National Fuel Gas Company (NYSE:NFG) Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 7, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Natalie Fischer - Director, Investor Relations
Dave Bauer - President & CEO
Tim Silverstein - Treasurer & Principal Financial Officer
Justin Loweth - President, Seneca Resources Company, LLC and National Fuel Gas Midstream Company

Conference Call Participants

Noah Hungness - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Ati Modak - Goldman Sachs

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the National Fuel Gas Company Q4 Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Elliot, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] Now I'd like to hand over to Natalie Fischer, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Natalie Fischer

Thank you, Elliot, and good morning. We appreciate you joining us on today's conference call for a discussion of last evening's earnings release. With us on the call from National Fuel Gas Company are Dave Bauer, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Tim Silverstein, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer; and Justin Loweth, President of Seneca Resources and National Fuel Midstream. At the end of today's prepared remarks, we will open the discussion to questions. The fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 earnings release and November investor presentation have been posted on our Investor Relations website. We may refer to these materials during today's call.

We would like to remind you that today's teleconference will contain forward-looking statements. While National Fuel's expectations, beliefs and projections remain in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, actual results may differ materially. These statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and you may refer to last evening's earnings release for a listing of certain specific risk factors.

With that, I'll turn it over to Dave Bauer.

Dave Bauer

Thank you, Natalie. Good morning, everyone. As we reported in last night's release, National Fuel's fourth quarter adjusted operating results were $0.77 per share. Natural gas prices were once again a headwind and but our strong hedge book, which delivered a $61 million gain during the quarter, along with the positive results from our regulated businesses, largely mitigated the commodity price impact.

Operationally, we continue to execute very well. At our upstream and gathering businesses, all of our drilling and the vast majority of our completions and midstream development are focused on the eastern development area in Tioga and Lycoming counties, which is our highest returning acreage. The impact of our focus on the EDA is clear, with Seneca Capital down 10%, while production is up 5% year-over-year, a trend we expect to continue in the coming years. With more than a decade of delineated well inventory in this area, the team is focused on optimizing our development plan to maximize returns and capital efficiency.