Earnings Labs

Murphy Oil Corporation (MUR)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 30, 2015

$41.60

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Murphy Oil Corporation Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Call. This call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Kelly Whitley, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Kelly L. Whitley - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today. With me are Roger Jenkins, President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Eckart, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please refer to the informational slides we have placed on the Investor Relations section of our website as you follow along with our webcast today. Today's call will follow our usual format. John will begin by providing a view of third quarter 2015 financial results and then Roger will follow with an operational update, after which questions will be taken. Please keep in mind that some of the comments made during this call will be considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurances can be given that these events will occur or that the projections will be attained. A variety of factors exist that may cause actual results to differ. For further discussions of risk factors, see Murphy's 2014 Annual Report on Form K (sic) [Form 10-K] (1:23) on file with the SEC. Murphy takes no duty to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to John for his comments. John W. Eckart - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Kelly, and good afternoon to everyone. Murphy Oil's consolidated results in the third quarter of 2015 were a loss of $1.6 billion, which equates to $9.26 per diluted share, that's compared to a profit…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Leo Mariani with RBC Capital Markets. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Leo.

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Hey, guys (15:17). How are you doing here? Just a question for you. Philosophically I know, earlier in the year, you guys talked about moving away from some of the exploration activity. I guess you guys announcing that you're farming in to a block in Vietnam here is sort of a new area. I guess, is this not really seen as sort of exploration? It sounds like there's some existing discoveries, or do you guys just see this as lower risk exploration? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: I think we see it as a little bit of both, Leo. We have had a pause in our exploration. When I say that, it's primarily related to the big $100 million-plus big wells in the Gulf of Mexico; they're very expensive at very high day rates. But we're not opposed to entry into lower risk opportunities. It was clear to us that the block did have prior discovery zone. I mean, we entered into the block and participated in delineation of all the (16:08) discoveries. That delineation is going very, very well. We're very excited about it. We're talking about, when we have – you have two types of wells in the world; the big Gulf of Mexico, West Africa new entry type wells, and you have lower risk opportunities in a place like Vietnam, where you can drill a well for $15 million and have a 50 million barrel to 100 million barrel type prospect. So on an F basis of an F&D perspective, that's a very positive thing. And this is about our strategy. This is about our company. We do work internationally. We are a big major player in Malaysia. We have a strong relationship and a very strong reputation in Southeast Asia. Our expertise in shallow water development there, and across other acreage in Vietnam is the reason we were able to get into this block. And it's very favorable, but I do not consider it to be (17:01) place somewhere, it's very similar geology, what we're used to, very similar areas of operation, very similar cost, very similar well design, and a place where we work nearby, and something we're focused on in that area. But I consider it not a new big wild entry into far off place yet (17:18).

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Can you give us a little more color about this exploration well you're drilling in Malaysia towards the end of the year? And you also mentioned another well in Brunei, which I guess is non-op, can you give us a little more color around those? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, we have commitment wells in our business. We do not have commitments usually in the Gulf, as you would anticipate. So we've had these in. These are again, lower cost wells. The well in Block H has moved up in our schedule from what we thought prior. It's a big world out there on rig contracts, and this is an opportunity for us to be subsidized and drill a very low-cost well in that part of the world. So, if you're in the game for a long time, you're on both sides of the rig equation. I've been in – at that business a long time and we have an opportunity to drill the well cheaper due to that, and it's a very nice well to drill. It's probably a 60 million barrel mean type project near the Conoco-operated Kebabangan area of Block H. It would be different from the Block H wells we drilled in the past from an exploration basis, and totally different from our shallow flat spot gas amplitudes in which we've had enormous success. So we're going to drill that well. It's probably be 18 million to 20 million (18:26) net to Murphy. It's disclosed in our costs here in Kereta (18:33), where we've been a non-operated smaller partner off Brunei. We've had several successes there in a row. This is a continuation towards that commerciality of flowing LNG into Brunei. We do have the right type of partners there, meaning people that are across the value chain of LNG, and I consider it also to be a lower risk, lower cost opportunity, which is what we're looking for, not the big rank expensive wells at this particular time.

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful, and I guess you guys also mentioned that you had two recent successes at Sarawak on the oil side. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

I don't know if I can pronounce the two names of these wells. They both begin with an M. Could you give us a little bit more just color around there? I guess it sounds like you're still appraising them. Would these be wells that potential could come online in the near future like 2016. What else can you tell us about those? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, it's called Merapuh and Marakas. If you live over there five years or six years, you can say it really easily, Leo, like me. So, they're both nearby structures, near two very nice fields. Merapuh is a major part of our gas project in SK Gas; and the Marakas well is a western feature to the west of our south axis platform; that does it very, very well. Marakas is a deeper section. I mean higher pressure, deeper section that was successful and we have to take those pressures and see how we're going to delineate that with the platform. It is not a 2016 event. This would be out in 2017-2018 time, and it will depend on capital allocation next year as we go through – what you can imagine a difficult budget cycle. The Merapuh well found extensions of some prior gas that we produced today in Merapuh and another structure – so we proved downdip gas there and some updip oil opportunities; both of them were 10 million barrel type thing. We probably drilled both wells for less than 20-something million dollars. It's going to fit in well with our nearby development. Some are working on it, and they're successful.

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. I guess, you sort of went through the math in terms of saying that your fourth quarter production was going to be a little bit lower than 3Q. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Leo Mariani - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

I know you had some maintenance in the third quarter. Just to be clear – expecting some incremental maintenance in fourth quarter or is this more of just sort of risking and the fact that you're saying your nominations for your SK Gas are likely to be lower. Could you just maybe explain that a little better? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, SK Gas is a place (21:08) so much we've had a very, very good year. It's a place where we planned on being 250 million (21:14) a day and we got up close to 300 million (21:17) a day this quarter. It's a record quarter for us. It is a situation with many, many fields fiddling into a very large (21:27) incredible LNG facility. So there's ups and downs of nomination. We're known as a swing producer there and a very reliable swing producer with very high uptime (21:36). Again, it facilitates our strong relationship with Petronas. But things come and go there as to impurities of other fuel such as nitrogen, H2S, and the management that makes (21:47) hard to predict the guidance for that field. It's one of the issues around our company. We have very high cash flow per barrel metrics, but with that becomes just not as simple as an onshore situation, Leo. So, we have to risk what our nominations will be there. We do have some downtime at that facility operated by Petronas that we've been notified of in November, December. Also the same situation with our gas, associated gas that comes off TK (22:15), and we have some downtime in the Gulf at Front Runner, and then we have to repair some things and we have some decline in some of our wells in the Gulf because we're not really adding any wells there until early in 2016, and this year – and this quarter was a very good quarter for us and all those combined into that.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Peter Kissel with Howard Weil.

Peter Francis Freeman Kissel - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil

Hi. Good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just going back to Vietnam here to start with. Roger, can you give us a projected spend rate over the next couple of years for that asset? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: There is an extension involved with the block and we're just on the tail end. This well happened in September, Pete, and we're working with them on that. It's possible we could have an exploration well there. This is a pretty complex commerciality field development plan process at PetroVietnam. We're used to that working with Petronas in Malaysia. We're talking about probably spend on that in the 2017, 2018 range, and not next year, very aggressive (23:22) there in my view, but we're very excited about this field here.

Peter Francis Freeman Kissel - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil

Got you. Okay. And then, Roger, I know you've been pretty actively looking at a lot of different M&A potential this year. Does the decision to go into Vietnam a bit more aggressively change your stats a little bit, or are you still pretty actively looking for other assets elsewhere? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Oh no, it has nothing to do with that. I'm not at liberty today to talk about the cost, but it's a $2 type finding cost number, and F&D number on this project of about 14 to 15 (23:55), that's pretty good. It's not incredible CapEx for us. We have a lot of cash, if you will, in Malaysia, through our subsidiary arrangements of moving money in that situation. This has nothing to do with our incredible focus on both offshore and onshore opportunities today, but we want to have value. We want to have return for our shareholders, and we're constantly working three or four of them with a full team of people and we'll continue to do so.

Peter Francis Freeman Kissel - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil

Got you. Okay. Thanks, Roger. Maybe one quick question for John, too. With regards to cost, you've had a very successful year of lowering your costs. And just wondering how much more is there to go from here both on the OpEx side and the CapEx side? Is it in the 5% to 10% range that's still likely, or something a bit bigger or less than that maybe? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: It's Roger, I was preparing for that one, Pete. I thought (24:46) with somebody else, but glad you called in today. You know you have to look at – first off, you can't look at Murphy quarterly on LOE. We've made big change from year-to-year, because we have offshore operations and subsea maintenance. We don't have just one singular place where we work. And I think the real thing as you know, we're looking at $9.65 this year without Syncrude and probably getting out into very close to $9. I don't believe we can keep the trajectory of taking it to $7 right now. But our big growth in Eagle Ford is going to be looking at a $8.50, continue trending down and for all of next year, that's a big move from the last two years, three years. Now with that said, I'm very proud of getting to these levels. We have an organization incredibly focused on lowering these costs, but we can't go on forever to $7 (25:38) Pete, here in our business with an offshore business and an onshore business. We're very happy about where it's headed, and on a year-to-year basis I think it's quite possible (25:47).

Peter Francis Freeman Kissel - Scotia Howard Weil

Analyst · Howard Weil

Okay. Great. Thanks, Roger, and congrats on a good quarter. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, thank you, Pete.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Roger Read with Wells Fargo.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Hi, good afternoon. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Roger. How are you doing?

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

I'm well. I hope you are doing the same. Hopefully, that Blackberry is not causing you the trouble this year it did last year, Roger? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Roger, you've got to get off that story.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

I always thought it was a good one, because I know exactly how it feels. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: I moved on to an iPhone. I'm going crazy with technology.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

All right, all right. Well, it's a different tone anyway. Hey, kind of following up on the M&A question before. I know you don't want to get into the specifics of the property, but what are you seeing in terms of cost bid-ask spreads? Has there been an increase in the properties that are available to look at in terms of data rooms, that sort of thing? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: There's just everything of the above there. You have some public situations. You have private equity situations. You probably have a vision of more of return of their multiple than probably be able (26:49) to offer the returns we would like. The Midland area is very, very frothy. Delaware getting a little better I'd say. Offshore opportunities in the Gulf are the key ones for value adds. And we're expanding a little bit across North America to make sure we've touched every place for value, and not necessarily focused – I think we're not quite as singularly focused as we were before. And like I said to Pete here, I mean, we have a certain criteria we're looking for and we execute on that and keeps on going. And when we decide we can't make a return, we have a process of looking at the NAV or the rate of return of investment, Roger, on strip. And a price recovery deck that we have. We have four price decks here at Murphy. And when we feel we can't get to the strip or some level of return, I would like (27:45) then we move to another, and we will continue that process and (27:52).

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Sure. And in terms of the return you would be looking for on one of these acquisitions, to the extent you can share with us, what would be the hurdle rate for something like a meaningful transaction? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: I'm really not going to probably say that, Roger. You anticipate some level of return on a price recovery deck that would have to be far in excess of cost of capital. And the reason you can't just say exactly what it is because it's more complicated and that depends on the reserves that would be – what are those price for those barrels, do they have flow in (28:28) production that you could have some level of CapEx without earning your capitalization of the company, and just a list of issues that would have different types of terms (28:40) for different types of things.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. And then just my last question. In terms of the cash that's overseas that you could repatriate, can you remind us what the potential tax leakage on that would be? John W. Eckart - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. The tax leakage on that is not that great. We have foreign (28:57) tax credits that would offset almost all of it. If we bring money home from Canada, if we do that, there's obviously a 5% withholding tax associated with that you can't get out of. It is a creditable tax against the U.S. taxes owed. But you'd likely be out that 5% at a minimum and really there's not that much leakage otherwise at the present time.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay, great. Thank you. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Roger.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Edward Westlake with Credit Suisse. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Ed. Edward George Westlake - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good afternoon. So, congrats on the operational performance. I mean, I guess the key focus is the cash flow outspend. I mean, you've got a balance sheet, but obviously, prices are low. People will worry about it. So, you've got a CapEx for this year of $2.3 billion. You've talked about potentially dropping rigs. Maybe walk through what are the big deltas that you see from this year to next year, I appreciate you may not want to give a specific number, but what should we be thinking about? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Ed, I'm probably not going to be the leader in that and I had a bet around (30:00) different ways people would ask that question. Obviously, we at Murphy kind of – when you're looking at $45 WTI deck and of course you've got to take that across all your netbacks and natural gas deck appropriate that (30:15), et cetera. We're looking at cutting CapEx significantly. I don't think that will be a surprise. Then we have to look at that CapEx as to what will happen with production. We have been working through a lot of that issue recently, a long range plan determining where we wanted to allocate capital. Then we get through our quarter issue here to close out you guys and it's our next focus and we as usual approve our budget in December. But it'd be significantly reduced. And when we do do that, we'll look at it and do it. We have several factors there, dividend policy we'd like to maintain, what will…

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Paul Cheng with Barclays. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Paul.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Roger, I know that you're not going to talk about the budget yet, but can... Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Why are you asking, Paul?

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

No, I'm actually not asking the budget, I'm asking that, what is the CapEx that you need today, based on the current market condition? If you want to hold the production flat and have the same similar asset mix? What the CapEx look like? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Asset mix isn't going to change overnight. It's pretty similar, sales very good, everything is going well. I don't have that number exactly calculated, because we're in the middle of our budget, Paul. I would anticipate like $1.3 billion (35:11) or so.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

$1.3 billion (35:13)? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Okay. And that's, I presume that is including some form of exploration expense, or that exploration will be on top? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: We're trying to have exploration limited in the $45 world, with (35:27) certainty, Paul. As I mentioned earlier, there are commitments that you have when you're in this business, international oil and gas business, you do have some level of commitment. And we're working to be on a committed basis only, and it would be much less spend than in 2014, and we're working on that right now.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

And on the Midstream monetization, or strategic review, from a timeline standpoint at this point, is it going to be driven primarily by the market condition, or that is based on that how quickly that you guys will go through all the analysis? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Oh, it's complicated. We have to have the appropriate person that we want to do business with. They have to be happy with us. We have to get those terms and conditions. We then have to have it approved by our board and really, I'm not in a real bond to do it. I don't have to do it, and I'm not probably at liberty to discuss a timeline, because I'm not in a hard spot.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

I see. Final one, in Eagle Ford, if we're looking at your best sweet spot, based on your current drilling program, how long the prospect inventory can last? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Till I'm well and gone, Paul, probably at 100 wells a year for 10 year to 12 years or more – no – more than that, 20 years.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Okay. Thank you. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Thanks Paul.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Guy Baber with Simmons. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Guy, how you're doing? Guy Allen Baber - Simmons & Company International: I'm good. Good afternoon, everybody. Roger, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the performance, which was impressive, and apologies if I missed this. But do you have an estimate of the split between the cost gains and efficiencies you have achieved, which you might be classified as – or which you might classify as more cyclical versus what is more structural, and the result of what Murphy specifically is doing differently? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Any G&A here is not continuing event. So, Guy, it's significant though, 23% of staffing by the end of the year is very significant – that would be both employees and contractors and all types of changes around the company. And we would not want to see that continue for another 23% next year, but we have not got the full estimate of that in this – this type of actions are recent to Murphy, very recent over the last few days, and we need to put that into our budget process, but we are looking at – we do know that, last year, we spent $365 million on G&A, and this year we're in our internal work around $300 million, and then we will have – and we do know that the staffing thing is in the mid-$20 million per year, and we'll have a full help to that to our side, and we are very much significantly down from a couple of years back. On the operating expenses, I mean, we – like I said earlier in the call, we made incredible improvements there. It's…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ryan Todd with Deutsche Bank. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Ryan, how you're doing, man?

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Great, thanks. How you're doing Roger? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: All right.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Maybe, one quick follow-up on, I mean, the Eagle Ford performance was impressive on the quarter with – actually growing sequentially with fewer completions, can you talk a little bit about what, I mean, you referenced better productivity of the wells, high EURs, some enhanced completions, can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you're seeing in the wells, how (42:58) sustainable you think that is, and what sort of confidence that gives you, I guess, in terms of maintaining better production levels in 2016? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we've recently done a big study and Eagle Ford Shale started over with all of our PUDs, all of our proven locations and our reserves. We're doing very, very well in reserve (43:18). I'm very pleased at that trajectory where I think this year will end. We had some gas acreage in Eagle Ford Shale that we've taken off the table, of course, and we've made some big changes in EUR. As I walk through a couple of the fields, I think (43:35) significant Karnes where – is a prolific area there as you know, Ryan. We used to think that an 80-acre spacing well would have about a 660,000 EUR. And now we pull (43:49) that 660,000 to 600,000, but we're at 40-acre spacing. So that's an enormous change in resource, both in upper and lower Eagle Ford Shale. Tilden would be the same way. We're doing a lot of work with longer laterals there, bigger sand. Today, from back to 2012, we're talking about the same situation, where EURs continue to improve there probably not as much as Karnes, but the big improvement for us is Catarina, which is our most western area, which is a very organized – we went ground floor here (44:23), so we don't have the perfect giant sections of land, but Catarina is very, very organized from that perspective. And we have improved the EURs there. We have three big ranches there. One area from 210,000 a day – 210,000 equivalent EUR to over 400,000, with less spacing. And then another area from 210,000 to over 550,000 again with less spacing. And another area from 210,000 to 600,000. So this is enormous change in an area that we drill wells for only four-point-something million dollars. This is a big deal and that we may not have it all modeled in yet, but our trajectory and where we're headed there, it's very, very positive in my view.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thanks. That was very helpful. And then maybe if I could – one more I guess from a little bit of a strategy point of view, I mean, I think one of the concerns that people have had with Murphy has been maybe depth of resource and what would drive in an oil price recovery, what are going to be the assets or the resource that's going to drive when the growth, again, when you return the planned offense as opposed to defense? And I guess as you think about that and you think about the resource that you have in your portfolio, what would you see? The Eagle Ford is clearly going to be one, but what would you see as kind of resource that will be the kind of the driver to the next leg of growth for the company? And I guess in that context – and how does M&A fit in terms of either complementing or competing with that resource for kind of the next cycle of Murphy? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I mean, clearly, when we do M&A, we look at how it affects our long range plans and how it increase our income, our cash flow per share and every type of metric including R-over-P (46:23), I think, when you're speaking in a nice way about the R-over-P (46:26), it's very frustrating to me the R-over-P (46:29) here has been eight for a long time. It's going to be eight for a long time, but from an oil-weighted perspective, we're probably fifth place out of 16 peers. If you take the R-over-P (46:39) that's really through the oil. We're very limited. We'll probably be the lowest NGL R-over-P (46:44) player, and very, very low on natural gas. That's…

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

That's great. I appreciate your thoughts. And maybe, I mean, I guess it's – I mean it's safe to say to you that there's probably more resources (49:18) than the market gives you credit for. But maybe one last one on that. Is the Gulf of Mexico and there is a lot of – you've had some recent successful wells there. And as you think over the next couple of years as is the play that I think it's probably a little bit harder for us to model out. How do you think about production in the Gulf of Mexico over the next couple of years? Have you tie in these wells? Will this effectively hold production flat? Will it drive moderate growth or moderate declines? How should we think about that? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: If we could get partners to participate in our wells that had ability and income do so and cash flow, we could grow production there and that's hard to deal with at this particular time. We have some really nice low risk opportunities there like Medusa, where we placed two wells on line and doing very, very well. So we have some additional locations there. It will be a matter of an oil price recovery. However, tiebacks like Dalmatian South #2 and various other things, the tiebacks from the Gulf of Mexico are right up there with returns you have in Eagle Ford, if you take full cycle into account, meaning the drilling of the well, the pipeline, et cetera. These things are very economic. We need a higher oil price, Ryan, to get into facility building big exploration successful things, or where we can enter into a well or enter into the things going forward during this unique pull-back, because we have the balance sheet to be able to do so. Those need oil to be a little higher, so if you have a higher vision of oil, you can participate into the Gulf and many, many favorable projects today. So, our ability to operate there, work there and long history of being there and have our business – so that way it's very advantageous for us right now. So we have great Eagle Ford Shale business going and we are executing incredibly well on. You've got to keep in mind, we built this team for years. It's incredible. And we are then able to look at those opportunities. We have a long-standing deepwater team, where we're not exploring today, but factor is how do we get comfortable in changing staffing to do that again another day when oil prices recover, if we choose to do so. But there's a lot of opportunities in both, and we're very advantaged to able to look at both of them, and I don't know if many people have that.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Great. Thanks, Roger. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Pavel. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, guys. You talked about your entry into Vietnam as an exploration opportunity, are there any components of your exploration portfolio that you are considering not staying in or either divesting or simply exiting in 2016? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. That's all I'm saying. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. Fair enough. Let me try it this way, given the diverse scope of your kind of geographic footprint and the different host country relationships, or have you noticed more willingness on the part of governments and NOCs to improve the fiscal terms for you, guys, specifically or if you want to talk about the industry in general? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: I found that in Southeast Asia, Petronas is such a leader there that the physical terms are very similar. We've been very successful. We directly (52:47) understand it. That's going fine. I think that will come. It takes a while for a – I have a lot of experience with NOCs. It takes a long time for them to have – through their government to change these situations. I think it will greatly improve into next year, probably. So I believe that's coming, and we at Murphy are really trying to focus down on less (53:09) places. And we're doing so, and that's why we will have exits that we will talk about when they're exited. And so, I think we're doing all the things that you're suggesting by your question that we probably should look at, and we are, and I believe that…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Singer with Goldman Sachs. Brian A. Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. Good afternoon. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Brian. Brian A. Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Your op costs have seen some wild quarter-to-quarter swings, but as was highlighted here, there was a consistency of strong cost performance here in the third quarter. When we look at the Eagle Ford production cost at $8, the rest of the U.S. at $8, Canada ex-Syncrude sub-$6, is this the new ceiling and base case where costs come down from here? And if your production declines in places like the Eagle Ford or elsewhere, how would that have an impact on the unit op costs? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think in the onshore, we're doing very, very well in that regard, I mean, looking back at 2014, I'm talking about just LOE, Brian, not the taxes and all that. There's different aspect of this, as you know. Last year, around $11. This year in Eagle Ford Shale looking at $10.20 or so for the year – all year-end because we had some higher costs pull over into the first quarter. And next year we're probably looking at $8 and change; that's really good. I think in Canada, we make incredible OpEx improvements at both Montney and Seal. Seal, of course, very challenged from a price perspective. And so, the onshore areas I think are good. The ups and downs are in an offshore business, you have to model it, Brian, a little bit to get that value. And so, we've had a good year in offshore, especially in the Gulf, and that it will come. You have subsea inspections, intelligent piggings of…

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from Paul Sankey with Wolfe Research. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Paul.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Hi, Roger. Can you hear me? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. Sure haven't heard from you in a while.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Yeah, I hope you're well. Roger, just had a couple of – you've been through several permutations of the options and you've talked about transformational, deeper resource inventory than you get credit for, et cetera, et cetera, I just had two questions for you. One was to be considered a merger of equals with someone else is a transformational deal; and the second is, would there be the potential for you just to take Murphy private? Thanks. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, those are unusual complex questions, Paul. That the complete board of directors of Murphy, in which I am one. We have not, in my view, if you look at my desk today piled with papers. I do not have a merger document there, nor a going private document. So, my focus is to – it's real hard, with these big price collapses. We had a very difficult budget last year, coming from a tough one again this year, make him stand about trying to get to cash flow CapEx parity and going from there is my focus today, over mergers in that effect, that will always be available to any publicly traded company of course, but it's not the focus I have today, to be honest.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

I understand. And so, the clear frustration you've got is that the share price is low and the multiple is so low. How do we change that? Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: What would change that? By continuing to – when you're in – when you get back to cash flow-CapEx parity and do that first, and continuing to focus on cost, you can only go so far with that, but we're going keep working on those two matters, and we do have singles and doubles here that we've been hitting.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Yeah. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: (1:00:09) I think we're back doing that again. It's pretty big gross type resource we're touching this quarter, Dalmatian, 10 million (1:00:17) each for shallow water well, significant well in Vietnam. And so we've got some things going our way there.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Sure. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: And we feel like we're pretty well-positioned. But in my view today, we have to maintain balance sheet that we have. And at some point, I suppose, there will be a time when we try to do M&A and have return for our shareholders, and we feel we're unable to do that anymore, and we could look at other things. So I feel a lot good about where we are in a pretty poor price environment, and we're working on that is the answer, Paul.

Paul Sankey - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Yeah. Appreciate it, Roger. Thank you very much. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. And good to hear from you.

Operator

Operator

And that concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Roger Jenkins for any additional or closing remarks. Roger W. Jenkins - President & Chief Executive Officer: We appreciate everyone calling in today with some active questions today. I loved been participating with you and I think we did have a good quarter. And we'll be back with you again after the holidays, and we'll go from there and I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation.