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Coterra Energy Inc. (CTRA)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, May 5, 2016

$35.69

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Cimarex Energy First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the conference over to Karen Acierno, Director of Investor Relations. Ms. Acierno, please go ahead.

Karen Acierno - Director of Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Rocco. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call this morning. So, yesterday afternoon, an updated presentation was posted to our website. We will be referring to this presentation during our call today. And as a remainder our discussion will contain forward-looking statements. A number of actions could cause actual results to differ materially from what we discuss today. You should read our disclosures on forward-looking statements in our latest 10-K and other filings and news releases for the risk factors associated with our business. So today's prepared remarks will begin with an overview from our CEO, Tom Jorden, followed by an update on our drilling activities and results from John Lambuth, our VP of Exploration. And then Joe Albi, our COO, will update you on our operations, including production and well costs. Our CFO Mark Burford is also present to help answer any questions. And as Rocco said, we want to try and keep everybody to one question and one follow-up, so that we can get everybody in the question queue and you can feel free to jump back in if you have another question. So with that, I'll turn the call over to Tom. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Karen. And thanks to everyone who's participating in today's conference call. We sincerely appreciate your interest and look forward to your questions during the question-and-answer portion of the call. On the call today, John will walk us through our recent results and describe our progress on some of the delineation projects that we have underway. Joe will follow John with an operational overview including some of the significant steps we have taken to improve field efficiencies. As we've described in the past calls, owning to the timing of…

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Thanks, Tom. I'll start with a quick recap of our drilling activity in the quarter, before getting into some of the specifics of our latest results, and more color on our 2016 plans. Cimarex invested $158 million on the exploration and development during the first quarter, about 55% was invested in the Permian region, with the rest going towards activities in Mid-Continent region. Companywide, we've brought 22 gross, five net wells on production during the quarter. Despite the small number of wells completed during the quarter, Cimarex had an average of 10 operated rigs running during the quarter. These rigs were busy finishing the drilling of infill wells, and the Woodford shale, as well as drilling spacing pilots in both the Delaware Basin, and the Mid-Continent. That activity is winding down, and a majority of our contracted drilling rigs will be rolling off by July. By August, we plan to be down to three operated rigs. In the Delaware Basin, you may recall that we spud a down spacing pilot in the upper Wolfcamp in Culberson County in the fourth quarter of 2015. We are finished with the drilling portion of these wells, and completions are scheduled to begin in mid May. First production is now expected by midyear. This six well, 7,500-foot lateral pilot will test two different spacing designs. One at eight wells per section, while the other will test six wells per section, both will be drilled in a staggered pattern. Cimarex continues to push the envelope on well completions. On page 12 of our presentation, we've shown you the uplift, using a 40% larger completion on these Upper Wolfcamp wells, which equates to 1,640 pounds of sand per foot. We are about to take that a step further on using even larger design to complete this…

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. And our first question comes from Pearce Hammond of Simmons/Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. Pearce Hammond - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Good morning, and great quarter, guys. My first question is on slide 11, on the Culberson County Wolfcamp 10,000 foot laterals, the before tax IRR changed – moved higher significantly since your last update on this particular slide. I was just curious what was driving that significant change?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. This is John. There are several factors in there, the biggest driver is just an improvement in our type curve or expectation going forward. And that's really related to the – continually to increase our frac design on these wells. We have three wells now with this current design which I talked about earlier at the 1,640 pounds per foot and those wells have been long enough now that, what's really impressing us is quite frankly lack of decline. These wells come on and they tend to have a very long flat period to them. And we have enough time with those now that we've gained confidence in that type curve and that's led to a major change in our expectation for these wells going forward. I should also point out, though, as Joe mentioned, we actually have also in addition to that, seen some cost reduction in those wells. So, with all that, factored together, that's led to the improvement you're seeing there. Pearce Hammond - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Excellent. Thank you for that color. And then my follow up and this grows out of slide number 20 in your presentation on the Meramec. But looks like you had some do well results there on the 5,000 foot lateral and then also the 10,000 foot lateral, looks like they were slightly weaker than some prior ones. Now, they may have had a bit of a higher oil cut. Just want to get some color on those recent well results in the Meramec.

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

This is John, again. Well, first thing I would say is, this is still an emerging play and for us, we're still out there doing both a combination of holding acreage, delineating acreage and testing frac design. And so, it's fair to say that some of the wells come in much better than expected and some come in less. We're still learning a lot in regards to these wells, and there's still a lot that we think we can change or improve upon to make these wells even better. So, yeah, there is some variability there, especially, I would point out yes, with our 10,000 foot lateral we just announced. It's also, well, I want to point out that we anticipated having a much higher yield than our previous two 10,000 foot laterals. And so, in that case, we did not flow it back as aggressively from a choke management standpoint. We were interested and with this one, particularly in seeing with choke management, how we could manage that yield. So for that well in particular I don't know that the 30-day rate is as important to us as say the 90 or 180 day rate in terms of the rate we're flowing that well back. Pearce Hammond - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Great. That's very helpful. Thanks again and good quarter.

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Drew Venker of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Drew E. Venker - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning, everyone. Great results. I was hoping you could speak to whether you can apply the same techniques you've used in the Wolfcamp A recently to the Wolfcamp D? And I know you said you're testing that with at least one well already, but does it have broader applications?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. This is John. We are very encouraged by what we're seeing coming out of the Upper Wolfcamp D wells, with this continuation of improving to frac design and that's why we indeed went to our most current 10,000 foot lateral in the Lower Wolfcamp, the Flying Ebony to apply that design to it. It's just now an flow back, we all have very high expectations for that well. But we also recognized that not any one well makes a trend this year. But yes going forward, we're very encouraged and let me be also clear, we're not sure that we've really even reached even close to the end number in terms of these frac uplifts, that's why for that Upper Wolfcamp spacing pilot, even though we don't have a well under our belt, we're very comfortable stepping up in the total amount of sand that we're going to pump in those wells because the way we model it with a modest increase in IP and EUR it's a very economic thing to do. So, we're very pleased with the progress we're seeing here, but we still think there's a lot more to gain. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Drew, this is Tom, I want to follow-up on that. We're very excited by the Wolfcamp A and certainly the results and the uplift we've reported is real and it's grounded in actual results. We probably see the Wolfcamp A as being a better target overall than the Wolfcamp B but the Wolfcamp B is also outstanding, I mean so it's a question of great and outstanding. But one other things I want to follow-up on is, one other things that make Cimarex strong is our presence in multiple plays and in particular with our footprint…

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah, this is John, it's not near as well delineated as it is for the D, that's a very fair statement. The majority of our A drilling to-date has been – has mainly occurred in Culberson down in the southeast part, that's where we really recognize it and from the way we map it, but I would also tell you that we are now stepping out into other areas of Culberson, and I'm hoping in future earnings release to talk more about those efforts. But, so far, it's been relegated more to a much smaller area in the southeast than the D, but that's just, as you mentioned early on, we were drilling Ds and a way to hold our acreage and hold all our rights with the Wolfcamp As we've been a little bit more selective, but now with these encouraging results we're seeing, we are quickly stepping out in the other areas of our acreage to get a sense of just how good this could be across the whole position. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Drew, there is tremendous future opportunity to test new zones and the same zone elsewhere in our acreage, not only within Culberson and Eddy County. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and it's definitely pointing us to get more and more excited about that asset.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Will Derrick of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead.

Will C. Derrick - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead

Good morning, guys. Nice update. I guess first question looking over in the Meramec and Cana Woodford, on the completion time and moving it up to October, what's your expectation on when those wells are all going to come online? Joseph R. Albi - Chief Operating Officer, Director & EVP: This is Joe. We're going to start to see the beginnings of that production late Q4 and into early Q1. We flow the wells back, they clean up and just the timing of the complete row of activity is such that it will end up pretty close to what happened this year with row four, carrying into not only Q4 but into Q1 of this year. I think we'll see the same thing next.

Will C. Derrick - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead

Okay, thanks. And then also up there, in terms of the completion design that you all are looking at, how does that differ from what you've seen in the past? Are you using the higher intensity completions you've done recently? What are your thoughts there?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. This is John. I think you're referring to our Woodford development wells, correct?

Will C. Derrick - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead

Yes, sir. Yeah.

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. We – on our previous row, row four, we did quite a bit of experimentation with the frac design there. And in fact, in one case, one section in particular we pumped upwards of 3,200 pounds per foot. That section and those wells are outstanding. I mean, we are just really impressed with the results coming off of that section. And so going forward into this new row development, our base case, and I think Joe alluded to that why we're anticipating the additional cost is to go up to that size of a frac job in the Woodford Shale at 3,200 pounds per foot, whereas before, our standard was more around 1,800 pounds per foot. Again there is cost that are associate with it, but based on the performance we're seeing in on those wells, it's well worth the additional cost to do that. So, that's our go forward plan there for that next row development.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Arun Jayaram of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Arun Jayaram - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Hey, good morning. Tom, I was wondering if you could perhaps give us some more details on the stacked/staggered pilot that you're doing in the Meramec? In particular, I just wanted to see if you could comment, maybe, on where your completions have been landing today? And just your general thoughts around this pilot coming up? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I'll answer your question, then I'll turn it over to John, he will have some additions. Landing zone is a real point of experimentation in the Meramec. In the early wells for Cimarex and for many of our competitors, it was, quite frankly, a monkey see, monkey do approach. The Meramec wasn't the most obvious reservoir and so, early wells were kind of targeted based on mimicking what offset wells had done. And as we've continued to delineate the play, Cimarex and the industry has tested different landing zones. We're testing two different landing zones in that Meramec stacked/staggered pilot and we continue to experiment with landing zones throughout the play. We're seeing landing zone to be a overprint on production that's greater than we initially anticipated. There are some areas of the play that have underperformed, that we're going back in now and testing new landing zones, new completion techniques and we're quite encouraged by the potential there. But it's a real open part of experimentation as to where we land these laterals. John, do you want to add to that?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

The only thing I would add is that for that particular spacing pilot, we went the extra step where we went ahead and drilled, what we would call a pilot hole to get additional log information, to really refine where to put those laterals in the Meramec. And I must tell you, I feel pretty good about how we've done this for this particular stacked/staggered pilot in regards to the data we've received from that pilot, which really helped us pinpoint exactly where we're going to put these laterals. Whereas before, Tom's absolutely be right, we would have looked just say, say two sections over and to see what the company XYZ does as far as where they landed it. I think we're recognizing that for the Meramec, I mean, every section might have just a slight different tweak to where you want to put that lateral to achieve maximum performance. And that's some of the lessons we're learning as we go forward. So, I'm very excited about the stacked/staggered pilot and I'm looking forward to when we finally get around to completing it. But as I mentioned, we do have a strong interest in the other operated pilot that is just flowing back now. And there was a lot of science associated with that pilot and we're very anxious to kind of see the flow back, review the science data. And that's why we're not in any rush to go out and frac our current stacked/staggered till we see some of those results and see how we might then tailor our fracture design for our pilot.

Arun Jayaram - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Great. And just my follow-up, you drilled and completed some wells on the updip portion of your acreage and the downdip. Any takeaways or conclusions around well performance on the updip or downdip? Are they similar?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

This is John. I think you're referring to Meramec wells or Mississippi wells?

Arun Jayaram - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Pardon me, it's slide 22?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. Well, I guess, I need to just adopt the stack vernacular, I guess.

Arun Jayaram - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Sorry.

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah, we have. Again, delineation wells, sometimes the results were not as we were hoping, other times they're outstanding. So, it's kind of what you expect early on in a play like this where every now and then, you hit a homerun and then – now and then, you hit one that's not so good. And then really, it's the ones that don't quite meet our expectations that we really, really spend a lot time on saying, okay, what could we have done differently, where could we have landed differently, how do we make it better. And so, yeah, I'd still think there is a lot of improvements still to come in this play based on what I've seen so far. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Arun, Cimarex, I think speaks a little differently than some other companies about the Meramec. I would say, first and foremost, we're very excited about the Meramec. We have a program that is in our estimation top tier. We study our wells. We study our competitors' wells, and we think our results are in that upper class, and we have a lot of data to back that statement up. That said, we do see a fair amount of reservoir variability through the play. We don't view the Meramec as a blanket play. We see a fair amount of variability and that's why John talked about the importance of having pilot holes when we target our laterals. The landing zones can change in short order. The yield can change in short order and the well-performance can change. Now, we're fairly confident based on the work we're doing that all if not most of those are solvable. Solvable with completion techniques, solvable with smart application of your landing zone, but it's an evolving story. And as we always have done, we're going to talk about results and our results stand on their own. They're quite good.

Operator

Operator

Our next question come from Dan Guffey of Stifel. Please go ahead. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Good morning, everyone. Focusing on Reeves County, can you update us with the cumulative production and days online for the Big Timber? And then whether or not you think the strong result is repeatable? And then I guess a few comments how the Upper Wolfcamp in this area stacks up to other Delaware Basin assets that are in your portfolio?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah. This is John. I don't have the Big Timber production in front of me right now; we can probably give that information back to you. What I do know is based on that well result as well as some other competitor wells in the area, we feel really, really good about that acreage over there from a 10,000 foot lateral standpoint. So good, as I mentioned in my comments, that we are moving forward with the development plans that we're doing in Reeves County with the 10,000 foot stacked/staggered development that we'll initiate – in fact that's started drilling on right now. It's a very good area for the Upper Wolfcamp and I think our Anaconda pilots really demonstrated to us that it's not just a good area, it's thick enough to support multiple levels of wells in that shale. So going forward, we're very, very excited about that area and the results we'll get, especially from this development that we're currently drilling right now. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: I guess, as it competes for capital in other areas in your Delaware Basin program, I guess, assuming commodity price, assuming the strip currently isn't competitive with other assets in your portfolio, do you have any constraints such as infrastructure that may limit future development as you head into 2017?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Sure. I'll take the stab at that. It competes very well with the other things we have in our portfolio. The thing that's driving a lot of our capital this year, as we've mentioned. is acreage holing. And in particular in Reeves, we have a lot of acreage there that's still on a primary term that we definitely want to hold. So, there is quite a bit of capital going that way. It is fair to say that once we get to the point, where we've excess capital beyond holding acreage, then we have to look – and any time we make those decisions, then it's factors such as, yes, always rate of return and takeaway issues and water sourcing as Joe mentioned, and other factors that lead to where we deploy that capital. But in terms of optional capital spending Reeves, holds its own pretty well compared to Culberson right now. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Dan one of the things that drives that, isn't just the rocks, but it's also our ability to drill that longer lateral. Daniel Guffey - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: All right. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And so one of the things that makes Culberson such a beautiful asset for us, not only is it multiple zone, some of which we haven't even tested yet, but we can drill long laterals at will, there is no constraint there over that entire acreage block. That's generally true in Reeves, but there are areas where that's not true and what Cimarex is doing and a lot of operators are focused on, I think there's wide spread recognition of the economic uplift of these longer wells. And so there are some trades going on to let us block up that area and be in a better place to drill long laterals. But as far as the rock goes, it's highly competitive with other things we've got.

Operator

Operator

And our next question come from Jason Smith of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Jason.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

So to kick that prior question on capital allocation maybe a step further, and just thinking about the portfolio as a whole. Now that you've drilled more wells in the Meramec and are getting more confident in your Upper Wolfcamp wells – I'm not going to ask you, Tom, when you're going to go back to work. But just a question around where that first incremental dollar goes, when you do go back to work? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Back to work, Jason. You see golf pants on us?

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

I should have worded that one a little better. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, the challenge is it's a really evolving story. And if we had the snapshot of today, and we said, you know what, based on what we know today we have to make long-term capital allocation decisions. There'll probably be a bias for a lot of our Delaware program not only the Bone Spring but the Avalon looks quite good and these long wells in the Wolfcamp, those are all cream of the crop. But we are still seeing not only the Meramec but I'd still throw the Woodford in the mix, that with our – the experiments we're doing with our completion innovations, we're seeing a really improving story there. And so, in the near-term, we're going to continue to experiment. I mean, we want to have an active program in both basins because what we learn is setting the stage for a long-term capital allocation. I mean, you've heard us talk about in the Woodford, we have some projects that would be stacked Meramec and Woodford that once we kick them off, they are hundreds of 10,000 foot long wells. I mean, it's a real opportunity for Cimarex. So we're not just going to snapshot today its evolving story.

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Yeah, this is John I'll just follow-up. Especially in today's market, to what Tom said, completion costs are really surprisingly enough to me they've gotten a little softer on the service cost side. But as an example to just take our total company frac stats now is the time to try this experimentation. Our early 2016 average frac statistics compared to our 2015 averages such that we're drilling – we're completing 11% longer laterals, pumping 23% more fluid, 30% more sand and when you look at it all-in, cost reduction per well including water sourcing, we're seeing a reduction of 5% and our completion cost even with those increases. So now is the time to try those experiments.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Got it. Thanks. And just one quick one on the Avalon. A few of your peers have talked about it this quarter. I think that it's held by production for you guys. Any change in your thoughts around allocating some capital there or doing any further tests in that zone?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Well, this is John. Actually I think about two days ago, I was in Midland and reviewed our latest Avalon well with our latest generation of frac design and it's fantastic, it's a great well. And the challenge again as you mentioned is all held by production. And so right now, we would must rather spend that capital to hold the rest of our acreage position throughout the Wolfcamp. But, I got to tell you, I got a team down there, this is just itching to go on a two-mile lateral and the Avalon and the numbers look great. But it's just a matter of capital allocation right now, where we think obviously our best interest is to go out there and deploy that capital and hold our acreage for this year. But they're raring to go and at some point, especially since we've already got a number of the spacing pilots done where we're already at eight wells per section of each interval within the Avalon, there are several benches. So it looked really good, it's just a question of when we get to a point where I guess as someone said, we get back to work and start drilling some more wells out there.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jeanine Wai of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Jeanine Wai - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Jeanine.

Jeanine Wai - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead

So on the fourth-quarter call, you all provided us with your estimated year end 2016 cash balance of I think it was $400 million. And with the $50 million CapEx increase that you announced last night, what's your new estimated cash balance at year end 2016? And realizing that the strip has moved up in the meantime? G. Mark Burford - Chief Financial Officer & Vice President: Yeah. Jeanine. Hi, good morning this is Mark here. Yeah using a early May 2 strip price with that incremental capital in our new volume forecast, we're still expecting actually, it's gone up a bit from $400 million to maybe $450 million, the way it looks right now, Jeanine. So, it's something we're closely watching and seeing how that moves through the year. But even with the increased capital you expect that cash balance to be even a bit higher than we had previously forecasted. Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And Jeanine, I want to give just a little bit of detail in that CapEx increase. On our fourth quarter call, we were at a range of $600 million to $650 million and we said the upper-end of that $650 million would be if those completions rolled into 2016. So, those completions have rolled into 2016. So if we wanted to benchmark us against the fourth quarter, we'd be at that $650 million number we talked about. Now we gave a range of guidance of $650 million to $700 million. So, really we kind of deal with midpoint, midpoint is $675 million. So really it's a $25 million increase over where we were in our fourth quarter call given that those completions are accelerated. So although, it looks like $50 million, I think that's probably just an absolute upper-end of that.

Jeanine Wai - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead

Okay, great, that's really helpful. And my follow-up, so it sounds like you have more cash – slightly more cash than you previously thought, and you're finding more ways to spend your cash flow. So what are the next opportunities you have to spend more CapEx on, if you spend any more at all? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I'll take that, this is Tom. We've got lots to do and certainly we have a lot of projects that are begging for capital in the Delaware Basin and these are as John said, the list is long and long and long. And then this Meramec delineation probably is one that we'd easily be able to throw a little capital at. And then we're also, we've talked in the past about we're doing some exploration. I mean, this is the time when we are kind of keying on what our organization does best and our value proposition has always been centered around doing good geoscience, finding ideas that give us competitive advantage and getting acreage positions ahead of the crowd. And so we're putting a lot of emphasis on that as well and there will be some opportunities to come out of that. So depending on what the landscape looks like over the next six months, I think there is a reasonable chance that we may do a little more. We're going to need to see the fundamental shore up. We're going to need to have confidence that this price file is affordable, but we are ready to roll with cash and balance sheet to do it.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Michael Hall with Heikkinen Energy. Please go ahead.

Michael Anthony Hall - Heikkinen Energy Advisors LLC

Analyst · Heikkinen Energy. Please go ahead

Thanks. Maybe follow up a little on that, while we're on the topic. Just bigger picture, as I think about capital allocation in this cycle, what's your perspective on out-spending cash flow? You mentioned earlier in the remarks that you think within cash flow on the strip, you can get back to growth in the years ahead. I appreciate that certainly, but will end the year with a substantial amount of cash on hand, already a very differentiated balance sheet. And I'm just thinking through this – where we are in the cycle. You've got productivity trending up and to the right. Costs are at cyclical lows. How do you think about out-spending cash flow, as we move further forward in 2017? Given the current environment, is that something you'd be more likely to do than at other points in the cycle? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Michael, I'll take that one. This is Tom. We are very willing to outspend cash flow, and the way I think about it is very simple, it's about creating value. If we can borrow money at low interest rate and invest it in the high interest rate, I think as long as we're confident in those returns that's a value creating proposition for our shareholder. And with our top-tier assets, I think our bias as a management team is to bring that value forward for our shareholders. Now that said, when you drill a well, those returns are predicated on a discounted cash flow that makes some significant assumptions about future commodity pricing. And the quality of that assumption is key. If we get to a point to where we gain confidence about that future commodity pricing, if we think that the markets have kind of worked themselves…

Michael Anthony Hall - Heikkinen Energy Advisors LLC

Analyst · Heikkinen Energy. Please go ahead

I appreciate that color. That's very helpful. I guess my follow-up, stepping way back again, high level. If you just look at the Meramec today, and this might be a little tricky to answer, but just given all the moving pieces in the world. But if you look at the Meramec today, and you try to compare that to the year of learning curve for the Wolfcamp and the Del Basin. So looking back in time, in the Delaware Basin and on Wolfcamp, what year would you think we're in if we were to try and characterize the Meramec today? Does that makes sense?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

Well, this is John. And I guess I'll take a stab at it. It's interesting you asked that. I've been actually kind of going down memory lane, and just recently talked with our lead generator for Culberson. And I'd forgotten that Culberson started in 2006 for us. So, we're in year 10 in Culberson and I'm going to tell you right now, we still don't know everything about Wolfcamp and Culberson; obvious by our well results and what we continue to do. Whereas we're in year two of Meramec and I just think we've scratched the surface. There's just so much that we are learning with each well, both us and our competitors and in some way, yes, it is happening at a far more accelerated paced than Culberson ever did because we were the only game in town when we were doing Culberson. Here, as you well are aware, we have at least five other operators drilling all around us, and we're all looking at each other kind of figure out what works best, where should I go, where do I land. And so clearly, it's at a much more accelerated pace, but sometimes I wonder maybe too fast, honestly, in that you never really get a chance to really catch your breath and look at the data and look at the results – not just that 30-day rate as I mentioned – but what is the well doing 180 days later. And is it surprising you and so – there are sometimes I wish we went to little bit slower to be honest in Meramec – but in some ways we're being forced to just with the competition. So, I don't know if that answers your question, but that's just my perspective on what's going on in the Meramec right now. Joseph R. Albi - Chief Operating Officer, Director & EVP: We saw the same – this is Joe. We saw the same thing in Cana. We kicked off that program in 2007 and it's 2014 where a frac design revolutionizes the play. So, boy, that's a tough question. Where is the end-game on how well these wells can produce, is the real question there.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Paul Grigel of Macquarie. Please go ahead. Paul Grigel - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Good morning, and actually a good segue into the question I had here, focusing in on the Meramec. Going back to the commentary on the landing zone and some of the variability, how do you address those challenges in the variability, as you apply the downspacing tests, going forward, both the results from yours and Devon's, across the broader acreage position?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

This is John. That's a great question. It's something that we talk about all the time. Part of it is sometimes in some of these sections, we're blessed to have, quite frankly, quite a bit of vertical control within the section to give us an idea of what variability we should expect. In other cases, quite frankly we've reached the point, we said we just got to go ahead and drill and create that information by drilling a pilot hole. I would also tell you in some ways we're putting even more renewed emphasis on our 3D seismic coverage because at least with 3D seismic, you are sampling the geology, so to speak, in a much finer scale. So we're really trying to incorporate that as a tool to help us along with the subsurface control and the horizontal wells that have been drilled to date to build a more comprehensive model of what's going on and what we should expect going forward. I would just tell you that, again, right now, we have expectations for every Meramec well we drill, and each one in some way typically surprises us fortunately to the positive, but also sometimes to the negative. So as we go forward, we'll continue to look for ways to get more comfortable with that variability and be able to adjust to it appropriately. Paul Grigel - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Well, thanks. And then maybe a follow-up here, for Tom. Could you just talk about the current M&A outlook and what you're seeing in both the Permian as well as in the Mid-Con? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we see opportunities and we're always in the hunt as we've talked in past calls. There's not a point in time, where we're…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from John Nelson of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. John Nelson - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. We've already belabored the re-acceleration point. But if I could just ask, would it be reasonable to assume the planned drop of rigs around midyear is probably a good catalyst for you to reevaluate if that commodity outlook has stabilized, rather than risk losing efficiency gains – efficiencies kind of with those rigs? Thomas E. Jorden - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, that's reasonable. Hey, we're not happy about going down to four, then three rigs, but we're going to do what we need to do to preserve that balance sheet and make sure that we're well positioned for the future. We may be getting the wrong feedback. We've always kept our debt low and our conclusion from what we've seen over the last 24 months is that was a prudent course of action because we have a lot of flexibility today in an arena where many of our competitors do not. So we're going to be careful, but nobody is unhappier with us going down to three rigs than we are, but it's what we have to do and we are going to stay disciplined. Joseph R. Albi - Chief Operating Officer, Director & EVP: And this is Joe. I'll follow-up, from a rig standpoint, when we added rigs earlier, a couple of months back, we got good iron, good crews. And I don't – in fact one of the rigs we got back drilled a record well. So I think the quality of the rigs and the people right now when – if and when we do pick them up, I feel very confident we will get a good efficient optimized service provided to us. John Nelson - Goldman Sachs & Co.: That's helpful. And then just for my follow-up, I appreciate the help on providing the exit rate in your commentary. Should we expect oil mix to be constant, as well, with the 4Q 2015 level? Or should that be down?

John Lambuth - Vice President-Exploration

Management

For the year, we may end up being slightly more on the gas side at the end of the year. You want to add to that Mark? G. Mark Burford - Chief Financial Officer & Vice President: Yeah, no, it's pretty consistent, John. We're at 28% oil in the first quarter and mid-year within that 0.5% of that is what we see for the fourth quarter. So it's pretty consistent.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Ms. Acierno for any final remarks.

Karen Acierno - Director of Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Rocco. So, before we signoff, I have received some information on the Big Timber well, so I can give you the Q production, Dan, if you're still on. So, it's produced for 320 days. It's produced 250,000 barrels of oil, and about a 1.1 Bcf of wet gas. So, with that, we'll say good bye, and have a nice day. And thanks for joining us.

Operator

Operator

And thank you, ma'am. So this conference has now concluded, and we thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.