginal improvements quarter-over-quarter. And then you have big step changes kind of once every year or two. We saw one of those going from Q1 to Q2 last year. So actually, those are more of the technological changes or you discover a new BHA or you find a swap out of fluids or something like that, that has like a meaningful change. So -- those are all the ways you can win. Obviously, there's ways you can lose too. And so hence, the $750 being kind of where we landed for the year.

Okay. And then I want to go back to CapEx for production. I mean, production is 8% year-over-year. So we got a backwardated oil curve, but there are benefits to maintaining efficiencies of operations. I mean we've seen that in your cost per lateral foot. So when you think about sort of possibly managing production or like when you think about like a production number, does it make more sense to let efficiencies continue versus managing to a production number?

I think it just really depends on the market and kind of -- I'd say both, it's a combination as we think about kind of capital allocation and reinvestment rate, which ultimately drives kind of the production number that you referenced. It's a function as we think about it, what is -- what are the returns that we're getting and what is the kind of macro backdrop go forward? I think the returns we're getting even at a backwardated strip are phenomenal in this environment. I think we talked about our returns at a corporate level are materially better than they were last year at even a lower oil price. But I do think kind of there is a backdrop of kind of potentially an oversupplied market as you kind of move through the year. I think maybe some of the storm clouds are subsiding a little bit. But I think with that backdrop, we kind of got to what we viewed as a middle ground on kind of organic growth, call it, kind of low- to mid-single digits on an organic basis and 8% overall. We're really focused on is per share growth. And I think we can't talk about that enough, kind of per debt-adjusted share, our 11% oil production growth feels really good for the business in this market. And I think you'll see us talk a lot more about that metric going forward.

And your next question comes from the line of Leo Mariani from ROTH Capital Partners.

Obviously, you spoke a bit in your prepared comments about clearly the multiple being lower than peers and hopefully, that takes care of itself over time. But at the same time, you guys are generating a lot of free cash flow, which seems to put the balance sheet in a lot better shape at the end of the year and I know M&A is unpredictable. But just given the fact that your leverage profile is in great shape and the multiple is low. Why [ does ] it make sense and maybe feather in a little bit more buyback instead of kind of waiting for things to totally blow up here.

Yes. Ian, I think for us, we've always talked about our buyback strategy is going to be very, call it, rifle shot, and we think you want to get a better bang for your buck on buyback dollars when you see real dislocations or a real downturn. And although I think we're undervalued relative to peers, it doesn't feel like a truly dislocated market kind of more broadly today. So I think we think our dollars are better spent putting them on the balance sheet and rating for a, call it, a right for opportunity than one that's just good enough. We think that kind of prudent approach to share buybacks to ultimately drive more shareholder value over the long term, and we're kind of prepared to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to be that a juicy or buyback in the future that I think we do in mass or an acquisition opportunity or something else?

Okay. And then just turning to your controllable cash costs, as you pointed out, they ticked down a little bit here in the fourth quarter. Looking at 2025 guidance, I guess you guys are expecting them to come down again on your controllable cash costs. Maybe just kind of talk to some of the success you had in 4Q and what the drivers are to kind of reduce the cost more in 2025? Is it just simply a matter of scale? Or are there some kind of tangible cost reduction efforts that you guys are working on?

Yes. So the -- I'd say one big win at which we highlighted some of is the cost we were able to cut so quickly out of the acquisitions we made, that Barilla Draw that we bought was north of a $10 per Boe asset. And just a few months after getting our hands on it. We've got it down into the [ $8 ], and I think there's room to continue to lower it from there. So you have some of those tailwinds as you compare Q4 to kind of forward-looking 2025. We also have just kind of the way our development program sets up relative to some of our midstream contracts, I think you'll expect -- we expect a lower GP&T year-over-year. That's more just a function of where we're drilling than any material change to the business. But look, I'd say overall, we think controllable cash cost is important to protecting our margin to protecting our ability to generate free cash flow and free cash flow per share. So we'll keep chipping away at it. Industry-leading G&A kind of keep pushing on the LOE side, et cetera, et cetera, will lead to a better business and ultimately more free cash flow.

And your next question comes from the line of Paul Diamond from Citi.

Just a quick one. You mentioned on M&A opportunities, kind of thinking that couple of hundred million dollar range. Should we think about the go-forward kind of opportunity set similar to Barilla Draw or on the high side or the low side of that?

I think we're doing acquisitions today that are $50,000 on the small end, and we're doing those by the dozen or by the hundreds. And I think -- we've done a lot of the kind of Barilla Draw size high $100 million acquisitions. Last year, we did the kind of $800 million Barilla Draw deal. We did a kind of $200-something million deal in Eady County and then couple of deals a little smaller than that. So I think that's probably the right range of kind of potential outcomes. I think it's kind of big as $1 billion on the kind of cash transaction side and as small as $10,000.

Understood. I appreciate the clarity. And then just talking a bit about the ground game. Compared to 2.5 years ago, the Centennial Colgate merger. How have you seen that evolve? You've seen similar bid-ask spread, similar kind of negotiation times or if any evolution in that net market or activity.

The ground game has been pretty similar to efforts that we've had underway since we started the predecessor company Colgate back in 2015. And I think it's -- a big part of that is the relationship and being boots on the ground out here in Midland and the heart of the Permian, that kind of opens up a lot of opportunities for us. But I'd say the only big change we saw was kind of from the Colgate Centennial merger in 2022 was just the scale of the business. We go from running 4, 5, 6 rigs to running 12 rigs and that kind of doubles the opportunity set and probably doubled our success rate at acquiring deals. So I think to kind of negotiate times rate of return, cost break has been pretty steady for a long time.

And your next question comes from the line of Noah Hungness from Bank of America.

Congrats on a great quarter. For my first question, I just wanted to ask on the base dividend. You guys have continued to have your capital costs [indiscernible] your capital program become more efficient. Your cash costs go lower and your production is higher than what we were expecting. And it seems like your free cash flow capacity is also increasing. So what was your reasoning behind keeping your base dividend flat when you announced results?

Yes. I mean the reason is we paid our -- we all got our first $0.15 base dividend in November. So it just kind of felt like the kind of that was the right status quo. And I think we probably messaged this indirectly when we rolled it out, that kind of -- we do plan to revisit it annually, but we kind of did our annual revisit with the first November dividend that we paid. I think the business could certainly support a larger dividend, and we're excited to kind of revisit it this time next year and should have a nice increase. But I'd say it just felt like we had just done this. And frankly, the dividend yield is higher than it was when we rolled it out, and it had only been 1 quarter. So pretty simple thinking that it just kind of didn't seem like it made sense to make a change just 1 quarter end.

Yes. That makes sense. And then I just would like to know your thoughts on potentially implementing creative drilling solutions like U-lateral. We've seen some of your peers in the basin do so to levels of success. And have you guys had any thoughts on that?

Yes. So I think for the most part, we're very fortunate that our kind of land team and our land position does not require it. Like if you go look at our acreage on a map, just a simple scan, you can see how well it sets up for kind of two or longer than two straight well development. Having said that, I think we've drilled 3 or 4 U-turn wells or kind of curved [ candy cane ] wells, if that's what you want to call it to date. And any time it does make sense, it's part of the prog 3 or 4 times we've done it that there's very, very little incremental costs like that curve, sometimes you don't even see it on a DVD [indiscernible] And so we have the confidence that when it makes sense, we'll do it. And I think that it will be something kind of like simul-frac, it's part of the program, but I don't think it will be something that we are necessarily highlighting is a huge step change in capital efficiency, primarily driven that we just don't have that many efficient places where we need to do it.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Mr. James Walter for any closing remarks.

Thank you, and thanks, everyone, for dialing in today. Having gotten off to a great start for 2025, our primary goal remains the same, to maximize shareholder value over the long term. To do that, we plan to continue to build on our track record of delivering consistent results with the lowest cost structure in the Delaware Basin. Thanks again to everyone for joining the call today and for following the Permian Resources story.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.