SM Energy Co (NYSE:SM) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jennifer Samuels - VP, IR & ESG Stewardship

Herbert Vogel - President, CEO & Director

Wade Pursell - EVP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Benjamin Parham - JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Oliver Huang - TPH & Company

Timothy Rezvan - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Scott Hanold - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SM Energy's Second Quarter 2023 Financial and Operating Results Q&A. [Operator Instructions]. Jennifer Samuels, Vice President, Investor Relations and ESG Stewardship, you may begin your conference.

Jennifer Samuels

Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone. First off, I do apologize for any inconvenience yesterday for the delay in posting all of the quarterly materials. Our third-party web host had technical issues. I guess, reporting on the busiest day can overload the system. We may reference those materials today, including the investor presentation and call transcript during today's Q&A call. Thank you for joining us this morning. To answer your questions today, we have our President and CEO, Herb Vogel, and CFO, Wade Pursell.

Before we get started, I need to remind you that our discussion today may include forward-looking statements and discussion of non-GAAP measures. I direct you to Slide 2 of the accompanying slide deck, Page 5 of the accompanying earnings release and the Risk Factors section of our most recently filed 10-K, which describe risks associated with forward-looking statements that could cause actual results to differ.

We may also refer to non-GAAP measures. Please see the slide deck appendix and earnings release for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and discussion of forward-looking non-GAAP measures.

Also look for our second quarter 10-Q filed this morning. And with that, I will finally turn it over to Herb for a brief opening commentary. Herb?

Herbert Vogel

Thank you, Jennifer. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Before we get started, I just wanted to reiterate a few key messages this quarter. Our return of capital program has been well received with the repurchase of 2.6 million shares in the quarter and 5.3 million since inception of the program last September. Including our sustainable dividend, we have returned $221 million to stockholders since September, or a 6% yield over 9 months based on the June 30 market cap. Execution was solid in the second quarter, building on a very solid first quarter. We're very pleased to have increased production guidance, reduced CapEx guidance and geared up to add a rig in October that will help drive slightly higher oil growth in 2024.