Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNQ) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Canadian Natural Resources Limited (NYSE:CNQ) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call March 2, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Lance Casson - Manager of Investor Relations

Tim McKay - President

Trevor Cassidy - Chief Operating Officer

Mark Stainthorpe - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets

Menno Hulshof - TD Securities

John Royall - JPMorgan

John Abbott - Bank of America

Dennis Fong - CIBC

Michael Dunn - Stifel FirstEnergy

Roger Read - Wells Fargo

Neil Mehta - Goldman Sachs

Operator

Good morning. We would like to welcome everyone to the Canadian Natural Resources' 2022 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today, March 2, 2023 at 9 AM Mountain Time.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Lance Casson, Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lance Casson

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Canadian Natural's fourth quarter and year-end 2022 earnings conference call.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you our forward-looking statements, and it should be noted that on our reporting disclosures everything is in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise stated and we reported reserves and production before royalties.

Additionally, I would suggest you review our comments on non-GAAP disclosures in our financial statements.

With me this morning is Tim McKay, President; Trevor Cassidy, Chief Operating Officer, Commercial; and Mark Stainthorpe, our Chief Financial Officer. Tim will start off by speaking to the specifics of our safe, reliable, world-class operations that continue to drive long-term shareholder value. Next, Trevor will provide highlights of our growing high-value reserves. Then Mark will provide an update on our strong financial results, including our robust financial position, substantial shareholder returns and our free cash flow policy that we are enhancing today. To close, Tim will summarize our call, prior to opening up the line for questions.

With that, I'll turn it over to you, Tim.

Tim McKay

Thank you, Lance. Good morning, everyone. Canadian Natural delivered strong operational results in 2022, as we achieved record annual production of approximately 1.28 million BOEs per day, an increase of 4% over 2021 levels, which included approximately 933,000 barrels a day of liquid production and record annual natural gas production of approximately 2.1 Bcf per day.

As a result of our diverse portfolio, which is supported by our robust long-life, low-decline assets, primarily in the Oil Sands Mining and thermal in situ combined with our capital discipline, we generated significant free cash flow. And as we continued balancing free cash flow to our four pillars of capital allocation maximizing value for our shareholders.