Hello and welcome to Antero Midstream Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to, Justin Agnew, Director of Finance. Please go ahead sir.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Antero Midstream’s fourth quarter and full year 2021 investor conference call. We’ll spend a few minutes going through the financial and operating highlights, and then we’ll open it up for Q&A. I would also like to direct you to the homepage of our website at www.anteromidstream.com, where we have provided a separate earnings call presentation that will be reviewed during today’s call. Before we start our comments, I would first like to remind you that during this call Antero management will make forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on our current judgments regarding factors that will impact the future performance of Antero Resources and Antero Midstream and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Antero’s control. Actual outcomes and results could materially differ from what is expressed, implied, or forecast in such statements. Today’s call may also contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings press release for important disclosures regarding such measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Joining me on the call today are Paul Rady, Chairman and CEO of Antero Resources and Antero Midstream; Brendan Krueger, CFO of Antero Midstream; and Michael Kennedy, CFO of Antero Resources and Director at Antero Midstream. With that, I will turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, Justin. In my comments, I’ll discuss AM’s 2022 capital budget, along with our updated five year $1 billion organic project backlog. These projects are underpinned by AR’s peer-leading liquids rich inventory in Appalachia, the lowest cost gas basin in the US. Importantly, this infrastructure drives growth at AM and plays a vital role in supplying clean natural gas, both domestically and abroad, to help lower overall global emissions. We believe that building and owning midstream assets with high throughput visibility in the lowest cost basin is the most attractive way to deliver value to our shareholders. Now let’s discuss some of the key infrastructure projects at AM. I’ll start on slide number three titled AM 2022 capital budget and key projects. First, as depicted on the right hand side of the page, we placed the Lincoln Compressor Station in service in the fourth quarter of 2021, which was accelerated from the first quarter of 2022. For the full year of 2022, we have budgeted capital investments of $275 million to $300 million, which is in line with our comments made on last quarter’s earnings call. Antero Midstream’s 2022 capital budget includes approximately $45 million for two additional compressor stations that will be placed online in 2022 and 2023. These compressor stations are located in the core of the liquids rich Marcellus fairway, where AR’s development is focused over the next several years. Importantly, AM’s visibility into AR’s development plan allows us to phase in capacity at these future stations on a just in time basis. Antero Midstream has also budgeted $50 million of remaining capital investment for a 20-mile high pressure line from Wetzel County to the Sherwood and Smithburg processing complex, highlighted in green. This trunk line connects AR’s core development area highlighted in blue with our processing…

Thanks, Paul. I’ll begin my comments with fourth quarter results at AM. During the fourth quarter, AM generated 213 million of EBITDA, bringing the full year 2021 EBITDA to 876 million. This was 16 million above the midpoint of guidance and represents 3% year-over-year EBITDA growth. AM’s 2021 EBITDA was above the midpoint of guidance due to higher gathering volumes throughout the year. Capital expenditures in the quarter were 80 million, bringing our full year capital expenditures to 262 million, driven by the acceleration of the Lincoln Compressor Station that Paul just discussed in his comments. For the full year, we generated 439 million of free cash flow before dividends and 10 million of free cash flow after dividends, which allowed us to maintain a flat debt profile at 3.1 billion and leverage at 3.6 times. Slide number six titled free cash flow inflection point illustrates our historical and future free cash flow after dividends. As you can see, from 2017 through 2020, we were in an outspend mode, as we built scale through our organic capital projects and downstream investments, such as the processing and fractionation JV with MPLX. In the 2021 to 2022 period, we will be approximately free cash flow breakeven due to expansion in capital investments supporting the drilling partnership growth. However, with a declining quarterly capital throughout the year, the outspent is effectively behind us, as we transition to generating free cash flow after dividends in the second half of 2022. This will mark a critical inflection point for Antero Midstream, as we expect to consistently generate free cash flow after dividends for the foreseeable future. As you can see on the right hand side of the page, we expect increasing free cash flow after dividends in 2023 and further growth into 2024 and beyond,…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today coming from John Mackay from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time. I wanted to talk about -- a little bit about capital allocation and the new pre-cash after dividend guidance. I guess it sounds like the focus is on leverage now through year end ’24 but I guess I want to ask, given the improvement at AR, is 3.0 still the right leverage for you, just given how much better the sponsor has gotten. And if you can just talk a little bit more about what’s driving that increase in kind of the full year cumulative free cash outlook? Thanks.

Yeah, so I think on your first question, we are still very focused on the three times leveraged target. I think midstream continues to move lower in terms of focus on lower leverage. We’ve seen a nice response from the AR side, as it has taken it absolute debt down and we think we think we’ll see something similar on the AM side, it just gives you more flexibility in long term strategic planning. And then on the second question, really the addition of rolling forward a year in maintenance capital program, we’ve talked about the fact that both in ’21 and ’22, we were really investing related to the drilling partnership. And so those are the years you saw more heavy investment to support that drilling partnership. When you get out to ’23, you should see that capital come down nicely from this year. And then ’24 and beyond, it will come down even further into more of a maintenance capital mode, which we like to think about in terms of 150 million to 200 million overall be in maintenance capital level for Antero Midstream. So when you roll off another year, with the growth, we expect the drilling partnership, the fee rebate expiring in the net lower level of capital, it drives that 250 million of additional free cash flow on that five-year cumulative basis.

That’s really helpful. Thank you and make sense. Maybe I can just squeeze in one more. Understand you can’t comment too much, so just kind of want to ask on process and timeline. I think next Thursday is the next step in the wastewater court case. I’m just curious, are we expecting an answer from the court at that point or is that just one step and we probably want to see the resolution until later. Thank you.

Yeah. So, next Thursday was an additional day added to the trial, so just additional items to cover, I think, for the trial. As we disclosed, it’s a bench trial and so there’s no definitive timing in terms of when a decision will necessarily be made. And of course, you’ll likely see appeals as you do in most court cases, and so, got to gauge when we’ll come to a final conclusion there. But, we just to be clear, we have not included any sort of assumption of anything in our targets and cash flow guidance that we’ve provided.

Got it. It is helpful. Thank for the time. Appreciate it.

All right. Thanks, John.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Ned Baramov from Wells Fargo, your line is now live.

Hi. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just one quick question. It seems that with the expected in service of Shell’s ethane cracker later this year, ethane production will increase at AR. So are there any thoughts of having the deethanizer at AM at some point in the future, as opposed to keeping them at AR?

No, those were not part of the JV to begin with. And frankly, that’s kind of the lowest part of the economics on the processing complex anyway, so we’re happy to kind of keep those outside of AM’s business.

Yeah. Just to reiterate, that’s not AR that’s part of the JV.

Yeah, that’s held at MPLX.

At MPLX.

Got it. And then I guess with AR announcing its capital allocation plan, could increasing ownerships in AM be part of this framework?

No, I don’t think anything – AR has not come out and said anything there. I mean, you have seen some of those transactions certainly out there. Shell was a recent one, much different structure there. But as we look at the business today, I think, the separate entities are working well today, so no current plans as we look out, right now, whether that changes as the companies become more mature is to be determined but right now, I think, the outlook makes sense for both entities.

Thanks for the time. That’s all I had.

Thanks, Ned.

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Michael Bradley from Tudor, Pickering, Holt. Your line is now live.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for the time. My first question is just around 2022 expectations for the water business. I understand that gross air completions guidance was tagged at 75 to 80 for the year. But can you guys just kind of walk us through the quarterly cadence that you’re expecting there?

Yeah, so I think, overall, roughly 60% or so in the first half of the year and the other 40% in the second half as it relates to volumes there.

Got it. Thanks. That’s helpful. And then I guess just pivoting to capital allocation, it sounded like you guys really want to kind of reach your debt target before taking a peek at what you could do on the capital returns side of things. But I guess as you look out to 2024 plus kind of how do you weigh distribution increases versus buybacks? And do you have like an ultimate goal to get back to the prior distribution at around the 123 [ph] per share level?

Yeah, I mean, I think as we look out there, if we look into business today, we certainly think the equity looks attractive, trading where guys, given the organic growth we have, the low leverage that we have, and just the visibility, frankly, from a midstream entity that we have over -- multi -- not just multiple years but over multiple decades with the inventory that AR has. So, if you get out to 2024 and things have not changed to a certain extent, I think share buybacks certainly look more attractive to us versus increasing the dividend overall and then we’ll go from there, but obviously quite a ways out, and we’ll have to evaluate when we get there.

Got it. Thanks for the time.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Tarek Hamid from JPMorgan, your line is now live.

Good morning, guys. Just following up on capital allocation, given sort of your target for free cash flow and the flip over in the second half of ’22, just wondering kind of as you get to that three times leveraged target, how much of that is sort of continued EBITDA expansion versus how much of that is sort of using free cash flow to pay down revolver, as you think about getting to that target by year end ‘24?

Sorry, Tarek, what was the first part of your question?

Just given the flip over to free cash flow in the middle of this year?

Yeah. So I think, as we look at debt pay down, we certainly have some, some notes with coupons that are not as -- that’s not very attractive to us today. So I think that would be the first use of it, I think we’re comfortable having a bit drawn on the on the revolver. And then once you get through some of the higher cost of debt, you’d likely just term out or pay down the revolver over time, and you wouldn’t have anything drawn on that as well. So a lot of flexibility there, I think, on the AM side with a debt to be able to attack it.

Got it. And then just, on ratings, sort of AR and AM, I think, have been kind of unique with AM being graded effectively the same as AR. Given the debt reduction at AR, just wondering kind of in the conversations you’re having with the agencies, do you expect them to sort of continue to rate AM the same as AR or do you expect them to sort of start to change that methodology overtime?

Yeah, I mean, I’d say both agencies, they look at the structures a little bit different. One likes to look at it on kind of more of a combined, one likes to look at it more separate. So overall, you could see some differentiation between the two. AR certainly has its leverage at 1.3 times and heading lower in the future. AM does have leverage moving down as well, so the push will obviously be to keep them connected and continue to move those ratings up and we do have frequent conversations there but tough to tell what the rating agencies do, a little bit of a black box sometimes there.

I can appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks, Tarek.

Thank you. We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the floor back over to management for any further closing comment.

Yeah, thanks for joining us today for the call. We’re available for any questions, should you have any follow up. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude today’s teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.