California Resources Corporation (NYSE:CRC) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call August 4, 2022 12:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Joanna Park - Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer

Mac McFarland - President and Chief Executive Officer

Francisco Leon - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Scott Hanold - RBC Capital Markets

Kalei Akamine - Bank of America

Eric Seeve - GoldenTree

Karl Blunden - Goldman Sachs

Operator

Good afternoon. Good day, everyone and welcome to the California Resources Corporation Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note today’s event is also being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Joanna Park, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Ma’am, please go ahead.

Joanna Park

Thanks and welcome to California Resources Corporation second quarter 2022 conference call. Participating on today’s call are Mac McFarland, President and Chief Executive Officer; Francisco Leon, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer as well as the entire CRC executive team.

I’d like to highlight that we have provided slides on our Investor Relations section of our website, www.crc.com. These slides provide additional information into our operations and our second quarter results. And we have also provided information reconciling non-GAAP financial measures discussed to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on our website as well as in our earnings release. Today, we will make some forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results could differ due to the factors described in our earnings release and in our periodic SEC filings. [Operator Instructions]

With that, I will now turn the call over to Mac.

Mac McFarland

Great. Thank you, Joanna. We continue to deliver safe, reliable operations and strong free cash flow generation, while also demonstrating our commitment to prioritizing shareholder returns. For the second quarter in a row, we returned more than 100% of our free cash flow generated in the quarter through our share repurchase program. In fact, our 2022 year-to-date share repurchase program has already exceeded the 2021 program. Operationally, our results and our revised outlook reflects solid execution amidst today’s volatile environment.

We are reaffirming our full year total production outlook and raising our EBITDAX and free cash flow guidance. And this is after adjusting for inflationary pressures to our costs and changes to our full year drilling programs related to the Current County EIR litigation delay. Francisco will describe both these issues in greater detail later on the call. Where others have been forced to pause their programs, CRC continues to leverage our large portfolio of assets, which allows us to continue drilling.