SM Energy Company (NYSE:SM) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jennifer Samuels - VP of IR and ESG Stewardship

Herb Vogel - President, CEO and Director

Wade Pursell - Executive VP and CFO

Conference Call Participants

Scott Hanold - RBC Capital Markets

Leo Mariani - ROTH MKM

Zach Parham - JPMorgan

Tim Rezvan - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Oliver Huang - TPH & Company

Operator

Good day, everyone and welcome to the SM Energy First Quarter Results Q&A Discussion. Today's call is being recorded.

I'd now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Samuels, VP of IR and ESG Stewardship. Please go ahead.

Jennifer Samuels

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today for our QA session. To answer your questions today, we have our President and CEO, Herb Vogel, and CFO, Wade Pursell.

Before we get started, as usual, 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 8 of the accompanying earnings release and 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. As a reminder, we have posted an investor presentation and the transcript to our prerecorded call from yesterday that we may reference in the call today and look for the first quarter 10-Q filed this morning.

With that, I will turn it back to Herb for brief opening commentary. Herb?

Herb Vogel

Thanks Jennifer. Good morning, and thank you for joining our Q&A call this morning. Before we get stated, I'll reiterate a few key messages this quarter. We're pleased to report that we have repurchased 2.8 million shares since inception of our return of capital program in September and including our increased fixed dividend, we have returned a total of $134 million. We are well positioned to provide a solid return to our shareholders in 2023 through the combination of our fixed dividend and upside through share repurchases.

Execution was solid in the first quarter, not only exceeding guidance for oil and total production volumes, but recognizing notable operational achievements such as drilling 75,000 feet of lateral 20 days faster than planned or successfully drilling 5,000 to 18,000-foot laterals, which are now among the longest laterals in the Midland Basin -- is the key objective to maintain and build our inventory.