SandRidge Energy, Inc. (NYSE:SD) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 7, 2024 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Scott Prestridge - SVP, Finance and Strategy
Grayson Pranin - President, CEO & COO
Brandon Brown - CFO & SVP
Conference Call Participants
Josh Young - Bison Interests
David Cardell - BluePond Capital
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Desiree, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SandRidge fourth-quarter 2023 conference call. [Operator Instructions].
I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Prestridge, SVP, Finance and Strategy. Please go ahead.
Scott Prestridge
Thank you, and welcome, everyone. With me today are Grayson Pranin, our CEO; Brandon Brown, our CFO; as well as Dean Parrish, our SVP of Operations. We would like to remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements and assumptions which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. We may also refer to adjusted EBITDA and adjusted G&A and other non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures can be found on our website.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Grayson.
Grayson Pranin
Thank you and good morning. I'm pleased to report on another consistent quarter of results and year. The company's activity continues to translate to meaningful free cash flow from our producing assets. Before expanding on this, Brandon will touch on a few highlights.
Brandon Brown
Thank you, Grayson. Production averaged approximately 17 MBoe per day for the year with oil production up approximately 10% compared to the prior year, driven by the higher oil content from our Northwest Stack wells. The company generated adjusted EBITDA of nearly $20 million for the quarter and approximately $93 million for the year. As we have pointed out in the past, our adjusted EBITDA is a unique metric for SandRidge due to us having no I and very T given that we have no debt and a substantial NOL position that shields our cash flows from federal income taxes. On the I portion, we in fact generated approximately $2.8 million of interest income during the quarter and $10.6 million for the year for cash out and diversity of high-yield deposit accounts.
The company initiated a return of capital program last year with a total cumulative dividends paid to date of approximately $137 million or $3.70 per share, including the one-time dividend of $1.50 per share paid on February 20 of this year. In addition, our Board recently approved an $0.11 per share dividend which is a 10% increase over the previous quarter's regular-way dividend. This will be paid on March 29, 2024 to shareholders of record on March 15, 2024.