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APA Corporation (APA)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 14, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon my name is Ally and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Apache Corporation Fourth Quarter 2012 Earnings Release Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instruction) in order to make sure that everyone has a chance to ask a question, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question,(Operator Instruction). At this time I would like to introduce your presenter for today Mr. Brady Parish, Vice President of Investor Relation. Mr. Parish, you may begin your conference.

F. Brady Parish

Management

Thank you Ally, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us for Apache Corporation's full year and fourth quarter 2012 earning conference call. This morning we reported 2012 earnings of $1.9 billion or $4.92 per diluted share, adjusted earnings, which excludes certain items that impact the comparability of results totaled $3.8 billion or $9.48 per diluted share. Cash flow from operations totaled $10.2 million. On today’s call, we will have three speakers making prepared remarks prior to taking questions. First, we will hear from Steve Farris, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; followed by Rod Eichler, President and Chief Operating Officer; and finally, Tom Chambers, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We've prepared our quarterly financial supplemental data package for your use, which also includes the reconciliation of any non-GAAP numbers that we discuss such as adjusted earnings, cash flow from operations or pre-tax margins. In addition, new for this quarter, we have prepared an operations supplement to summarize our activities across the various Apache regions. These can both be found on our website at www apachecorp.com/financialdata. Today’s discussions will contain forward-looking estimates and assumptions based on our current views and most reasonable expectations. However, a number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from what we discuss today. A further disclaimer is located with the supplemental data package on our website. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Steve.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Thank you, Brady, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank all of you for joining us. Apache achieved some new milestones in 2012 and first of all, despite significant downtime we grew our average annual production to 779,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, almost 5.5% above 2011 if you adjust for dispositions, which is a new record for Apache. And as a matter of information, and I assure you not an excuse, I would like to point out had we not experienced the unplanned downtime in the North Sea and Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf of Mexico during just the third quarter. Our production growth would have been 6.3%. More importantly, during the fourth quarter, we averaged 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, the first time in our company's history which establishes a strong base as we enter 2013. And despite as Brady pointed out, despite much weaker North American natural gas prices, our balanced portfolio enabled us generate $10.2 billion of cash flow consistent with 2011. I'd also like to point out, driving this impressive cash flow were our liquids revenues which constituted 81% of our overall $17 billion in revenues for the year, and North American natural gas accounted for only 11%. By the end of the year, we had fully integrated our Midcontinent North Sea portfolio expansions and we really hit our stride in our large Permian position. As a result, we built operational momentum heading into 2013. We have become the most active Permian basin player with 38 operated rigs and we plan to increase our horizontal rig fleet to half of our total operated rigs during the year. We've also become a leader in the Midcontinent liquids and oil plays, increasing our horizontal drilling activity from six rigs at the beginning of 2012 to…

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Thank you, Steve. Good afternoon. As Brady previously mentioned, we have compiled an operations supplement for your use which highlights our activities by region during the fourth quarter. We have put this together in an effort to be responsive to feedback we have received and hope you find it useful. In this supplement, we have provided detailed operational information for the fourth quarter. We also like to highlight some of our most notable achievements during 2012. Firstly, with our growth in the U.S. onshore sea drilling. Combined, our Permian and Central regions grew production nearly 24% year-over-year and represent 25% of Apache's total global production by the fourth quarter and 197,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. As impressive as these results are the reality is we're just in the early stages of our growth as each region evolves in a full-scale development. In the Permian Central alone, we have identified over 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent of resource potential to further fuel our liquids-rich gas and oil production growth to unfold. In addition, we are in the process of completing our resource assessment in Canada for liquids-rich gas and oil opportunities with approximately 7 million gross acres in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. We anticipate identifying thereby in several thousand economic wells in our various plays which should allow us to add another North American onshore growth region as we ramp up activity over the next couple of years. We also successfully integrated the barrel properties into our North Sea region. We have spent the last year preparing for drilling campaign that will test new opportunities based on the first 3D seismic acquired over these fields since 1998. Finally, we replaced over 130% of our production through drill bit and approximately 156% when you include the acquisitions; this…

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Thanks Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. While 2012 provided plenty of challenges, we finished the fourth quarter strong, averaging 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, boosting us to record production for the year and fueling record oil and gas revenues in our second best cash flow year ever. Production which averaged 779,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day was up 4% from the prior year and up almost 5.5% adjusted for dispositions as Steve indicated. More importantly, record oil production of 352,000 barrels per day combined with record oil price realizations drove cash from operations before working capital items to $10.2 billion for the year and a record $2.8 billion for the quarter. Oil and gas revenues of $16.9 billion were slightly higher than 2011 and we achieved a new record in spite of average North American natural gas prices falling over 30%. We continue to benefit from our portfolio with WTI crude prices currently over 28 times the price of North American gas. Having 72% of our oil production priced at Brent or Brent-comparable indexes, which continues to realize substantial premiums to WTI, also enhances our results. Our international natural gas portfolio continues to have a positive revenue impact by providing increasing volumes to markets with gas prices significantly higher than North America particularly Argentina, Australia and the UK grid. For the fourth consecutive quarter international gas price realizations outpaced those of North America. In 2012 international gas price realizations increased 13% compared to the prior year and at $4.15 they were 47% higher than those realized in North America excluding hedging. Turning to earnings for 2012, as you heard we reported earnings of $1.9 billion or $4.92 per share, despite the impact of several key non-recurring items. Our results include prior quarter non-cash property write-downs in Canada…

F. Brady Parish

Operator

Thank you, Tom. Allie, we are now ready to open the line for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Arun Jayaram from Credit Suisse. Arun Jayaram – Credit Suisse Securities LLC: Can you hear me?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Fairly. Arun Jayaram – Credit Suisse Securities LLC: Fairly, okay.

G. Steven Farris

Management

That’s fair. Arun Jayaram – Credit Suisse Securities LLC: Steve, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the overall production. I mean in October, you guys updated the market, and you’re about 800,000 barrels a day in overall production. So there, next quarter despite some pretty strong gains in the U.S. onshore and you’re guiding down now for Q1. So, the sense is you're losing a little bit of operating momentum outside of the U.S. So I was wondering if you could just comment on that and just the overall shift to a little bit of a lower growth rate in 2013, notwithstanding the changes in capital allocation.

G. Steven Farris

Management

To be real frank, holding 800,000 barrels a day for quarter, we were very proud of that frankly, because we’ve never hit that from where we were. In terms of going into 2013, the first quarter, we’re affected by Hurricane; I mean a cyclone in Australia. I will tell you though we put that downtime in our 3% to 5% growth projection. There is no doubt that we have some properties that are declining, but we’re going to more than make up for it in the Permian and the Anadarko Basin this year. And we’re pretty confident about the long-term value of our Canadian assets also. Arun Jayaram – Credit Suisse Securities LLC: Okay. And just I was wondering if you could comment. Has there been any change in the way you’re thinking about? I know guidance is relatively new to Apache thinking about the long-term. Are you all changing your approach, you may be trying to guide to like P90 type of case versus maybe P50 differently. So just trying to see if there has been any change in the way you’re thinking about guidance I guess?

G. Steven Farris

Management

We are new to this. I have to be real honest with you. One thing that we don’t want to do is, miss our guidance. We’re going to spend quite a bit of money intentionally in a few, remember what Rod said, $1.5 billion of that $2.2 billion is going to Australia. The biggest chunk of that is Julimar, Brunello and the Wheatstone LNG facility, which is now over 80% contracted. And those are tied to oil linked prices, so when that comes on, we’re going to see about over 25,000 barrels a day for the next 25 years.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Pearce Hammond with Simmons & Co. Pearce W. Hammond – Simmons & Co. International: Good afternoon.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Good afternoon. Pearce W. Hammond – Simmons & Co. International: Steve, I just wanted to get a little color. You mentioned about the possibility of maybe divesting around $2 billion worth of assets for that 3% to 5% production growth guidance for 2013. Is that guidance already includes the potential sale of those assets, if there’s production or would the guidance potentially need to be adjusted after the sale?

G. Steven Farris

Management

The guidance would be adjusted after the sale. Pearce W. Hammond – Simmons & Co. International: Thank you. And my follow-up would be on service costs, specifically in the Permian and then in your Central region. Just curious as you look at 2013 and compare it to 2012, how do you see service costs trending? Do you think that prices are bottoming and are there any areas of services right now whether they’re a little bit tightening in one of those regions?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Rod you…

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

The service costs in both areas are flat and declining and we see that, specifically, we see that in the Permian, they have been very large increases in the frac stimulation companies. as a result, that’s provided simply downward pressure on the pricing of that. We’ve seen a 30% drop in frac spread costs compared to 2012 as well as we might expect to see even more decline in our side from using more self-sourcing of same in chemicals in 2013, which will allow us to further reduce those stimulation costs. Same thing on rig rates. Spud rates are much more favorable than they were. We’ve seen about a 5% to 7% decline in rig rates. For the mechanical rigs, 2,000 horsepower rigs we used to build the vertical wells at Deadwood, that’s an example and we expect to see continued downward pressure on those as well.

Roger B. Plank

Analyst · Simmons & Co

Pearce, it’s Roger. Just one a little bit of comment on the sales. We’re going to identify exactly what it is, we’re going to sell, but not everything necessarily would have current production for example, the assets that we sold to Chevron, I guess last week, we collected $400 million and there is no production associated with that. Pearce W. Hammond – Simmons & Co. International: Great, thank you for the color, Roger.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from John Herrlin with Société Générale. John P. Herrlin – Société Générale Americas Securities, LLC: Regarding the Permian, you said in your ops report that you spud 22 horizontal wells with 463 frac stages. Are you going to be increasing the frac densities at all because it averages about 20 wells. I was just curious.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

It depends a lot on what's lower or unconventional target that we are after in terms of the optimal frac concentration and we have a lot of efforts underway right now. They are various areas specific to try to optimize the amount of frac stages. And large numbers, not necessarily the optimal number and we're trying to find out the certain areas. So we expect to see overall improvements in both the cost and efficiency of our frac treatment programs in both the Permian and Central as we go forward in 2013 based on a lot of the benchmarking we are doing to become a best-in-class operator in these areas, we're drilling horizontal completions. John P. Herrlin – Société Générale Americas Securities, LLC: Okay, thanks Rod. Next one from me is on the Central; are those lateral lengths listed really the lateral length of the horizontals or is that kind of a type of?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

My guess is that we'll have that.

G. Steven Farris

Management

I will go with the numbers, John. John P. Herrlin – Société Générale Americas Securities, LLC: Or you're going from 12,000 to 16,000 feet, 18,000 feet, Steve. Is that lateral?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

That's the full measured dip.

G. Steven Farris

Management

That's the vertical and horizontal. John P. Herrlin – Société Générale Americas Securities, LLC: Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from David Tameron with Wells Fargo. David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: Good afternoon everybody. A couple of things, the PSC contracts, you said you just – and then you said, I guess bid round, you got a lease and you're going to have a revised PSC contract. Can you talk about that and should we read into that is that's where the government is headed going forward?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Could you repeat that question? It was very broken up. David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: This now better.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Little bit. David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: Okay, sorry I’ve trouble here with the phone. But In Egypt, if you talk about winning in the recent round of bidding, you won a couple of leases and there's going to be a new PSC contract. So I'm just wondering if we should read anything into that. Is that the direction that we should expect the contracts to go in Egypt?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well, the one thing I would say is they have continual posting of leases in Egypt, concessions in Egypt that people bid on. The most significant thing about the latest bid round were they were very similar to all of the other concessions that we've got in the Western Desert. So, there weren't any term changes in terms of what they had asked for in the latest bid round. David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: Okay, so your expectation for this contract is that they're going to look just like the last year?

G. Steven Farris

Management

There's always a – the cost recovery goes from 35% to 40%, but in terms of directionally, it's pretty much the same as all our concessions across the Western Desert. David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: Okay. New Zealand, can you talk a little bit about what's happened there?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Did you say New Zealand? David R. Tameron – Wells Fargo Advisors LLC: New Zealand, yeah.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well, I think what we – in terms of the long-term potential, there is definitely a tremendous amount of hydrocarbon service. Being able to do that and the magnitude that it takes over the timeframe that it takes, we've decided that that wasn't in our best interest, and you're going to see that when we talk about our asset sales. We now have some long-term projects that have some significant durability and significant potential and so we're going to have to balance off our long-term and our short-term in terms of being able to grow both long-term – but also be able to grow short-term.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Bob Brackett with Sanford Bernstein. Bob A. Brackett – Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hi, good afternoon, I had a question. What do you expect to do with the proceeds from the divestments of $2 billion?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well, originally we're going to pay down debt, but when we get there we'll have to make a decision as to what we do with the proceeds but the first call on it is going to be pay down debt. Bob A. Brackett – Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: And then a question, I thought I heard you say you're going to start water flooding in the Granite Wash. What's the concept there? Is it true the horizontals that have been fraced?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

No, the reference to the water flooding was to the Canyon Wash which is in our Bivins Ranch field which is a vertical convention development (inaudible). Bob A. Brackett – Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Thanks.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Joe Magner with Macquarie. Joe Magner – Macquarie Research: Good afternoon. Just a few questions, on the divestitures, while some will not be productive anywhere to ballpark how much is associated, how much I guess current production is associated what is the?

G. Steven Farris

Management

I think when we get there we will announce what – we've got a number of different banks that we're looking at. Joe Magner – Macquarie Research: Okay. Then one of the comments you mentioned that 72% I believe of your oil is linked to Brent or Brent equivalents. Can you provide any perspective on how you see price differences playing out between Brent and WTI, Brent and LLS and then also Midland Cushing going forward?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well, I think Brent if the world price. And when you look at 5% of the well is traded at WTI prices and so what you have is, that you have a bottleneck in certain areas, certainly West Texas is one of them, there is an awful lot of people trying to solve that problem. I think Tom or Rod pointed out that we have an equity interest or a throughput interest in the pipeline that we're going to start, and there are going to be more and more of those. My personal opinion is that I think those numbers will come and it's not going to be in the next 18 months but over time they're going to – that spread is going to shallow. I mean I just think that's not attainable forever. Joe Magner – Macquarie Research: By spread you mean Brent TI spread or…?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Yes. Joe Magner – Macquarie Research: Okay. Are there any, other than pipelines in the Permian, I guess as you think about just routing crude from and where you're producing onshore to where it needs to be. Any other significant plans or infrastructure projects that could create bottlenecks or constraints on being able to achieve your plan for this year?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Not really, not to achieve that plan. We certainly and the Permian basin as you know, and I'm sure you know that there is a number of areas that are getting built or projected to be built but it's not going to affect our 2013 plan.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Doug Leggate with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Doug Leggate – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Thank you. Good afternoon everybody. I hope you can hear me okay. I've got a couple of questions if I may. Steve, clearly, this is a bit of a change from what you told us at the Analyst Day last year. Can you help us understand is this move away from the growth target in 2013, a move away from the long-term growth target as well. In other words, are you abandoning now the 6% to 12% target you laid out and just, so if you could help us understand what's changed?

G. Steven Farris

Management

No, in fact, it's not. If you look at our asset base, it really is based on what our capital allocation is this year. If you look at the – if the amount of production that we are developing, it should help us in terms of obtaining that – actually we are at 6% to 9% if you don't include gas. We see gas go up, we can drill more gas wells, but right now 6% to 9%, we are still looking at that from a long-term basis. Doug Leggate – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: I think you had kind of signaled that you tempered gas, so that would be the number, so I appreciate that. My follow-up is really on the asset sales. Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you haven't quite identified what the assets are, or have you? Is it a bottom-up process, or are you seeing $2 billion as a number and then trying to make that fit? In my [meeting] going to this is, how big ultimately does that disposal process get as clearly they're extremely asset-rich and you're obviously not getting a lot of credit on the share price, and I'll leave it at that? Thanks.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Doug, I didn't. Well, in terms of – certainly we have considered assets that we may sell. In terms of specifics and our pricing, I mean we've also scoped the order of magnitude of the pricing. But we're really not in a position at the present time to talk about which one of those asset bases that be. All of them will not include current production.

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

I'd like to go back to your question about, are we abandoning in the long-term. Really, just think about what Rod said in these long-term projects we're spending over $2 billion on this year. They're going to add 150,000 barrels a day, and then later 200,000 barrels a day. So, those are big needle moving projects where we've got to put capital over a number of years. We don't get near-term production growth, but when they come on, you see a real stair step in our growth. And so, when Steve was talking about LNG projects, for example, those are very big stair steps that will bring our average rate over the long-term back to the kind of range that we were talking about earlier. But in the short-term, those are dollars that aren't adding production in 2013. The rate of return is great, but when you bring them online especially those LNG projects they don't deplete. So they are very enticing.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Matthew Portillo with Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. Matthew Portillo – Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.: Good afternoon.

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Good afternoon. Matthew Portillo – Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.: Just two quick questions for me, with limited capital investments in Canada around your gas assets, could you give us a little bit of color on how we should think about volume decline, and then a similar question for the U.S.?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Yeah, the capital allocation I think represents $600 million in Canada, which will be directed. Now what we have done just for information, we now have a Kitimat upstream business and we have our base Canadian operations business and we have two different organizations just recently set up; one to do nothing, but the Horn River and Liard. In terms of the base business in terms of our – we are really directing that more towards liquids-rich and in terms of what’s the decline curve is I don’t know. I don’t have it. We should see a slight decline, but it’s not real significant. Matt Portillo – Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.: Okay, great. And then just a second question for me. In terms of the Permian and the Midland Basin, could you provide a little color on how your Cline results have performed to-date? How those look against your type curves, and then how we should think about current well costs? Thank you.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Rod, you might.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Yeah. In the Cline, we’ve really had some good progress on the Cline and we’ve managed to cut six days of the amount of time, it takes to do a Cline horizontal from the Deadwood area. When that translates to an average split rate is about $60,000 a day savings, which translates into about $360,000 wells, that’s very significant. And then generally speaking, we gave you some information at the Analyst Day last June that it cost us about $7.6 million and as a result of some of these efficiency improvements and overall cost reductions that I mentioned that we should be under $7 million in total well cost in that particular formation, and I think the Cline, the well results have been posted in the supplement. Matt Portillo – Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.: Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Charles Meade with Johnson Rice and Company LLC. Charles A. Meade – Johnson Rice & Co. LLC: Hello, everyone. If you don't mind, too much, I'm going to take one more step at the guidance question, because I think the other question maybe got us a little bit, we have a – you've laid out the 3% to 5% overall BOE guidance, but it's maybe not that – it's not meaningful. It's not apples-to-apples to replace – when you're replacing oil volumes with gas volumes or vice versa as you guys are. So, if you have it in your mind and can share it, do you have an idea of the four pieces of your product mix that North American liquids, North American gas, international liquids, international gas, what the individual growth rates on those four would be? Or maybe you might not have it, but I just thought it.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Everybody is scrambling for information here, give us a second. Charles A. Meade – Johnson Rice & Co. LLC: Well, you can come back to that and another thing, I greatly appreciate all the data in the operations supplement you have. Just two of those – just two things on that if I could ask; one, I saw you guys drilled another really good horizontal on the Central Basin platform in the Permian, and I think you're really the only operator who's been doing that. So, I'm curious if you're planning on doing a lot of much more event and then, the last kind of obscure question that comes from the operations release is, I noticed in the Gulf Coast region, you said you're drilling in Lamar County, Mississippi, and I'm wondering if that's the smack-over target or if you're ready to talk about that?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Rod?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Well, the answer to your first question, I believe you might be referring to our drilling program in our Three Bar Shallow Unit, which is the Wichita Albany play. I think we mentioned that at our last quarter's call. We've continued to drill. We have five wells drilled and producing there. It’s one of our best plays and take in terms of the estimated ultimate recovery for horizontal wells and we have about a couple of wells that are waiting on completion and we have additional 12 wells yet to drill in that program, a lot of which would be drilled in 2013. Your second question dealt with what are we doing in Lamar County, Mississippi? Charles Meade – Johnson Rice: That’s right.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

Well, we’re drilling an exploration test and that’s in progress. That’s all we want to say about it right now. Charles Meade – Johnson Rice: Got it, okay. Thank you very much, and if you have those other growth rates, I’m going to stay on the call and queue up whenever you guys are ready.

G. Steven Farris

Management

North American Oil is supposed to grow at 14% for 2013. That’s what we’re projecting.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Leo Mariani with RBC Capital. Leo Mariani – RBC Capital Markets: Hi, guys. You talked about some exploration plans in 2013. I think you guys said three deepwater Gulf wells and then six wells in Australia. Could you give us some more information about what type of targets those are and what some of the associated growth potential maybe on some of those?

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

In Australia, the wells are mostly in the Olympus-Bianchi, the general quadrant going south, just north of Exmouth Basin area. They’re targeting the typical Mungaroo Triassic reservoir objectives, which we have in other producing areas out there. We have successful exploration tests at Zola back two years ago and we’re following up on that. In the Gulf of Mexico deepwater, as I recall that those specific targets or those prospects I mentioned will probably be [Midland Basin]. Leo Mariani – RBC Capital Markets: Okay, thanks. And I guess, additionally another question on the asset sales. Traditionally Apache has been obviously an acquirer of a lot of assets over the years. Is there any sort of shift in philosophy that you guys are seeing here, now that you have announced these asset sales, somewhat I guess prior to specifically identifying it. I mean, you guys trying to maybe strengthen the balance sheet in response to maybe some capital expenditures coming up on the LNG side in the next couple of years? How are you guys kind of thinking about it, if there is any just philosophical change, just curious on that?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well, from a philosophical standpoint if you look at where we have come from over the last three years, and if you look at the assets that we’ve acquired, and it's not just here in the last week but over the last month or two, we’ve been looking at our asset base and saying, okay, now which one of these asset bases do we want to take forward into the future. And we have to make some tough choices – we can't be all things to all people. So we go to make some choices as to which one of these that we can actually exploit or could somebody else exploit them better. So we're still going to be a net buyer. If you think about $16 billion and $2 billion, but in terms of just transitioning our asset base that's what the effort's about.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Singer with Goldman Sachs. Brian A. Singer – Goldman Sachs: Thanks, good afternoon. Just picking up on the growth in the asset sales and the acquisitions together. It's interesting to know that the areas that you have that are growing rapidly, the Permian and the Midcontinent are where you have focused your acquisitions over the last couple of years. And then, so I guess in your interest in achieving your 6% to 9% guidance longer-term, there are various ways you could do, you could acquire more assets in growth areas, you could sell assets and producing areas that have little growth, or you could just wait it out as kind of Roger described, and wait till some of these long lead time projects come online. Is it fair to say, that it's more of the latter strategy there just kind of wait things out until the long lead projects come online that you've kind of decided on. And then, in that case, should 2014 be another year of relatively low growth?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Yeah. We haven't reported our 2014 plan. It really depends on how we allocate that capital, Brian, and also what our asset base looks like. We certainly want to further those long-term projects, but we also have to balance this. What I was suggesting is, we have to balance short-term growth with long-term growth. Brian A. Singer – Goldman Sachs: So I guess, would you consider acquiring any areas that have become more core to you or as for the rest, or are kind of acquisitions completely off the table here?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Well for the present time, we are going to drill wells. So that doesn't mean we won't pick up an acre or two around some place, but in terms of making major acquisitions in our existing core areas or new core areas, that's not something that's part of our strategy right now.

Rodney J. Eichler

Management

On a project side, we do have three or four projects, which will mature to first production in 2014. These are in Egypt and in Australia and that could add, approximately in the range of 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Brian A. Singer – Goldman Sachs: Great thanks. And then just to clarify on the asset sale decision, have you definitive call that you're going to sell the $2 billion of assets or are you considering asset sales up to $2 billion?

G. Steven Farris

Management

Obviously price has something to do with it, but we certainly are dedicated to selling $2 billion worth of assets.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Kevin Cashman with Assurant. Kevin Cashman – Assurant: Hi, and thanks for taking the question. Just kind of following up on the asset sales in the – you mentioned some of your refinancing last year with the two 2013 maturities coming up. I'm just wondering, you mentioned debt reduction would that be a plan to reduce those ultimately with the debt proceeds or payment?

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Yes, I mean that's a consideration. Once we get, depending on the timing of when we get these assets sold and what else is on our plate, that is definitely a consideration to pay down that debt. Kevin Cashman – Assurant: Have you guys had your annual meeting with the rating agencies for this point already?

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

No. Kevin Cashman – Assurant: When is that coming up?

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Shortly. Kevin Cashman – Assurant: Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Howe with Robert W. Baird. Michael Howe – Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: I guess, my point has been addressed but I'll jump back on the production outlook topic, commented through the question in another way. As you look at just your mix of natural gas oil liquids, do you see that shifting materially as we make our way through 2013, you've seen a nice...

G. Steven Farris

Management

You're going to see our oil production as a percentage continue to grow up. Michael Howe – Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: All right.

G. Steven Farris

Management

Because we are predominantly drilling oil wells or liquid rich gas wells. Michael Howe – Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Can you quantify any of the changes, directionally?

G. Steven Farris

Management

What we have said and I don't have the numbers in front of me, Brady is looking at them. What we say is we're going to grow our North American oil by 14%, so.

Operator

Operator

And your final question comes from Joe Magner with Macquarie. Joseph Magner – Macquarie Capital: Yeah, just one quick follow-up, I wondered if you had any update on some of the new exploration ventures that were detailed fall of last year in the Cook Inlet, Montana, Mississippi in particular.

G. Steven Farris

Management

We are almost down on our Alaska well. We were 11,400 feet; we're going to 11,800 feet. Then obviously we'll have to test it and run pipe and all that stuff. And in the Bakken, in Montana, and in the Mississippi Lime, we've drilled few wells bulk of those we're really concentrating our efforts right now on the United States, on the Permian and the Anadarko Basin. And then we just picked up a block as Rod pointed out, we picked up a block in Suriname which is a very good block and we're getting ready to shoot 3D seismic on it.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to the hosts for any closing remarks.

F. Brady Parish

Operator

Thank you very much for attending our conference today. We appreciate it, and if you have any additional questions, obviously, reach out to the IR team and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.