Quentin Hicks
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Jim. Production for the fourth quarter averaged 17,196 barrels of oil equivalent per day, comprised of 69% oil. Our overall production on a per BOE basis was below our guidance range, but oil production was within our guidance range. Our lower gas production was primarily related to the gas takeaway constraints we saw at Monument Draw, where we've been relying on interruptible third party sour gas sales outlets. Fortunately, most of these issues should be in our rear-view mirror as our Halcon owned sour gas treatment plant will be operational in a few weeks. I'll let Jon discuss the progress on this plant as part of his comments later on. Our realized fourth quarter oil differential was 83% of NYMEX, which was improved from the 79% differential we saw in the third quarter. This was largely driven by stronger Midland pricing during the quarter. Our fourth quarter natural gas differential came in at 29% of NYMEX, which was lower than previous quarters, because of weak Waha pricing in the quarter. Our NGL differential for the fourth quarter was 34%. We expect our oil - our realized oil differentials to improve in 2019, given the combination of stronger Midland pricing in addition to our selling majority of our oil in the Gulf Coast beginning later this year. Our adjusted operating expenses, including LOE, workover and gathering transportation and other were elevated in the fourth quarter for a variety of reasons. First, we incurred higher than anticipated water disposal costs in West Quito Draw, as our first two Wolfcamp wells there had higher water cut than anticipated and we had to dispose most of this water using third party trucking. We expect water disposal costs in West Quito Draw to be lower going forward, as we are now fully tied into the water bridge disposal system and are no longer reliant on third-party trucking. We also had a quite a bit more work hours in Hackberry than expected during the quarter and as compared to previous quarters. We expect our workover expense to moderate going forward in Hackberry Draw. Most of our outer wells have now been put on jet pump and are no longer on ESPs. G&A expense as adjusted totaled $8 million for the fourth quarter versus $9.1 million in the third quarter. This reduction was a result of continued focus on cutting corporate overhead costs and we expect this downward trend to continue into 2019. Similar to the third quarter, we had a significant amount of non-recurring expense in the fourth quarter, primarily related to the well level chemical treating of H2S and Monument Draw. As I mentioned earlier, we have our plant coming on, in line here in the next few weeks and we expect these costs to materially improve for the rest of the year, somewhere around $2.25 in MCF, is what we expect. With respect to D&C Capital, we incurred about $94 million during the fourth quarter, which was in line with expectations. We spend another $41 million in the fourth quarter on infrastructure seismic and other, with most of this spend related to the continued build out of our sour gas handling and treatment facilities in Monument Draw. Now looking forward, our 2019 production guidance of 19,000 Boe to 22,000 Boe a day is intentionally wide and somewhat conservative. This is driven by two things. First, even though we expect our H2S treating system to work well out of the gate, it is difficult for us to predict the H2S levels, we will see on future wells on Monument Draw. It's been variable in the past. Therefore, we wanted to bake in a level of conservatism. Furthermore, we are still in the early development of our West Quito Draw asset, and we want to provide a level of cushion to account for the early stage nature of our development there. Our D&C CapEx guidance of $190 million to $210 million is predicated on a two rig plan for 2019, with the split of drilling time between Monument Draw and West Quito Draw. Our infrastructure and other capital spend will be front end loaded as we complete our build out of the sour gas infrastructure and treating facilities in Monument Draw on the first quarter of 2019. Our operating cost guidance includes the impact of higher water disposal costs associated with our recent deal with Water Bridge, and that amount equates to about $2 per Boe, higher LOE costs than we've seen historically. I want to conclude by saying, although we are not happy about our results for the fourth quarter, we're excited about the future. Once our H2S treating plant is in place, in the next few weeks, we will put five new wells online in Monument Draw, which is our best area. We have - we'll have five - we also have five new wells flowing back in West Quito, right now. When coupled with the other five wells in Monument Draw, we expect the second quarter to be a strong quarter for us. Further, we have seen real improvements in recent cost trends in the field, especially related to drilling and completion costs, which we expect to continue for the rest of the year. Jon will elaborate on that further in a moment. We look forward the ways to continue to improve our business in an effort to maximize value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Jon.