Murphy Oil - Q2 2023
August 3, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Murphy Oil Corporation's Q2 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star zero for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kelly Whitley, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communication. Kelly, please go ahead.
Kelly Whitley (VP, Investor Relations and Communication)
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our Q2 earnings call today. Joining us is Roger Jenkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, along with Tom Morales, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Eric Hambly, Executive Vice President, Operations. Please refer to the informational slides we placed on the investor relations section of our website as you follow along with our webcast today. Throughout today's call, production numbers, reserves, and financial amounts are adjusted to exclude non-controlling interests in the Gulf of Mexico. Slide two. Please keep in mind that some of the comments made during this call will be considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurances can be given that these events will occur or that the projections will be attained.
A variety of factors exist that may cause the actual results to differ. For further discussion of risk factors, see Murphy's 2022 annual report on Form 10-K on file with the SEC. Murphy takes no duty to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Roger Jenkins. Roger?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thank you, Kelly. Good morning, everyone, thank you for listening to our call today. We turn to slide 3. Murphy continues to deliver a strong value proposition. Our ongoing execution excellence ensures that we remain a long-term, sustainable company. We operate safely with a focus on continual improvement and our carbon emissions intensity. Our offshore competitive advantage is reinforced with our significant recent project success at Khaleesi, Mormont, Samurai Fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Murphy also has a diverse exploration portfolio, recently expanded with our new country entry into Côte d'Ivoire. We continue to generate strong cash flow, we have been able to more than double our long-standing dividend from 2021, as well as significantly reduce debt over the last 24 months. On to slide four. Our stated priorities of deliver, execute, explore, and return remain our focus as we advance through 2023.
We're in excellent shape to advance Murphy 2.0, our capital allocation framework, with a targeted debt reduction goal of $500 million in the H2 of the year, as well as stock buybacks. The goal of Murphy 2.0 will be enhanced by using proceeds from our non-core asset divestiture in Canada. We continue to execute our priorities operationally, as production sees the upper end of production range due to strong well performance in the Q2, or the Q2 in a row, rather, in addition to our highest oil production rate in two years. The team brought online a total of 27 operating onshore wells across the Eagle Ford Shale and Tupper Montney in the Q2, at or ahead of plan, and also completed Gulf of Mexico facility maintenance ahead of schedule.
Additionally, I'm pleased that we received government approval for the Lac Da Vang field development plan in Vietnam this quarter. Regarding our exploration strategy in the Q2, we initiated a new country entry into Côte d'Ivoire. We're also progressing plans to resume drilling on the Murphy-operated Oso exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico late in the Q3. With consistent operational performance and decreasing CapEx for the rest of the year, free cash flow generate will support our strategy to return funds to shareholders through our capital allocation framework. On slide five, a strong quarter for us. In the Q2, we had 184,000 equivalents per day and exceeded guidance by over 6,000-barrel equivalents from a better than expected well performance, plus 1,400 barrels equivalent per day from lower realized Tupper Montney royalty rates.
Oil production of 99,000 barrels equivalent today, which was 5,000 barrels per day above guidance, grew by 10% over the Q2 of 2022, reflecting production beats in our oil-weighted Eagle Ford Shale and Gulf of Mexico assets. We realized $73.54 per barrel for our oil, while our realized NGL price was $19 per barrel, and net gas for Murphy was $1.92 per 1,000 cubic feet for the quarter. I'm going to turn the call over to our CFO, Tom Morales, for an update on our financials and sustainability efforts.
Tom Morales (EVP and CFO)
Thank you, Roger. Good morning, everyone. Slide six. Net income in the Q2 totaled $98 million or $0.62 per diluted share. Including after-tax adjustments, adjusted net income was $124 million or $0.79 per diluted share. These amounts were impacted by $116 million of exploration expense during the quarter, including non-controlling interest. This was primarily comprised of $54 million net to Murphy in dry hole costs for the Chinook number seven exploration well, as well as a $17 million write-off of the previously suspended Cholula exploration well and $10 million in seismic costs for the Côte d'Ivoire new country entry. Murphy's strong operational performance generated cash from operations, including non-controlling interest of $470 million.
After accounting for net property additions and acquisitions, we had adjusted cash flow of $121 million. This amount reflects $28 million in total contingent consideration payments made during the Q2, $25 million of which was related to the one-year anniversary of first oil at King's Quay. All of our obligations have now been fulfilled related to the two Gulf of Mexico acquisitions in 2018 and 2019. Slide seven. I'm pleased to say our fifth annual sustainability report was just released, which includes enhanced disclosures surrounding our actions towards reducing emissions intensity, improving water recycling, continued strong governance oversight, and an ongoing focus to positively impact the communities around us. Of note, in 2022, we recorded our lowest emissions intensities for greenhouse gas, methane, and flaring since 2013.
We have also achieved our highest water recycling ratio in company history across our onshore assets. Lastly, we have received a number of awards and recognitions for our dedicated service to the communities as we continuously strive to make it better. With that, I will turn it over to Eric Hambly, our Executive Vice President of Operations, to discuss our operational update.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Slide nine. In the Eagle Ford Shale, Murphy produced 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Q2, with 89% liquids weighting. A total of 17 operated wells were brought online as planned across Catarina and Tilden, and we have seen them outperform expectations due to our optimized completion design. Of the two Tilden pads that began producing in the quarter, four wells are outperforming their pre-drill forecast by 100%, with the other four wells producing in line with forecast. Overall, these eight Tilden wells have an average IP30 of 1,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with 85% oil. For the Q3, we plan to bring online seven operated wells in Catarina and Tilden, and two non-operated wells in Tilden. Slide 10.
Murphy produced 341 million cubic feet per day in the Tupper Montney and brought online 10 wells during the Q2. Of that amount, seven were originally planned for the Q3, but were brought online early. We applied our learnings from our Eagle Ford Shale completions design in the Tupper Montney this quarter on the most recent seven wells, and through activities such as real-time frack optimization, we have seen incredible results. These wells are achieving some of the highest IP30 rates in Murphy history, with all seven wells averaging approximately 17 million cubic feet per day. Even more encouraging, two wells have achieved a new Murphy IP30 record of more than 21 million cubic feet per day. We look forward to applying these learnings on the remaining well in 2023, and as we plan for our 2024 drilling program. Slide 11.
We are excited to announce today that we have signed a purchase and sale agreement to sell a non-core portion of our onshore Canadian assets to a private company. Under the terms of the agreement, the buyer will pay Murphy CAD 150 million at closing in an all-cash transaction, subject to customary closing adjustments and conditions. The transaction has a March 1, 2023 effective date, and we anticipate closing will occur in the Q3 of 2023. The assets to be divested include the Saxon and Simonette areas of Cape Breton, Duvernay, where Murphy holds a 70% working interest as operator, as well as Murphy's 30% working interest in Placid Montney assets operated by Athabasca Oil Corporation. Also included are batteries, pipelines, and the assumption of related processing and marketing contracts.
The combined assets currently produce 1,700 barrels of oil equivalent per day, net to Murphy, and consist of 39% oil. Net proved reserves were 5.3 million barrels of oil equivalent as of December 31st, 2022. Also included are 250 gross drilling locations or 138 net locations across the two areas. After closing, Murphy will have approximately 488 gross drilling locations, with an average 75% oil weighting remaining in the Cape Breton, Duvernay, all of which are operated with a 70% working interest. We will have no remaining position in the Placid Montney. Slide 13. We continue to see outstanding performance from our offshore wells, particularly at Khaleesi, Mormont, and Samurai.
Combined, our offshore assets produced 86,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Q2, with 80% oil weighting and production 3% above guidance. Looking to our tieback projects in the Q3, we will focus on completing the Murphy-operated Dalmatian number one well before moving to spud the Marmalard number three development well late in the quarter. Additionally, our operating partners continue to progress the St. Malo waterflood and Terra Nova projects. Slide 14. Murphy recently received final approval on our field development plan for the Lac Da Vang field in Block 15-1/05 in Vietnam. This is a discovered field with multiple penetrations and well tests, and we estimate 80-100 million barrels of oil equivalent gross resource. Murphy will continue to advance the field development plan ahead of final project sanctioning later this year.
We also look forward to additional future exploration within this block, as there are multiple prospects that we find attractive. With that, I will turn it back to Roger.
Tom Morales (EVP and CFO)
Thank you, Eric. On slide 16, we recently expanded our exploration focus by signing production sharing contracts to secure working interests as operator in 5 exploration blocks for new country entry in Côte d'Ivoire. We'll initially hold 85%-90% working interest, with PETROCI holding the remaining working interest in each block. It's important to note we have no well commitments in the initial 2-year exploration phase, which provides us the time to conduct proper geophysical studies over the blocks. Côte d'Ivoire is adjacent to Ghana.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
... which has a large successful Jubilee field, as well as a sizable TEN development. In comparison, on the eastern side of Côte d'Ivoire, is a discovery called Baleine, which is operated by Eni, and considered the largest discovery in the country, as well as one of the largest discoveries in industry in recent years. Shifting west to our acreage in CI-102, has a shallow water historic type opportunities. Just to the south in block CI-531, we have a lookalike structure to the Baleine field operated by Eni, which is a carbonate discovery, which is a different type of opportunity for Murphy. In CI-103, we hold a long-term undeveloped discovery called Paon, which is appraised with multiple wells by a previous operator, as well as the agreement on the block.
We've committed to submitting a viable field development plan by the end of 2025. In CI-709, which is a large block with multiple geologic features similar to Jubilee. Overall, this is a very exciting new entry for Murphy. We look forward to the exploration opportunities and will highlight our unique operational abilities. On slide 17, we completed the Jubilee Chinook number 7 exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico during the quarter and encountered non-commercial hydrocarbons. Murphy plugged and abandoned the well and expensed $54 million of net dry hole costs in the quarter. Late in the Q3, we plan to resume drilling of the Murphy-operated Oso exploration well in Gulf of Mexico after temporarily suspending drilling earlier this year.
On slide 19, for the quarter, we forecast production of 188,000-196,000 barrels equivalent per day, with 99,000 barrels of oil per day. This range includes assumed Gulf of Mexico storm downtime of some 4,600 barrels equivalents per day, as well as a total operated planned downtime of 2,900 barrels of oil equivalent per day. In the Q3, we forecast accrued CapEx of $215 million, excluding acquisition-related costs. For the full year 2023, we're raising our production guidance to 180,000-186,000 barrels equivalent per day, which represents a 3,500 barrel per day increase to the midpoint. We forecast producing 53% oil and 59% liquids in this range.
Additionally, we're tightening our accrued CapEx guidance with a new range of $950 million- $1.025 billion, excluding $45 million of acquisition, acquisition-related costs. We remain confident in delivering an 8% oil volume growth and 10% production growth over full year 2022 with lower capital spending. On slide 20, Murphy has a multi-tier capital allocation framework that allows for additional shareholder returns beyond the quarterly dividend, while advancing toward a long-term debt target of $1 billion. Our board has authorized an initial $300 million share repurchase program, allowing Murphy to repurchase shares through a variety of methods with no time limit. As of today, we've not yet execute, executed any repurchases under this authorization.
Since we first announced the capital allocation framework one year ago, I'm pleased that we've returned an additional $15 million annually to shareholders through the quarterly dividend increase of $0.00275 per share, as well as paid down nearly $500 million of debt. I look forward to progressing Murphy 2.0 with the proceeds from the transaction we announced today, and further rewarding our long-term shareholders in the quarters to come. Slide 21, as we continue our strategy to delever, execute, explore, and return, we remain focused on reducing debt with adjusted free cash flow. Approximately 40% of operating cash flow is forecast to be invested annually through 2025.
We forecast maintaining an average 55% oil weighting, with production average 195,000 equivalents per day, representing a combined annual growth rate of 8% through 2025, while also supporting a targeted exploration program. As part of this plan, offshore production will maintain an average of 90,000-100,000 barrels equivalent per day. Longer term, we're focused on maintaining sustainable business, targeting investment-grade metrics. Average annual production is forecast at approximately 210,000 barrels equivalent per day, with 53% oil weighting. Our ongoing reinvestment of approximately 40% of operating cash flow results in ample adjusted free cash flow generation, which we use to fund further debt reductions in our capital allocation framework and enhance total shareholder returns, in addition to funding high-returning investment opportunities.
On slide 22, looking at the H2 of the year with our capital program declining, upcoming proceeds from our onshore Canadian divestiture announced today, and current oil prices, we're focused on achieving our $500 million debt reduction goal and enhancing shareholder returns through buybacks as we advance Murphy 2.0 of our capital allocation framework. We look to continue our high-quality execution ability as we complete our onshore well delivery program for the year, while also improving base production declines and maintaining high uptime across our portfolio. Ultimately, it's important to send everyone home at the end of the day, and we're able to achieve this through a strong, ongoing safety culture. We have one remaining operated exploration well in 2023 program. We'll resume Oso drilling late in the 3rd quarter.
Lastly, I'm proud of our two recent announcements of receiving the Lac Da Vang field development plan approval and signing new PSCs in Côte d'Ivoire. We have a long history of successfully executing projects while delivering on our free cash flow conventional business. These opportunities will add to our longevity, both in the near term with Vietnam and longer, with exploring and possible development plan off the west coast of Africa. I'd to close our call today by thanking our outstanding employees for this great quarter we had and their ongoing dedication to Murphy. It takes every level of the organization to achieve this success. I appreciate every one of you. Now I'll turn it back to the operator for our calls. I appreciate you listening to our prepared remarks this morning.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the star key, followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to cancel your request, you may press star two. Please ensure you lift your handset if you're using a speakerphone before pressing any numbers. Once again, to ask a question, star one on your touchtone phone. The first question we have in the queue today is going to be coming from Bert Donas one second.
Speaker 12
Hey, good morning.
Operator (participant)
With-
Speaker 12
Roger. Oh, yep, go ahead, operator.
Operator (participant)
Go ahead, sir.
Speaker 12
Hello, sorry.
Operator (participant)
I was just going to say you were through. Go ahead.
Speaker 12
All right. Thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to, you know, first of all, it was, it was stronger free cash flow than we were expecting in, in 2Q. Just trying to square away, you know, where the, the rest of the year, get the calculation works. Is there still... I think I did the math right, maybe $15 million of acquisitions for the international side, and then maybe $10 million for the Gulf of Mexico lease sale, and, and I think all the contingency payments are gone. Is there any other, you know, math in the background that we should be netting against our, our free cash flow estimates to determine, you know, the Murphy 2.0 framework?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Well, thanks for that question. Really good question. I think the way to feel about show that is today we've announced that our, our capital for the year is tightening range. Then on top of that, we have $45 million of additional new business, if you will, that were never in our plans, such as achieving field development Vietnam and signing the new blocks in Cote d'Ivoire, which includes seismic and other activity. That would be on top of the range of our CapEx, is the way to think about it, to take what we spent to date and have that remaining for the rest of the year, of which about a third to a half of that money has been spent so far on the acquisition expenses. That's the way to think about the total cash flow for the year.
We really don't break out the Côte d'Ivoire and the Vietnam due to, you know, privacy around what we, we have. We're real proud of the deals that we have, so we're not breaking out what's what, but that's the way to think about our capital spending for the rest of the year.
Speaker 12
Okay. Does the Canadian divestiture count towards that calculation, or it just moves you closer to kind of the Murphy, you know, 2.0, 3.0 situation?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Oh, thank you for that. That's a really good point. In how we're assuming this year is we're bringing that money in. It's in CAD. We convert it to U.S. dollars, transported home when needed, and it too will be shared 75/25 through debt and paid down debt and buyback, and just come in. If you think about it, really what's happening here is if you take the acquisitions and add on to our new midpoint, the Canadian proceeds easily handles that, and we're back square in our debt reduction goal and our debt pay down, our debt pay down goal, as well as buying back stock. We're very excited about that and lower capital spending in the rest of the year.
It's, it's in the framework, if you will, as free cash flow to allow for the extra money spent on non-planned new businesses in Africa and Vietnam. That's how we're thinking about it.
Speaker 12
That's, that's a great way to think about it. Then just to follow up on the Canadian sale, is that all that you guys are looking to sale? Was that opportunistic or, you know, is there any other parts of your maybe non-core positions that you're looking to let go?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Again, a really good question. I'm glad you pointed that out early in the call. You know, we have a lot of assets. We have a lot of very high-quality onshore, oil-weighted assets, and also an incredible Montney position. You see from Eric's comment today how great the Montney is doing with 21 million IP30s. This competes with any gas play in North America. On the oil side, we all know that we have a lower volume growth business in onshore, and we have ample locations, and this was also a very good offer. This is a very good offer if you think about little over $100 million US, taking away only 5 million barrels of reserves. You think about the production today at only 39% oil.
You think about how much per flowing barrel that is, how much per acre it is, how much locations. It's an incredible offer that we needed to, to take, because we still have 488 locations to go in, in Canada, and they're all weighted at 70% oil, which is just slightly below the Eagle Ford, but the NGL in that region is double the price of NGL in, in Texas. These wells are going to be drilled in the 2040s, and we sold them for a really good price to an operator that wants to invest there. We're very happy about it, but we're not for sale there. As we have aging non-core locations and people want to really pay that for us, we'll take that money and transpose it into things such as, think about Côte d'Ivoire.
We have unreal cost entry into many blocks with new opportunities, including a very large opportunity. We have a possible development in Vietnam. I mean, a development in Côte d'Ivoire, and in Vietnam, we have a development and exploration there. We're able to move our business around and take long-used onshore locations forward in cash, invest into something where we have great competitive advantage in offshore execution.
Speaker 12
That, that's a great update, Roger. Thanks.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question in the queue comes from Tim Rezvan with KeyBanc. Your line is open.
Tim Rezvan (Managing Director and Senior Equitty Research Analyst)
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I was hoping to, to dig in a little deeper on, on Vietnam. I was wondering if you could provide more specificity on the steps towards sanctioning by year-end. Then if you could maybe give a bigger, big picture overview, where you stand today, you know, how you think this asset, you know, could possibly hit first production in 2025, and how we can expect a ramp. Just, just sort of updated thoughts based on the latest news. Thanks.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks for that question, Tim, and thanks for new coverage on Murphy and calling into our call today. Appreciate that. Vietnam's been around our business for a long time. We have, through COVID and through our reduction in capital, have some things that's been on the sidelines a bit. The key change here is that PetroVietnam, which is also our partner, decided to approve our field development plan, which has been submitted for some time. We see this as a 80 million-100 million barrel type opportunity. It's been well tested. It's very well organized and planned. We have a detailed field development plan that we've had for a while.
What's going on now is we would rebid all the services there, such as drilling and building other facilities, and then seek to check the economics of that again, reaffirm that, go to our board with that sometimes either in October or December meetings. Then we would probably not have first oil there till 2026. We want to work the project into really late early 2025, if you will, so we can have ample returns to our shareholders through our framework, which is a key, key focus for us. It's a not a very expensive development or a difficult development, something we have a long history of doing in shallow water, Malaysia, where we built a large business. Also, key in Vietnam is we have two very nice exploration opportunities.
We actually have more than that, but we're drilling probably two next year that can enhance and make this into a business. Our goal is to make this into a 30,000-40,000 barrel a day business net to Murphy. In Vietnam, we should have the exploration, lower risk opportunities in the field to do that, looking forward to executing on that.
Tim Rezvan (Managing Director and Senior Equitty Research Analyst)
Okay, I, I appreciate that context. That, that's helpful. If we could take a follow-up on the Murphy 2.0 framework. You have 2025 notes callable par in mid-August, and I know there's some asset sales, not sure on the repatriation status of that. As you think about retiring debt, how do you measure, you know, getting debt retired, you know, as soon as possible, you know, versus waiting to call debt at par? Because your 2027s and 2028s, you know, have call- are callable to slight premiums, you know, out over the next kind of, you know, 1 to 2 years. Just curious on your thoughts on when and how you will, you know, look to officially get that debt retired. Thank you.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Tim, Tim, I'm gonna let Tom, our CFO, handle that for you.
Tom Morales (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Roger. Thanks, Tim. Yeah, generally, the way we think about it, we balance all those factors, you know, whether it's the maturity date or, or how the notes are trading, you know, and decide, are we gonna go with calling or, or maybe, you know, open market or, or tendering. As we look at, you know, getting into Murphy 2.0 H2 of this year, as you point out, we've got those 25s. Those will be, you know, able to call at par just later this month, and so we'll probably focus on those initially. But if you look at the overall goal of us getting to $1 billion, you know, that's another $800 million that, of debt reduction.
between the 27s and, the 25s and 27s, that's, that's about that amount that, that's callable today. 25 is being close to calling them at par soon. That's how we're thinking about it. we think, you know, to get to our $1 billion target, we can, we can take that, that, that path.
Tim Rezvan (Managing Director and Senior Equitty Research Analyst)
Okay. I appreciate the response. Yeah, thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question in the queue comes from Devin McDermott with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.
Devin McDermott (Managing Director)
Hey, good morning.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Hey, Devin, good morning.
Devin McDermott (Managing Director)
Hey, Roger. I wanted to ask on some of the exploration opportunities first, and specifically on, on Côte d'Ivoire. It seems like there, there's two kind of parallel processes here. One is the Poulon discovery and submitting a development plan for that, and the second would be the seismic acquisition and evaluation of that for the remaining blocks. Could you just walk us through each of those? For the development plan, what you would need to see ultimately for development to proceed there, and then similarly, the timeline of the seismic acquisition and when you think about potentially drilling any exploration wells on, on the, the other blocks there.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks so much, Devin, for that focus on that. It's a very good opportunity for us to kind of. This opportunity fits a real bill for us, a need for more exploration, exploration near success, different play types than we have. What is our real bread and butter is prior discovered resources of other operators, where we turn those into very successful developments with our deepwater ability. It is a two-pronged process on Paon. This is a discovery made by Anadarko a few years ago. There were ample, Googleable, that's a word I just made up, things you can look up about Paon and flow rates and different operators. We're just getting our hands on that data, just barely getting our hands on it.
We believe it should work there, but it will require commercial terms around gas and ultimately leading to power generation in the country. We won't be part of that process. It'll depend on the gas commercial rate. Obviously, the country here wants us to have a viable field development plan, their words. For it to be viable, there'll have to be a price that we can make the type of returns that were needed with all the different aspects we have in our company. That's one process, well put by you. We have a team working on that, our King's Quay team, our development team under Eric, and managing that. Then we have working the seismic. The seismic's been shot. There's 3D seismic owned by the government throughout all the area.
It doesn't have to be shot from scratch. There'll be some modernization of that seismic through reprocessing that will be ongoing. In a few months here, we'll be receiving that data in and have ample time to make our decisions about drilling. We're real excited to have a lookalike to the major field to our east. There's a very nice prospect in CI-502. There's shallow water in CI-102 that would be similar to what we have in Vietnam, and we're successful in shallow water Malaysia, and many prospects in CI-709. There's been oil and different things discovered here. It's always good to get a new data set and look forward, but really like this because we have a possible development with exploration.
On the other side, in Vietnam, we have exploration with the development, and then we're transposing older to-be-done Canada today to get into those two opportunities and go forward with our real expertise, which is offshore development.
Devin McDermott (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks, Roger. Helpful detail. I wanted to shift over, sticking with offshore, but to the Gulf of Mexico. If we look at, your plans here over the next few quarters, you have a series of tiebacks through the back half of this year and early 2024, kind of concluding with St. Malo and Lucius. After that, do you have further tieback opportunities or development opportunities that you're evaluating now for 2024? Can you kind of put this all together for us as you think about the cadence and outlook for production into next year and investment next year in the Gulf of Mexico?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
I'm going to have Eric walk you through that, Devin.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Thanks. Thanks, Devin. It's always nice to talk about our plans here in the Gulf of Mexico. We, as you may have noticed, we've done a really tremendous job with our King's Quay development, with the Khaleesi Mormont Samurai fields. We have highlighted on previous calls and discussion that with the performance that we saw from the fields in the first year or so, we were expecting that that field development would remain on a plateau production of around 30,000 net BOE per day, well into 2025. Of recently, we've been producing those fields closer to 40,000 net BOE per day. If we continue to maintain those type of rates, then the plateau period may shorten up just a bit.
In conjunction with the normal type of development of that field, we're monitoring the field performance and then evaluating other opportunities for further development. At this time, we're looking at potentially a number of future wells or zone change workovers in the Khaleesi Mormont Samurai field that would extend that plateau. We haven't formed a budget yet for 2024, but we're evaluating those things and likely to have a well or 2 in that area show up. As you pointed out, we're getting on to the Dalmatian, DC-90 number one well here, in this quarter, Q3, and then we'll have a Marmalard 3 well. As you move into 2024, early, we'll have some Lucius non-operated wells come online. The St.
Malo waterflood project, the remaining scope there is to complete two previously drilled injectors and install facilities related to water injection, and should see water injection by late in 2024, which will support flattening and potentially increasing volumes from St. Malo for years to come. Quite a bit going on there. As always, we, we continue to work through our portfolio with excellent subsurface work and by our teams and try to identify any other opportunities we may have in the Gulf of Mexico. We're likely to see those continue to have tieback or new well opportunities, you know, 1, 2, 3 a year for the foreseeable future, which is why we have communicated sort of a long-range view of maintaining our offshore oil volumes pretty steady out for the next 5 or 6 years.
Devin McDermott (Managing Director)
Great. Thank you.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks, Devin. Appreciate the call.
Operator (participant)
The next question in the queue comes from Leo Mariani with Roth MKM. Your line is open.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Morning. Good morning, Leo.
Leo Mariani (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, everyone. was hoping to drill down a little bit more on, on sort of the, the share buybacks here. I guess that's something you guys announced a while back. as you've obviously pointed out, you've got lower CapEx in the H2, you know, of the year, and production, you know, is higher here. you know, you, you haven't done anything yet, but it sounds like maybe this is something that we should expect in the near future. I would imagine that the blackout period on that might be over, maybe as soon as, as tomorrow. are you guys kind of prepared to start to get after the share buyback here, given that we're kind of a month into the H2 of the year?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Yes, we are, Leo. We're very excited about doing that, and you framed exactly what we were talking to our board about just this week, and our formula is working. The Canadian proceeds closing will enhance it and get us back, as we've said a lot this morning, I appreciate the calls from everyone. It's really a movement of some older locations forward and into Côte d'Ivoire with the development and into Vietnam with the development plus exploration. We're very excited about returning to shareholders. We've been a major dividend player across our history. We've doubled our dividend in the last couple of years, and now we're ready to execute share buybacks as we feel our shares are undervalued.
They'll look forward to doing that throughout the year. There'll be open periods. Tom and his team are working on various ways of executing buybacks. We see it from peers. We'll be able to do it too. We look forward to doing it, and really are setting up. We have strong production this quarter, some of the highest guided oil maybe we've had in I don't know when. The highest Q3 production forecast we've ever had with hurricane season in a long time. Capital decreasing, capital decreasing significantly, abandonments behind us, contingent payments behind us. We're looking forward to a real strong H2 of the year of rewarding shareholders at Murphy.
Leo Mariani (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, that's helpful. Just wanted to turn to the exploration side here. I guess you're getting ready to spud redrill Oso in the near future. Just want to get a sense if you guys have a kind of an estimate of, you know, how, how long it'll take once you kind of start redrilling. Is that a kind of a couple months to decision? Looking at 2024 in exploration, you did mention two wells in Vietnam. Also, should we be expecting anything else next year on the exploration front? Maybe a, you know, another well in the Gulf. I think I've heard you guys say in the past that probably don't drill anything else in, in Brazil or Mexico in 2024.
just wanted to get a high-level sense of what could be on the docket, exploration-wise in the next, you know, 18 months here.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
It's a 2-part answer. I'm going to let Eric handle the drilling. His team, he manages the drilling at the company. He'll talk about the Oso timing. I'll talk about the 2024 plans.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Yeah, thanks very much. On the Oso, just to clarify, we're not redrilling the well. We're going back to drill the well, with some enhanced equipment, a managed pressure drilling system, which will allow us to drill the bottom section of the well, but we're reusing a lot of the well we've already drilled. I just wanted to clarify, it's not, not a complete redrill. We're going to start that work in Q3, and we should have complete that activity kind of by the middle of the Q4.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Okay. As to the rest of our program, yeah, we're going to be. We're looking to drill 2 wells in Vietnam. We do not have our budget prepared, do not have it approved by our board. Likely to do that. I would imagine we would drill 2 wells in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not sure they're working interest. We have ample opportunities. We have opportunities with some other partners. So we'll probably have a, you know, 4-well program, 2 wells in the Gulf, 2 in Vietnam, and that would probably do it. ‘Cause again, we're trying to honor our framework at the end of the deck, our capital at the end of the deck.
We want to, as you just asked, get to buying back stock and rewarding our shareholders while we're undervalued, and we're interested in that too. That's kind of what we're thinking about that, Leo. Thank you.
Leo Mariani (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, now that, that's helpful. It sounds like probably nothing on the docket for Brazil or Mexico in 2024?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
No, sir.
Leo Mariani (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question in the queue comes from Arun Jayaram with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Arun Jayaram (Research Analyst)
Hey, Roger. I wanted to get some thoughts or details on your technical team and, and what type of experience does your team have in working in West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, and maybe just give us some insights on how the exploration team is, is situated here in, in at, at Murphy in Houston?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Oh, thanks, Arun, for that question. You know, we've worked everywhere in the world. We had a, years ago, a business in Gabon. We had a, a development, a very unique development in Democratic Republic of Congo. All of our executive team have worked internationally. Murphy's an international player. This is a far easier drilling than an Oso well, much shallower, much more simple execution. We've executed wells like that, you know, throughout the world. We have a, a technical team on the drilling side that's greatly experienced internationally, and then our development. Development is a development. This is around the same water depth as King's Quay. This isn't very anything difficult for us. On the exploration side, naturally, a, a major company like Anadarko is a very successful exploration company and a great company.
There are personnel from Anadarko that work in different other offshore entities today, including Murphy. We have a very experienced team, both through exploration and, of course, executive management and our development team that's very experienced working internationally. Tom, Eric, and I have lived and worked and traveled internationally our entire careers, so this is really just not really much to the execution for us, Arun. We're greatly experienced and able to execute globally on just about anything in the ocean. I, I can't think of a thing we can't do in the ocean.
Arun Jayaram (Research Analyst)
Great. Roger, one housekeeping question. It's a good quarter for you guys. We did note that you tweaked your oil, growth year over year to 8% from 10%. Is that conservatism? I just want to get some thoughts on what, what, on what drove that variance.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Well, I'm not going to be quote on conservatism. I have my EVP of Operations today here with me, only beat guidance by 7,000 a day this quarter. I wouldn't say he's conservative. I think what's going on here, it's kind of, we're doing extremely well, and our guidance is very strong for hurricane season. We are a very big Gulf of Mexico player. We all know that. I would think of that as a positive. We've had some operational matters at Dalmatian throughout the year. We've also covered that up with some really incredible performances. Early in the call, Eric mentioned our strong plateau rates at King's Quay, and Eagle Ford is doing extremely well.
So we've had some issues there, and we're going to need to get this well online to help that field produce better, if you will. That's caused a loss. We put on our onshore wells early than planned, and they're doing extremely well. When they come on early and planned, you sort of overproduce at the end, and then they decline toward the end because we're a front-loaded capital company to have more returns for our shareholders with less capital at the end of the year. We're also being helped by great oil prices today. That's what's going on. We have Terra Nova, basically, hardly anything flowing, so it's hopeful to flow there. We're doing extremely well this month. Any kind of help on hurricane season or Dalmatian's a great well that we drilled 1 year ago.
Our team's already executing that well. I think we can still get back to where we were, but felt that this was the proper guidance today and be sort of a reckoning, if you will, in our production post-hurricane season at our next quarter, and the sale of the assets that we're making today, get all that going. We're doing extremely well today, incredible high rates at this time. I'm super pleased with Eric's team on that, and I think it's just a little conservatism to what we have today, but we have ample ability to cover it up and get back to where we were last quarter. I'm quite pleased how we're headed.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Great. Thanks, Roger.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
No, thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
The next question in the queue comes from Charles Meade with Johnson Rice. Please proceed.
Charles Meade (Research Analyst and Member)
Good morning, Roger, to you and the Murphy team there.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks, Charles.
Charles Meade (Research Analyst and Member)
Roger, there's been a lot of talk about service costs going up in the offshore, and I think that's more or less, at least the talk is that's happening, worldwide. I wondered if you can talk a bit about whether you're seeing that or whether you've seen that, the degree to which you've seen it so far, and what is how much, how much service cost increases are contemplated in your, in your current forecast, either for the back half of 2023 or 2024? I'm wondering if perhaps that is one of the big contributors or maybe even the main contributor to you raising the low end of CapEx guidance for the year.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Eric's a little closer to that. Charles, I'm going to let him walk you through that.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Thanks, Charles. Charles, we're in a pretty good position relative to offshore cost right now. In the H1 of this year, we were working a rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was at a rate significantly below market in the $300,000 per day type range. The market's probably in the $450-ish range per day, and we were fortunate enough to lock in rig slots to conduct our planned activity well into 2025. Into early 2025, we, we have locked in rig rates at a little bit below what is kind of current market rate. You have that going on, which is really helping us not see inflation beyond what we'd expected well, well into 2025. There are some other cost pressures, as you can imagine, in the industry.
Casing costs sometimes are moving up and down. We monitor that pretty carefully. That's a big thing for us. And other, other related services to executing our program are pretty minor. You really look at the rig, and the casing costs are driving most of the cost. So relative to a lot of people, we're feeling really good about our positioning on our costs offshore through 2024. Beyond that, we'll be exposed to market type of rates. So for our planned activities in 2025, or at least the last half of 25, we'll, we'll have to see how the market's looking on, on rig rates and kind of be exposed like everybody else would in the industry.
Charles Meade (Research Analyst and Member)
Got it. That's helpful detail. Thank you. Then, if we could go back to the Oso well, Roger, when I look at the, I think your mean resource for that is, it is 150 MBOE, and that, that strikes me as pretty big these days for a single well in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you talk a little bit about what about the, the nature of that target or maybe possibly targets in, in that well and, and how risky you see that, that, you know, your risk of success, of success there?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks, Charles. A real good question. Yeah, it's a very large prospect, one of the larger ones being drilled. This is a classic Miocene play up against salt. Years ago, Chevron drilled this prospect and never reached the objective due to hitting salt prematurely. The seismic has been reprocessed in that area, and we feel like we have the prospect now going up against salt with all the major typical Miocene fields in that area. This has been a bit of an under-drilled area in the Gulf. There are ample structure here. This is not a lot of infrastructure here as people got back close to platforms to drill, if you will. This is also a very competitive place in the last lease sale. We picked up some leases here under severe competition, with Chevron coming in here.
We also have a great partner in our, in our well, in Oxy, who back in the Gulf, very strong and a very successful private equity company who's on the lease with us since day one. Very excited about the well. It's not a simple well to drill. There's also a new seismic data set, OBN-type data being shot through this region, right on top of the well. That tells you the industry is greatly interested in the area, the lease sale was greatly interested, and we have a key prospect up in the middle of it. We're excited to drill the well. It's a big well. It's not a low-risk well, but it's the new thing to drill, and we're happy to have a lease in it. We're happy to pick up some more in it.
We're happy to see everyone come get around us there, which means we're onto the right thing, and we have a great partner with Vicki at Oxy, and we like working with them. A great PE partner that's very successful. We're very excited about the well and getting back to it.
Charles Meade (Research Analyst and Member)
kind of a classic, you know, 3-way up against salt with chance to, to stack up a few sands?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
That's correct. We also have a very nearby prospect called Rushmore that would de-risk that, offsetting an area where Chevron found some pay years ago, reallocated to other parts of the Gulf. A good follow-on prospect there and new leasing in the area, and it could be a new hub in the Gulf. BP has a big prospect near here, and we're excited about this area.
Charles Meade (Research Analyst and Member)
Thanks for the detail, Roger.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
No, thank you. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
The next question in the queue comes from Josh Silverstein with UBS. Please proceed.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Morning, Josh. How you doing? Think you're muted there, Josh.
Josh Silverstein (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Oops, sorry. Yep, so the non-core exit of the Duvernay, a little bit of the Montney as well. Why not a full exit of the Duvernay if it's not been an area that's received a lot of capital, it's a little bit of infrastructure constraints, why not just look to exit the whole area? Thanks.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
We'll let Eric Hambly go through that. Eric Hambly likes the Duvernay. I do too.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Yeah, I, I do very much like the Duvernay. Josh, we did a really nice job with the Duvernay of conducting a program years ago of fully holding and appraising that asset. The part of the Duvernay that will remain, I have to say, we're really happy with the performance there from the well performance, as well as our ability to get our cost structure to be very competitive. The economics of those locations are quite strong. The way we think about Duvernay is, we are not in any kind of pressure to head out there and have activity just to have activity.
As we work through our Eagle Ford inventory and we get from the bulk of our Tier one locations in Eagle Ford behind us, the Duvernay really competes quite well with the rest of the Tier two and three types of Eagle Ford opportunities, and we'll end up shifting our focus or adding focus rather, to the Kaybob Duvernay, because the economics of those locations are really strong, and we've highlighted previously, in our slides, in our call, that we have a lot of years, 15 years of shale oil locations between Eagle Ford and Kaybob that break even under $40 a barrel.
This is a part of a long runway for us of maintaining our shale oil volumes and scale and diversity in our business, and we, we think of it as core, and we're really excited about the potential it has to contribute to our business for decades.
Josh Silverstein (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, that's helpful and a good segue to the next question, which is the Eagle Ford well performance has been really strong this year. You guys highlighted some of the Tilden wells. How are you guys thinking about capital allocation into the basin? Do you want to try to accelerate some of the activity levels next year? Because the performance has been pretty strong this year. Thanks.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Yeah, Josh, that's a great question. I always like to talk about our great well performance, so thanks for asking that. We've highlighted previously that we were pretty excited to try out our new enhanced completion style in Tilden. We had not, until the Q2 of 2023, had a Tilden well online since 2019. As we've, we've featured, we've done a lot of work on enhancing our completion design in Karnes and Catarina, and we put it to work here this year in Tilden with 2 4-well pads. That Chambers pad, we have more production performance data from it than Tyler, and it's showing just great performance. You know, doubling effectively our production rates on an IP30 basis. The other pad we saw pretty much in line with expectations, so overall, great results.
We still need to do a little work there to figure out how we can make every single Tilden well really great. We're really pleased with what we're seeing. When you think about a, you know, big picture Murphy, what we're trying to do, we don't really respond reactively to, you know, certain results from limited number of wells in one quarter and change our capital allocation. What we're trying to do with our Eagle Ford business is to maintain it flat in a 30,000-35,000 BOE per day, net to Murphy range for the near term, and use cash flow generated from the asset to follow our framework, to delever, execute, explore, and return value to shareholders through the form of share repurchases and dividend and debt reduction.
That's what we're kind of going to stick to as we work to come up with our 2024 budget. I would imagine similar type of level of activity in Eagle Ford as we've had in the last couple of years.
Josh Silverstein (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks, guys.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Appreciate the question. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. The next question in the queue comes from Roger Read with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Good morning, Roger. How you been?
Roger Read (Managing Director, Senior Energy Analyst)
Hey, good. Hope everybody's doing well there. At least it was a good quarter.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Doing well.
Josh Silverstein (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, really good.
Roger Read (Managing Director, Senior Energy Analyst)
Yeah, I'd just like to maybe come back on kind of two things that have been hit. One, in terms of the debt paydown and, and making sure that you don't, you know, overpay for, for early retirement. Is it safe to assume that you'll build cash on the balance sheet in advance, and that, that should be something we would anticipate? I'm just thinking, you know, if commodity prices stay a little higher, you're able to, to generate more free cash. Is that the right way to think about things?
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
We'll let Tom walk you through that. Roger, he's real close to that.
Eric Hambly (EVP of Operations)
Yeah, Roger, thanks for that. The way we're thinking about it is, you know, we, we have this priority to hit our debt targets.
Tom Morales (EVP and CFO)
We have these annual targets, so how we execute it quarter, through the quarter will, may vary. We are going to be focused on reducing that debt, and, you know, it'll probably be more weighted towards the Q4 as we start building up, you know, more adjusted free cash flow. We'll, we'll try to get some done this quarter as well. As, as we mentioned earlier, those 25s are, are, are trading at, at par here, just a few more weeks, and we'll probably focus on taking those out. Between the debt and the, and the share repurchase, again, those are annual targets, and so we'll try to do that as efficiently as possible.
You know, how that weights within the quarter, may vary a little bit, but, that's, that's the, the thing that Roger and I will be focusing on with our board is, is to try to do that as efficiently as possible.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Yeah. One add on to that, Roger. What we really try to do is if we can catch some dislocation, like I think some of our peers are doing, we're monitoring the various ways. We may do a little bit ahead of the, of the repurchase in some quarter over another and have the year add out perfectly to the formula. Also of note, right at the end of the year, the debt target of the 2027 notes reduces. I mean, the, the, the purchasing of price. It might be hard to execute that right at the end of the year. We're monitoring all that and the math on interest expense as to the call price, and Tom's team's greatly focused on that.
What we're really excited about is being in a position with lower CapEx, no more contingent payments, incredible production, and higher oil prices, is those are all good things to solve. That's a really good meeting to have of how we're going to spend all our free cash flow, and that's the meeting we've been looking for for a year, and we're, we're there today.
Roger Read (Managing Director, Senior Energy Analyst)
Okay, thanks for that. I'm trying to think of the right way to sum up this question, but as we think about Murphy as an exploration company, and you mentioned, you know, in some areas, maybe a little more competition in trying to get to the right blocks. There's also some areas that you're not in that seem to be super high, high profile, I think, in some parts of West Africa and South America. As you're looking at the areas that you're focused on, do you get the feeling that the opportunities are there and not too competitive, given that, you know, some others are maybe a little too focused on, like I said, the high-profile things that are going on?
I was just wondering if you kind of think about how we've progressed maybe over the last several quarters or last couple of years in terms of your opportunity to get, you know, the, the exploration blocks that you want.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thanks for that question, Roger. We're an active global explorer in the past, a lot more than we are now. We try to keep it into less countries. We try to work in places where we can primarily work here in Houston. We have some criteria, that we look at. We also like to have places where we can do some possible development work of prior discoveries. We're not a super major in that regard. Not interested really in East Coast Canada. Wells are too expensive for us. There's some success offshore in Namibia that's gone for a long time and enormous expense on seismic and wells. That's not really our focus. We're very well known globally for our ability to execute and compete, if you will, with super majors.
Occasionally, countries want a different type of a, of a partner, and, we're actively reviewing that, and, we're real happy about. These are two very large additions we have here with now with our field, excuse me, our field development, Vietnam, allowing us to execute many opportunities there. We didn't want to execute our drilling there till we had our field development plan approved. That suddenly came forward. That's changing. Côte d'Ivoire is a very big, large acreage area. We've been working on that for a very long time. We're, we're not out in some big global hunt for more exploration acreage. We monitor and know about everything globally, because, again, we're trying to walk our way through our lower growth, high return back to shareholder business.
As again, getting this debt paid down, which is, you just asked Tom about that, we're well positioned toward that more than going out and looking at very expensive country entry at this time.
Roger Read (Managing Director, Senior Energy Analyst)
All right, appreciate it. Thanks.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Thank you, Roger. Take care.
Operator (participant)
We have no further questions.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Okay, we.
Operator (participant)
in the queue. I'll turn the call back over to you, Mr. Jenkins. Please proceed.
Roger Jenkins (President and CEO)
Okay, thank you. Had a real good call today. Again, thanks to everyone focusing on the, the key questions about how we add shareholder value. We had a very good quarter, anticipating another one coming up and getting to our framework. Thank you, everyone, for participating today, and see everyone soon. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude your teleconference. Please disconnect.