Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call August 4, 2022 2:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Daniel Jenkins - Director of Investor Relations

Michael Ure - Chief Executive Officer

Kristen Shults - Chief Financial Officer

Craig Collins - Chief Operating Officer

Conference Call Participants

Gabe Moreen - Mizuho Securities

Jeremy Tonet - JPMorgan

Neel Mitra - Bank of America

Michael Cusimano - Pickering Energy Partners

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Rex and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the 2Q 2022 Western Midstream Partners Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Jenkins, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Daniel Jenkins

Thank you. I'm glad you could join us today for Western Midstream's second quarter 2022 conference call. I'd like to remind you that today's call the accompanying slide deck and last night's earnings release contain important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP reconciliations. Please reference Western Midstream's most recent Form 10-Q and other public filings for a description of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we discuss today. Relevant reference materials are posted on our website.

With me today are Michael Ure, our Chief Executive Officer; Kristen Shults our Chief Financial Officer; and Craig Collins our Chief Operating Officer.

I'll now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Ure

Thank you, Daniel, and good afternoon everyone. Yesterday, we reported another quarter of strong operational and financial performance at Western Midstream. Our second quarter financial success was primarily driven by increased throughput across all three products in the Delaware Basin and higher distributions from equity investments, partially offset by higher operation and maintenance expense. We also achieved several records in the quarter including record natural gas throughput in the Delaware Basin, processing 1.5 Bcf of gas per day, record produced water throughput in the Delaware Basin, gathering 864,000 barrels per day and record adjusted EBITDA for the second straight quarter, generating substantial free cash flow.

We have also delivered on our plan to accelerate the return of capital to our stakeholders. Specifically through July 29th, we have repurchased approximately 7.1 million units in the open market and 10 million units from Occidental under our $1 billion unit buyback program. Since announcing this program in February, we have repurchased $425 million of units at an average price of approximately $24.85 per unit.