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Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 1, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Occidental Petroleum Corporation third quarter 2016 earnings conference call. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Degner, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Christopher M. Degner - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thank you, Kate. Good morning and thank you for participating in Occidental Petroleum's third quarter 2016 conference call. On the call with us today are: Vicki Hollub, President and CEO; Jody Elliott, President of Oxy Domestic Oil & Gas; Sandy Lowe, Group Chairman, Middle East; Ken Dillon, President, International Operations; Chris Stavros, Chief Financial Officer; and Rob Peterson, President of OxyChem. In just a moment, I will turn the call over to Vicki Hollub. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Additional information on factors that could cause results to differ is available on the company's most recent Form 10-K. Our third quarter 2016 earnings press release, the Investor Relations supplemental schedules, our non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliation, and the conference call presentation slides can be downloaded off of our website at www.oxy.com. I'll now turn the call over to Vicki Hollub. Vicki, please go ahead.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin by summarizing our key accomplishments in the third quarter. First, cost reduction efficiencies combined with improvement in new well productivity and better base management have enabled us to further reduce our total spend per barrel of production this year compared to 2015. Second, we again increased year-over-year production in our core areas, and we're on target to exceed the higher end of our guidance for 2016. Third, we remain prudent with our capital allocation as we focus on returns and maintain disciplined to stay within our $3 billion capital budget. Fourth, to further increase our low-decline production and improve efficiencies, we have acquired additional working interest in enhanced oil recovery projects and unconventional acreage in the Permian. Last, our aggressive appraisal and development efforts in our Permian Resources business have resulted in an improvement in the number and quality of wells in our inventory. As I've previously mentioned, our total spend per barrel of production metric includes our overhead, operating and capital cost per barrel of production. This metric is designed to drive cost reduction, increased well productivity and optimize base production. To align employees with this metric, we have linked this to incentive compensation. Our efforts to focus on efficiency and capital discipline are paying off, as we continued to lower our total spend per barrel of production. We averaged close to $62 per barrel in 2014, about $40 per barrel in 2015, and have targeted $28.50 per barrel in 2016. Year to date, we've beaten our target, with average total spend of about $27.50 per barrel. In the third quarter, total company production from our ongoing operations was about 605,000 BOE per day, an increase of 5% year over year driven by Al Hosn gas in Abu Dhabi, a…

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thanks, Vicki, and good morning, everyone. Today I'll focus on the following items: our third quarter segment and overall financial results; Oxy's balance sheet strength, liquidity, and cash flow in the context of the Permian acquisitions we just announced; and oil and gas production and segment guidance for the fourth quarter. Third quarter 2016 reported financial results for GAAP purposes were a loss of $0.32 per diluted share compared to a loss of $0.18 a share in this year's second quarter. Our third quarter reported results included a net after-tax charge of $129 million related to non-recurring items in both the Oil & Gas and Midstream segments. Our core financial results for the third quarter of 2016 were a loss of $112 million or $0.15 per diluted share, a slight improvement from the loss of $136 million or $0.18 a share during the second quarter. Importantly, each of our operating segments generated improved quarter-to-quarter core financial results despite the continued challenging conditions for product prices. Oil & Gas pre-tax core results for the third quarter of 2016 were a loss of $49 million compared to a loss of $117 million in the second quarter and income of $162 million in the same year-ago period. The sequential improvement of $68 million was primarily a result of higher product price realizations. During the third quarter, the Oil & Gas segment recorded non-core net charges related to the exit from both Libya and Iraq of $61 million and a $38 million after-tax gain on the sale of some non-core non-operated oil and gas properties in South Texas. Third quarter total company production volumes of 605,000 BOE per day were at the high end of our previous guidance range, with better than expected production results coming from Permian Resources, improved performance at Al Hosn…

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thank you, Chris. Today, I will provide a review of our domestic operations during the third quarter, guidance on our program in the fourth quarter and an outlook for the start of 2017. For this year, our Permian Resources business achieved significant improvement in well economics across our Permian leading acreage position through step change advancements in well productivity and field development design. We believe this improvement in value starts with our subsurface characterization, where we are leveraging our geology, petrophysics and geochemistry expertise to achieve breakthroughs in our multi-bench appraisal, stimulation and other key subsurface design factors. We expect to quickly deliver a new series of breakthroughs in 2017 as we advance our seismic-based characterization and second phase of geoscience analytics. On the cost structure front, we continue to lower our capital and operating cost structure through faster drilling, leveraging engineering innovation and integrated planning to optimize execution and logistics. We expect these efforts, when combined in our field development plans, will ensure Oxy is a leader in realizing maximum value per acre by optimizing recovery and capitalization. Our unconventional business is well positioned to provide a competitive return in a low-cost environment and achieve significant growth in an improved price environment. As a result, during the third quarter we added a drilling rig in Permian Resources plus another at the beginning of the fourth quarter and have capacity and locations on standby to respond to improved pricing in 2017. Turning to the performance of Permian Resources. In the third quarter, we achieved daily production of 121,000 BOE per day, a 4% increase versus the prior year. Oil production declined modestly due to lower capital spending, with nine wells put online versus 54 wells in the third quarter of 2015. Improved well productivity and our emphasis on base management…

Christopher M. Degner - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thank you, Jody. We'll now open up the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

The first question comes from Doug Leggate of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Doug Leggate - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. I've got two questions. Vicki, I wonder if I could kick off with the acquisition last night. You've shown before the relative priority for the use of cash, and you've also shown us that you've got a fairly deep inventory of existing assets. I'm just trying to understand the rationale as to why $2 billion is the right use of cash versus a step up in activity on your existing acreage. If you could, just help us understand the rationale a little better and maybe some of the nuances about working interest changes, what it brings to you by way of operating capability and so on. Just help us understand the numbers a wee bit.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Doug, we've been looking at this. We've had ownership in this area for a while now. And what made us very attracted to this is the fact that it has the potential for five-bench development and the fact that it's so close to our Barilla Draw area where we've already installed infrastructure. We believe that the infrastructure in Barilla Draw combined with the infrastructure that was installed by a very prudent and efficient operator will enable us to combine the two and provide those synergies around that infrastructure to share that. The five benches, the shared infrastructure, and the operational efficiencies that we'll gain by combining these two areas and becoming operator of it where we can manage the development to maximize the net present value we believe was the best use of our cash at this point. This inventory fits within the less than $50 per barrel breakeven price for us or the price that generates positive NPV of $10 for us, so that we think is very prospective. We like how it fits. We believe that we can further develop Barilla Draw. It will help with the economics there. So the combination of the two of them provides us quite a bit of net present value.

Doug Leggate - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Vicki, I don't want to belabor the point, but I think Jody suggested one to two rigs in this area. I guess what I'm really trying to understand is, to justify the NPV – understand the NPV of the incremental wells, but to justify the NPV of the incremental wells plus the $2 billion acquisition cost, one would imagine you have to run at a pretty healthy pace above what you were going to do on your existing portfolio. So again, can you help us – guide us to where the activity level on this acreage goes to justify the $2 billion price tag?

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

The one to two rigs would be the initial starting point for us on this acreage. We expect to spend about $200 million in 2017. But in 2017, remember now, we're still trying to balance cash with what our expectations are around oil prices. We do expect improving prices in 2018, which is where we expect to really launch into a much more aggressive development of both Barilla Draw and this new area. So we expect that we're going to be very aggressive with the development on this once we get into 2018, where at that point we expect the supply gap to narrow such that the prices will warrant a much higher level of activity.

Doug Leggate - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay, and a very, very last one for me, a very quick one on Chemicals. Given the cracker starts up at the beginning of next year, can you just give us some guide on the free cash flow delta on that project as you move from 2016 into 2017? And I'll leave it there, thanks.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Okay.

Robert Lee Peterson - Occidental Chemical Corp.

Analyst

Hi, this is Rob Peterson. So we'll just continue the spending of capital. We'll carry a small amount for commissioning the startup into 2017, and then we'll stop spending that and start generating cash from it. So it will be a several hundred million dollar flip between spending capital and generating cash out of the cracker, depending on the ramp-up time.

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

The swing, Doug, is actually about $300 million in terms of spending versus the contribution. So that's the delta, if you will, spending to cash flow.

Doug Leggate - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

I just wanted to check order of magnitude. That sounds great, guys. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Phil Gresh of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Philip M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey, good morning. I just want to follow up on the cash flow side of things. Chris, you mentioned $4.5 billion of CFO at $50. And if we use the CapEx, call it $3.5 billion, that would be $1 billion of free cash flow versus a dividend of $2.3 billion. So I guess what I was wondering is how you planned on funding that gap if oil is $50 or even if it's $55. Would you be looking to add debt to the balance sheet? Would you be looking to sell assets? And generally, Chris, just how are you thinking about target leverage following this acquisition?

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Phil, it's a good question. It's going to come from a combination of a number of different sources for the cash. Without being completely or terribly specific about any given thing that we're going to do at any given moment, what I would say is obviously it's going to depend on commodity prices. I mentioned the sensitivity around our cash flow to commodity prices. But should the need arise, we would expect to monetize some non-core non-strategic assets that would more than, we believe, cover our needs and when including our expectations for next year's cash from operations. So I don't anticipate or expect us to fall short or have any issue with that. We've got multiple levers that we can pull on in terms of filling any gap, certainly to the extent that you just did the arithmetic around, and more should need be. And the capital remains very flexible, certainly within the range, depending on commodity prices.

Philip M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And on the target leverage side of things, post this deal, Vicki, you mentioned maybe even looking at additional bolt-on deals. How do you think about target leverage and the size of what bolt-on would mean relative to the acquisitions you've just done?

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

The leverage amounts, we're comfortable with that within our ratings right now. We'll obviously, depending on what the acquisition looks like, if we do acquisitions, it depends on what it looks like in terms of how we're going to look to fund it. And so some acquisitions are better sourced through leverage, some through other means. So we'll just have to look at it. It depends on what the acquisition looks like, the composition of the cash flows around the acquisition, the composition of the production in terms of determining how much leverage you're comfortable with for any given type of activity or specific acquisition. So the answer is it really depends.

Philip M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

And, Phil, with respect to the bolt-on acquisitions, we look at a lot of things in the Permian. And this is the first thing that we've seen in a while that really fits well with our current operations and really made sense from a long-term development standpoint. You may have heard our name associated with some things in here recently that – those are things we didn't bid on. We look at a lot of things, but what we always want to do is make sure that it's a good fit. and as Doug had alluded to, that our net present value of what we expect our development to be is going to cover the cost of the acquisition. And so that rules out a lot of things for us.

Philip M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Ryan Todd of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thanks. Maybe another follow-up – I know you referenced the addition of rigs into the fourth quarter in the Permian. But what level of activity is implied in the Permian in the $3.3 billion to $3.8 billion budget for 2017? And how much of that budget is allocated to Permian Resources?

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Ryan, this is Jody. The activity level currently planned for 2017 would be about six rigs in the Permian Resources area and three rigs in EOR. And then depending on what that final capital number is, we can scale that up, scale it down, again, depending on commodity prices or where that final direction is on the capital budget.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

And we've said previously, although it's not final yet, that our capital spend would probably be in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion for Resources.

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

And, Ryan, the other point I want to make is all the work that we've done this year around our characterization, around our field development planning, the upsizing and optimization of our stimulation has created this ability with very low capital intensity to generate a lot of production. So that inventory mix in 2017 will be optimized where we can grow production significantly with a fairly modest rig count.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. And then maybe as a follow-up to that, can you talk a little bit about your infrastructure position in the Basin, how you feel like you're positioned to be able to ramp activity in terms of the flexibility you have over the next few years, whether you see yourselves, or the Basin in general, the industry in general, having any bottlenecks? Anything there would be great.

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Ryan, I think as far as our field development planning, that's one of the key things is that we try to get ahead of the game, whether it's water disposal, frac water movement, gas takeaway, oil takeaway. We try to plan those things in advance and build out ahead of when that need is going to be. So whether it's southeast New Mexico, we announced the startup of the joint venture gas plant recently in the Delaware. Those are all things to stay ahead of the infrastructure game. The new acquisition has considerable infrastructure, fresh water, salt water infrastructure, 4 million barrels of frac storage, 40 miles of distribution line. It has produced water treatment systems, 15 SWD wells, gas compression. So all those things that have been done extremely well in this acquisition are the same things we do on our own assets. And maybe Vicki or Chris will want to address the greater Permian infrastructure takeaway.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Ryan, I would just say that with respect to our takeaway capacity out of the Permian, we're very well positioned there. We have excess capacity above and beyond what we expect our growth to be. That's been a little bit of a drag on our Midstream business here recently, but we expect that to be a real benefit to us going forward.

Ryan Todd - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Roger Read of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. I guess maybe to come back to expectations in the fourth quarter here. How should we think about the acquired volumes coming in as part of the guidance of the 120,000 BOE per day for Permian Resources? Does that imply that Permian Resources is actually declining here in the fourth quarter and that adds on? Or how should we think about the exit rate you indicated would be higher?

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Roger, the 120,000 BOE per day includes our estimate of the acquisition. So there's some modest decline in the base core business pre-acquisition. Again, the activity level is ramping up. As you know, when you're doing multi-well multi-pad development with zipper fracking, the production comes lumpy. So a lot of that activity happens in the fourth quarter and the production will come very early in the first quarter of 2017.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. So potential for a little bit of – if things go really well, we can see it in December, otherwise thinking about it as a 2017 event?

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

That's correct.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then can you walk us through with the acquisition here a little bit? The 700 locations obviously indicate potential for significant upside, some of which clearly will be price-driven and some of which is going to be based on drilling. How did you come to the 700? And what's an idea of how we should think at say maybe $60 oil in 2018 where that 700 locations could go?

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Roger, the 700 locations is based on our conservative nature with assessing our developmental properties. So that's the minimum location count in the Wolfcamp A, the Wolfcamp B, Second Bone Spring. We're very optimistic about the two additional benches in the Bone Spring and in the Wolfcamp debris flow, which sits between the Wolfcamp A and Wolfcamp B. At $60, again, that inventory just continues to grow, whether it's tighter spacing. The other aspect is we continue to improve both well performance and our execution results. I mentioned that we have some technology things working in the drilling area, which we believe can be a step change in multi-well, multi-pad development. And so as we test those in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter of 2017, we'll be more able to talk about some of those details. But we think that would generate even more bench activity, not just in the acquisition, but on all of our core areas.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. And just a final question. You mentioned this acreage was fairly HBP. Is there a percentage you can give us that maybe isn't? Give us an idea of maybe where the one to two rigs initially have to be focused.

Christopher G. Stavros - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

I think it's north of 80%. And a lot of those are just clock drilling obligations as opposed to expiry issues.

Roger D. Read - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Brian Singer of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to go back to the comments with regards to the CapEx cash flow for 2017. And if we take the acquisition side of things away and just look at the strategy with regards to growth versus free cash flow versus dividend, I think in the past you talked about wanting to try to cover that dividend with free cash flow. And perhaps $50 is just the low end of your oil range and will ultimately go higher, but I wanted to see if there's any change in your strategic thinking about the importance of covering the dividend with free cash flow, recognizing that Oxy is unique in even having free cash flow of this magnitude in the first place.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

I'll tell you, Brian, we consider that, covering our dividend with cash flow, to be a priority for us. It's very critical. But we do view 2017 as a transition year. We don't expect prices to get to the point where it's reasonable for us to cover our dividend with cash flow until 2018. That's why we're ensuring that all the decisions that we make will enable us to get through the transition year of 2017. We have other levers we need to pull if that supply/demand balance doesn't narrow in 2018, so there are other things that we can do. But we're certainly expecting an oil price that is certainly closer to our cash flow neutral standpoint. Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great, thanks. And then shifting to the Permian, the acreage position as you highlighted it is very vast. Can you talk to whether you see your interest and the need for additional acquisitions to achieve the type of scale that you desire as you're doing with this acquisition here to be competitive to or more competitive with others in the basin that have contiguous acreage positions?

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

We viewed this acquisition as a very unique opportunity because of the reasons I've described. We don't see any need to acquire any additional acreage unless it's smaller bolt-ons that do provide us the efficiency to develop what we currently have, and those are the types of things that we would target going forward. Our inventory is huge, and we still haven't fully appraised the inventory we have. So what we view this to have done is in the greater Barilla Draw area, what it's done for us is just, in addition to the 59,000 acres associated with the acquisition, we have in that general area around 100,000 acres. So that gives us a really sizable position that's bigger than most positions, and that's why this was so important to us. It was a special case because, as you've noticed, we haven't really acquired anything in the last couple years. And this is the reason, we're looking for those things that provide us a unique opportunity to do something that's what we consider to be really a step change in a given area. Looking at the rest of our acreage, we're spending quite a bit of time and effort to appraise the rest of what we have and to rank it in terms of development. So now we feel very comfortable with the Greater Barilla Draw area. Southeast New Mexico is in prime position for aggressive development, and we have some areas in the Midland Basin as well. What we have to do now is we've got our appraisal team working on those parts of our acreage that are outside of those areas. Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great. Could you characterize the sum of the acreage that you believe now is developable and to the comment you just made?

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

I think we'll update the full inventory picture in the fourth quarter. To give you a little bit of color, with all the appraisal work and all the subsurface work we're doing, we've changed the landscape of that inventory. We've doubled the lateral miles of inventory. The NPV on that existing inventory is up over 66%. We have 27 rig years of inventory at less than $40 a barrel, so we've really grown the existing inventory. This asset, it's really – the acquisition asset is really about just taking ownership in an already derisked core area with incredible infrastructure. So that's going to allow us, when you think about sand, when you think about water, when you think about logistics, people, supply chain leverage, it really allows us to hit all of those key drivers that lower F&D cost and keep our OpEx costs really low. Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Evan Calio of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Evan Calio - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning, guys. You significantly beat Permian Resources volumes guidance for the second time in three quarters. And if I shift to the guidance, what are the ranges on the 2017 fuzzy bars for Permian Resources on slide 22? I'm just trying to square the circle here of whether that range reflects the enhanced completions, longer laterals, and increased wells drilled in the presentation, or if it's based on 2015 year-end technology, as are the location counts? It just looks low versus the commentary.

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Evan, that forecast is based on what we know today. So it's the latest version of our completion designs and our expansion. The fuzziness is really a function of what's the final capital budget going to be that year. But we're not forecasting enhancements or improvements that have not been demonstrated at this point in time. So those are all upside opportunities.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

And, Evan, let me add to that that Jody and his team along with the support of the subsurface characterization team have beaten their forecast for about what, eight quarters in a row or so? Evan Calio - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Any numbers on the high end of that? It looks like 135,000 BOE per day. Is that right?

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

It's a little bit higher than that. Evan Calio - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay, maybe a second one, if I could, on the acquisition. Could you say how much of the acquisition was allocated to Permian Resources versus EOR? It looks close to $21,000 an acre versus the $43,000 an acre headline for Permian Resources, if we back out what you paid for J. Cleo using that cost basis metric. Is that right? And then on the other side of I guess Singer's question is with a larger Tier 1 footprint, will that increase for high-grading your portfolio or potential asset sales? I'll leave it there.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

I would say that on the net value per acre, we were in the upper $20,000s on what we calculated for that. And with respect to the tiering of the acreage, this certainly gets us what I believe is going to be Tier 1 for us. I believe that this area will certainly be comparable with our best area, which is southeast New Mexico. The fact is that the opportunity to have five benches is going to make the infrastructure cost so minimal on a per BOE basis that I do believe that this is just going to continue to improve. Evan Calio - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And drive – since it would take capital, would there be another high-grading on the back of that?

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

There could be. It really depends on product prices for 2017. We'll continue to balance our capital with our cash flow needs and the balance sheet. Evan Calio - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. I appreciate it, guys.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And the next question is from Matt Portillo of TPH. Please go ahead. Matthew Merrel Portillo - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Good morning. Just starting off on the Permian Resources side, I was curious if you could provide any incremental color or commentary around the base design that you're currently utilizing in the Texas Delaware Basin and what you may be testing on a leading-edge basis that may be giving you some incremental excitement in terms of increased productivity on the wells.

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Matt, it's really basin. It's sub-basin specific, almost field specific in those designs. But in general, it is tighter cluster spacing and higher sand concentrations, and then doing trials to understand where you've hit diminishing returns. But in general, more sand, tighter cluster spacing is generating better results. But combining that with longer laterals has really been the key for us. And as you look at the numbers I talked about on extending lateral length, that's another real benefit for us. In New Mexico, this year we'll average around 5,000-foot laterals. We'll go almost to 7,000 feet next year. In the Texas Delaware, it's a little over 5,000-foot laterals. Next year it will be closer – this is effective lateral length – over 9,000 feet. And in East Midland Basin, we probably averaged – we'll average around 7,800-foot laterals in 2016, and in 2017 that will be over 9,000 feet. So the combination of extended lateral giving us really better EURs, better decline profiles combined with this continued integration of our geoscience with the stimulation design. The drilling technology piece is something that we'll talk a little bit more about in future quarters, but it's really an innovative way to access multiple benches and again leveraging your infrastructure across multiple benches with minimizing your facility cost. Matthew Merrel Portillo - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: And just a quick follow-up there, is there any color you can provide I guess just on what the base design looks like today? I'm just trying to reference point in the Texas part of the play specifically where your proppant loading is and where your fluid volumes are and maybe...

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

It's in the 1,750 to 2,000 pounds per foot range, but we've trialed and will trial higher. Matthew Merrel Portillo - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Great, and then just a follow-up question. On the New Mexico side of the border, it looks like you've started to delineate some of your acreage in Eddy County. I'm just curious. As you guys look at additional resource potential across New Mexico, what interest you have in, I guess moving into 2017, in terms of focusing on some incremental zone delineation in the Wolfcamp and Avalon horizons.

Jody Elliott - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

So New Mexico will be one of the key places we operate in 2017. This year we've spent quite a bit of effort in the appraisal mode in New Mexico, testing the Third Bone Spring, testing the XY, Wolfcamp D. So we will continue as part of our development plans to appraise those other benches. Again, we believe New Mexico has many bench opportunities beyond what we've talked about previously in our inventory. Matthew Merrel Portillo - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: And last question from me. I just wanted to follow up on a previous question from an infrastructure perspective. So just to clarify there, I think there's some industry concern that as Permian growth accelerates over the next few years that the main infrastructure bottleneck may become the pipe capacity out of the basin. And so I wanted to just make sure that I understood your comments that you guys feel comfortable over the next few years that there are no pipe constraints or you have solutions in the work that can essentially debottleneck that.

Vicki A. Hollub - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

I suspect there are going to be pipeline constraints for others, but I can tell you, we have plenty of capacity tied up and we'll be able to actually still contract and take third-party volumes to Houston. We have quite a bit of capacity, so we feel very comfortable with where we are. Matthew Merrel Portillo - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Degner for closing remarks.

Christopher M. Degner - Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Management

Thank you, Kate. And thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call today.