Ovintiv Inc. (NYSE:OVV) Q4 2022 Results Conference Call February 28, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jason Verhaest - IR

Brendan McCracken - President, CEO

Corey Code - EVP, CFO

Greg Givens - COO

Conference Call Participants

Neal Dingmann - Truist Securities

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets

Arun Jayaram - JP Morgan

Gabe Daoud - Cowen

Lloyd Byrne - Jefferies

John Abbott - Bank of America

Jeoffrey Lambujon - Tudor, Pickering and Holt

Roger Read - Wells Fargo

Umang Choudhary - Goldman Sachs

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Ovintiv's 2022 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that this conference call may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the expressed consent of Ovintiv.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jason Verhaest from Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Verhaest.

Jason Verhaest

Thanks, Michelle, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and year-end '22 conference call. This call is being webcast, and the slides are available on our website at ovintiv.com. Please take note of the advisory regarding forward-looking statements at the beginning of their slides and in the disclosure documents filed on SEDAR and EDGAR. Following prepared remarks, we'll be available to take your questions. Please limit your time to 1 question and 1 follow-up.

I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Brendan McCracken.

Brendan McCracken

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. 2022 as a milestone year for Ovintiv. Our team generated a record free cash flow of $2.3 billion and net earnings of $3.6 billion. This achievement was underpinned by our leading capital efficiency. We returned nearly $1 billion to our shareholders through our base dividend and share buybacks, and we reduced our long-term debt by $1.2 billion.

We also expanded our future runway with the addition of approximately 450 new premium return locations. These additions were mostly in the Permian, and the acreage offsets our existing positions in Martin, Midland, Upton and Howard Counties. These inventory additions mean that we added more than twice the number of wells that we drilled last year.

Our team successfully delivered 10% year-over-year capital efficiencies, which acted to offset significant inflationary pressures. Our team drilled and completed wells faster than ever before and our cube development approach continued to deliver consistent well results while maximizing the value and returns from every acre we developed. The combination of these efforts delivered total annual production of 510,000 BOEs per day. While holding the line on our capital guidance of $1.8 billion.