Good morning, and welcome to the Chesapeake Energy's Corporation first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brad Sylvester. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Andrea, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today to discuss Expand Energy's first quarter 2022 financial and operating results. Hopefully, you've had a chance to review our press release and the updated investor presentation that we posted to our website yesterday. During this morning's call, we'll be making forward-looking statements which consist of statements that cannot be confirmed by reference to existing information, including statements regarding our beliefs, goals, expectations, forecasts, projections, and future performance, and the assumptions underlying such statements. Please note that there are a number of factors that will cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, including the factors identified and discussed in our press release yesterday and in other SEC filings.
Please recognize that except as required by applicable law, we undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements. We may also refer to some non-GAAP financial measures which help facilitate comparisons across periods and with peers. For any non-GAAP measure we use, a reconciliation to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure can be found on our website. With me on the call this morning are Nick Dell'Osso, Mohit Singh, and Josh Viets. Nick will give a brief overview of our results, and then we will open the teleconference up for Q&A. With that, thank you again, and I will now turn the teleconference over to Nick.
Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining the call. We'll get to Q&A shortly, but first I wanna spend a couple minutes talking about where the industry sits today and how we're seeing the year unfold. We're off to a really strong start. In the Marcellus, we closed on Chief, and we're busy integrating these great assets. Our team is excited to unlock the value we saw in the acquisition, and we're encouraged about the early opportunities we see for further upside. In the Haynesville, we're through most of the significant elements of the integration, and the results are strong. Combining the expertise on the Vine team with ours, we just drilled the fastest intermediate section in our history in the basin. In the Eagle Ford, we restarted our program, and we continue to see outstanding returns and significant free cash flow.
Additionally, we also continued to lower our emissions profile, having completed over half of our pneumatic retrofit program, and we're well on our way to having our Marcellus assets join the Haynesville as independently certified responsibly sourced gas. The first quarter marks the first full period we've owned the Vine assets. We delivered $532 million in adjusted free cash flow in the quarter, setting a new quarterly record for Chesapeake Energy. As a result of this increase and the further uplift we expect following the close of Chief in March, we've increased the 2022 free cash flow outlook by $700 million, raising the midpoint of our range to $2.7 billion. We believe these transactions are great examples of how consolidation yields improved cost structures, capital efficiency, and most importantly, accreted free cash flow.
Given the depth of our inventory and its resiliency through commodity cycles, we expect to maintain this robust free cash flow profile for a very long time. Today, our free cash flow per share and free cash flow per debt adjusted share lead the peer group by a significant margin. With $10 billion in free cash flow anticipated over the next five years, a robust dividend combined with a large buyback program, we're poised to execute what we believe to be one of the most powerful cash return frameworks in the industry. Given these facts and the view that our stock remains significantly undervalued, we initiated our $1 billion share buyback program in the first quarter and expect to accelerate the pace of our buybacks as we file the final disclosures related to the Chief transaction this month.
Given the current valuation of our stock, it's certainly possible we will exhaust our $1 billion buyback authorization early and would then expect to seek board approval to increase the authorization and continue retiring our shares, which will further enhance our already leading free cash flow and cash dividend metrics per share. In addition to our initial progress on our repurchase program, our first quarter dividend payment reached $2.34 per common share, and our dividend yield currently sits around 10% for the full year 2022. If you include the share repurchase program, it reaches 14%. In total, at today's strip, we expect to pay over $7 billion in dividends over the next five years. I'd now like to switch gears and talk about the macro environment.
The war in Ukraine is horrible on every level, and we're eager to see an end to the invasion. We're also eager to help ensure the citizens of Europe, and by extension, the rest of the world, are not left without adequate energy resources should Russian supply see continued or even further interruptions. The natural question for U.S. producers is, will you grow to solve the problem? We consider our capital allocation strategy on an almost daily basis and are committed to maintaining our strong capital discipline. When we see opportunities to grow production and deliver supply to a market where it is needed and where we believe that demand is resilient and not temporary, we will consider growing into that demand. We continue to believe energy should be reliable, low carbon, and affordable.
We also believe that we have the inventory to deliver what is so desperately needed and have updated our inventory data in our slide deck for each of our basins to highlight the staying power of our portfolio, which spans decades at very low prices. In the near term, while prices in Europe are extremely high, they're also much higher than they need to be in the U.S. We do respond to these economic signals and have done so in our 2022 capital program. We're growing our Haynesville volumes approximately 10% year-over-year, adjusted for the Vine acquisition. As the market reliably expands, we will be ready to respond accordingly. We're investing in Eagle Ford again in 2022 after pausing through the pandemic, restarting our program at a logical pace as we redefine the appropriate development plan for this asset to maximize capital efficiency.
We're continuing to press for max volumes out of our Marcellus asset every day. As has been discussed at length by us and others, we're constrained by lack of pipeline access to underserved markets, particularly New England. Additionally, we continue to hold discussions with counterparties in the LNG export market, and we hope to increase our exposure as the market continues to develop around these very important projects. We market greater than 4.5 BCF of production every day, more than 2 BCF of which is immediately adjacent to the LNG complex in the Gulf Coast and is already independently certified as responsibly sourced gas. We've also proactively reached out to partners in midstream and downstream markets, as well as our government contacts to discuss the best ways to see supply increase in the U.S.
While we have not and will not ask the government for any financial support, we would like to see the legal and regulatory environment embrace the need for infrastructure to ensure we can provide reliable, affordable, lower carbon energy to limit energy poverty and blunt the impact our allies face when access to energy is used as a weapon. We're actively engaged in these discussions and hope to see a solution to the war, and by extension, the challenge of high energy prices soon. While no company can tackle this challenge alone, we recognize that policy changes will unquestionably be an important part of the equation, given the high prices Europe was experiencing prior to the Russian invasion. Our employees are united in the belief that together we can play a critical role in helping solve these challenges.
Importantly, with the quality of our assets, our people, and our balance sheet, we are able to achieve all the critical elements of reliable, low carbon, and affordable energy in a disciplined, returns-focused way to create a truly sustainable business. Operator, we'll now turn it over for Q&A.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Doug Leggate of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Nick.
Morning, Doug.
Thanks for taking my question. Nick, you'd be delighted to know I'm not gonna ask you about variable dividends this time. I would like to ask you to maybe elaborate on your comments around U.S. gas prices. We're all kinda trying to figure out how sustainable the long end of the curve is. You know, the dislocation between Europe and the U.S. is pretty obvious, but $8 gas is pretty surprising as well. You know, I'd love to get your perspective on that 'cause you sound like you're basically, forgive me, talking that down some. That's my first question. My second question, if I may, is I guess we can't ignore what happened yesterday with Kimmeridge. Presumably, you've had some discussions.
I'm just curious where you think the gap is between what you've done as a strategy so far. I guess asset sales, Eagle Ford is probably part of the discussion. Just offer any perspective that you can at this point to the extent that you can, and I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Sure. You know, let's talk about gas prices first, was your first question. You know, we you said we've talked them down a little bit. I think all we've pointed to with gas prices is that the prompt month prices are so far above breakevens for supply in the U.S. that we just don't expect that to be a persistent price environment. You know, the long end of the curve now has come up quite a bit, and for a couple of years will be above $4 on the curve. There's ample resources in this country to drive prices below $4 on the long end of the curve.
We think if you have really adequate infrastructure to deliver gas to all of the markets where it's needed, it should be back around $3 or maybe a little over $3 in this environment. Which means that, you know, the volatility on top of that, weather demand and things like that, it'll go below $3, sometimes above $3 other times, and maybe bounce as high as $4 and see some lower prices too. In general, we just see that the adequacy of supply with breakevens that are, you know, around that level should drive prices lower over time. Now, right now, we have all sorts of constraints in the market, and so it does make sense that prices are higher.
We all need to be thoughtful about how we manage our production in the face of those constraints. What we don't want to do is force production higher directly into those constraints where production can't get to the markets that is needed. You know, for example, if we increase production significantly into Marcellus, it's not going anywhere, so it's not gonna lower anybody's prices. That, that's not helpful. That won't create value for our shareholders, and we're not going to pursue that path. Those kinds of constraints, we think probably, particularly in the Marcellus, we think those will be sticky for a long time. Those constraints exist on a micro level in a lot of other places, whether they're access to services, equipment, access to pipelines. We think they're persistent at least in the near term.
Prices are gonna stay up for a bit, but ultimately, they should supply and demand forces will win out, and they'll come back down to a more reasonable level. That's really all that we're expressing there, is that we're not gonna change our strategy to a view that says, you know, 6 or 7 or 8, where we are on the prompt, is a more permanent price. That's just not consistent with how we see the world. Doug, you asked about the story yesterday that was out in the press around discussions with Kimmeridge. You know, I'll just note that we have a lot of discussions with shareholders, including Kimmeridge. We always welcome feedback from shareholders, and I don't think there's a big gap in how we all see the world.
I think we share Kimmeridge's view that our stock is undervalued. We've talked a lot about our Eagle Ford asset, and we have a great asset in the Eagle Ford. We currently produce 52,000 barrels of oil a day out of the Eagle Ford. We generate a lot of free cash flow out of that asset. Just in 2022 alone, we'll generate $1.2 billion of free cash flow out of the Eagle Ford before hedges. About $600 million after the effect of hedges. You know, we shut down the Eagle Ford program completely during the pandemic oil price collapse, and we just restarted it at the end of 2021. What we're doing in the field today, we think is going to add significant value to the asset for our shareholders.
We talked at the beginning of the year what we were trying to accomplish with that asset. We talked about how we wanna prove up the wider spacing in the Brazos Valley area, which will demonstrate the full cycle value of that asset. We also talked about delineating the Upper Austin Chalk in our legacy South Texas position. We're pretty encouraged by both of those things, and we want to, you know, have our heads down and execute on that because we think we're adding some good value here in the near term. Ultimately, we're gonna let the results of those programs, just as we've been saying, inform us on whether we think we can maximize the value of this asset through our development, or if we should maximize the value of the asset by selling it to someone else.
That's the way we think about all of our assets all the time. We're, you know, gonna have our heads down executing on this program in the near term, and we think we'll have results certainly in the second half of the year to talk about, and, you know, we're looking forward to that.
I appreciate the answers, Nick. Thanks so much.
The next question comes from Matt Portillo of TPH & Co. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Nick, maybe
Hi, Matt.
Just to touch on a comment you made, to start the call, given the discounted value you see in your share price and the strong free cash flow guide this year. Just curious, I guess, as we look at the guidance number at call it $2.7 billion of free cash flow plus the dividends, it still leaves about $1.5 billion of free cash for you to deploy. Just curious if you might be able to comment a bit on how you think about debt reduction versus accelerating the buyback program in light of the improved outlook?
Sure. It's a great question, Matt. We do have a lot of incremental free cash flow, as you've noted. We're pretty eager to get going on the buyback. We've been constrained with our disclosure requirements around the Chief asset. We haven't been cleared of MNPI. We will be very soon. Once we are, we expect to get going in earnest. We've been able to do a little bit during the quarter with some privately negotiated transactions, and that's been helpful. We're, you know, like I said, eager to do quite a bit more. On the debt reduction side, we have a little bit outstanding on our revolver today following the Chief transaction. We'll probably let that go back to zero. That'll happen in the normal course as we go through the year.
We don't really have a priority for debt reduction beyond that. I would call that, you know, it'll just happen as it happens. There's no urgency necessarily to achieving that by any certain date.
Perfect. Then as my follow-up question, just curious if you might be able to provide a little context and color on how you're thinking about marketing your gas in the Haynesville. We've seen a little bit of congestion causing basis to widen out a bit, but there's a lot of projects in the queue that might ultimately evacuate gas further south and opening up the door for stronger realizations as well as possibly tying in more volumes down the road into LNG opportunities. Just at a higher level, curious on your marketing strategy around the Haynesville moving forward and what we might expect from a news flow perspective over the next twelve months or so.
Yeah, great question. One of the things we're happy about today is there's all these projects that are being proposed and there's, you know, all of the new LNG facilities that'll be built over the next several years. At the moment, we're a bit of a free agent when it comes to where we deliver our gas. We have very little FT in the Haynesville, and so we have a lot of flexibility about how we think about where we're going to send that gas and what we're going to commit to. We talk about this a lot. I'll actually let Mohit talk to you a bit more about how we're thinking about it, but we're excited about what this represents.
Yeah, Matt, that's a good question. Good morning. This is Mohit. What I would say in addition to what Nick said is, obviously this is a rapidly evolving space, something that we are closely monitoring. The thing that gets us most excited is that, if you look at the demand growth for natural gas in the U.S., roughly three-fourths of that is going to come from the Gulf Coast market. Our competitive positioning because of the proximity to the Gulf Coast and to the LNG complex that resides therein is a competitive advantage that differentiates us. The other thing that we are very excited about, Nick referenced this earlier, is 100% of our gas that's coming from the Haynesville is RSG certified.
At some point, we think that will be another differentiator because, as you think of end users and offtakers that are looking to secure LNG supplies, having it be responsibly sourced will again also be a competitive advantage. We are very happy about where we sit. We are actively engaged in several different conversations. Don't want to front run that, but, more news to come on that front, hopefully.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Nicholas Pope of Seaport Research. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone.
Morning, Nick.
I was hoping you guys could go into a little depth. This is obviously the first quarter we've seen with the Chief acquisitions and trying to understand a little bit of the guidance. I think y'all said it was $800-$900 million acquired production. It doesn't seem like the guide for 2Q kinda fully reflects that volume uptick. I'm hoping you could explain kinda, I guess, what the goal is right now with Marcellus in terms of kinda maintaining production, where you think the maintenance level is with the new assets, and kinda where things are kinda post-acquisition on those volumes relative to kinda where acquisition volumes initially were expected.
Yeah. Good morning, Nick. This is Josh. I'll let me just add a little bit of color to that. You know, I think with the Chief acquisition, you know, we're of course just in the very beginnings of integrating that asset. I really feel like we're off to a great start with that. You know, we are. If we look at our well schedule, we're a little bit back-end loaded in the quarter. You know, for our gas assets, I think we'll have 40-45 wells, but 20 of those come in June. You know, definitely you will see a little bit of lumpiness to the production there. That may be something just to be thinking about in the model.
Maybe just a couple other things I'd point out. You know, we do have some planned third-party maintenance occurring within the quarter as well, so that's gonna bring down volumes just a little bit. Then maybe one of the more material movers, this really, you know, occurred right as we brought the assets into the portfolio. There was a pad that produces about 80 million cubic feet a day, so, you know, roughly 13,000 barrels a day of a net oil equivalent. We shut that pad in for tie-in ops reasons, and really it was just centered around, we didn't feel like we could manage the risk safely on the site with drilling and producing. That was a choice that we made, but that's all volume that's gonna come back into the system.
Got it. It sounds like this is fairly transient. Because I think you guys were growing production in Marcellus, and it just does not. It's not 800+ fourth quarter, which is just where my math, the simple math was on kinda Marcellus. It sounds like this is more transient in terms of where production levels are.
Yeah. That's what we're gonna expect for the year. I mean, you know, growing the asset obviously is challenging to do just with the lack of export out of the basin. We do expect to see a little bit of lumpiness between quarters, you know, as we move through the year.
Got it. That's all I had. I'll hop off for now. Thanks for the clarification.
The next question comes from Scott Hanold of RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks, all. Hey, just sort of on the, you know, the back of kind of the conversation around the gas macro. You know, I know you've all talked about your hedging program in the past underpinning your capital program. You know, if you do have a view that, you know, some of these prompt months and, you know, some of the forward months, you know, may be a little bit ahead of themselves, does that incentivize you to hedge a little bit more? Would you be opportunistic with hedging at all, or do you still just plan being a little bit more pragmatic with it?
I'll start this one, and then Mohit may have something else to add. You know, we're pretty well hedged for 2022, so we haven't been motivated to add a lot more here. We've been happy to see the bit that we have unhedged rise, and it's been obviously a big tailwind to our cash flows. For 2023, you can see the way we lay it out on our slide now, we put a bullet on there that tells you what we've added since the last disclosure. What we're doing now is a bunch of very wide collars. You know, we really feel good about those collars.
Some of the collars that we've done have been as wide for the full year of $4 by $10, which is, you know, pretty awesome spread to have access to a floor of $4 and a ceiling of $10. Go ahead, Mohit.
Yeah, no, I think the only thing I would add is you know, traditionally, a lot of these hedges that we had locked in at emergence, they were done through swaps. The SKUs on these collars have been so attractive that almost, I would say, on an exclusive basis going forward, what we are doing is trying to prefer these collars. As you can quickly figure out, I mean, it still gives you an exposure to the upside, but still protecting your downside, which is what we are trying to do. Pretty happy with what we've been tactically able to layer in with regards to the hedges.
Got it. Appreciate that. My follow-up, you mentioned in regards to the buybacks that some of those were privately negotiated. You know, obviously there is you know some I guess an you know overhang in some of the ownership you know in Chesapeake. Do you all see that as a opportunity to continue to utilize the buybacks you know to potentially do some more private negotiated deals? Can you just give us a little bit of color behind you know that and what you know and could say?
Sure. We won't comment on who we've negotiated with directly. We intended, when we put the buyback in place, to be ready if any of those large holders wanted to sell to make sure that there was no disruption in the trading dynamics of our stock in the market if there's a large chunk that wanted to sell. You know, one of the things that's been really interesting about the perceived overhang of the shareholders in our stock is that they're reasonably happy shareholders, from what we hear from them, and patient. We're generating great returns. The cash return elements, the pending buyback that can be accelerated now, all of these things point to a tremendous amount of upside in the stock.
I call it a perceived overhang because I think a number of these shareholders could be there for a while, but we're totally ready when any of them want to sell to be prepared to be a buyer. I think your sentiment is directionally correct. We're just not seeing demand for that today in any big size.
Yeah. Just out of curiosity, I mean, you obviously said they're happy shareholders, see a lot of upside optionality in the stock, and, you know, I think a lot of people think that too. Like, what do you think then is hanging up, you know, Chesapeake stock relative to its peers? Like, what do you think as a management team is something you need to address to get Chesapeake stock to move further higher?
Well, it's something that we talk about, you know, almost every day, Scott. I mean, I do think that perceived overhang is a challenge for some investors. I think they're, you know. If we had a little bit more turnover in the shareholder base, that would probably help. Again, I think of it as a perceived problem. You know, when I say our shareholders are happy, I think, I'm sure that they would all share our view that the stock is undervalued today. You know, we're all focused on how to drive this stock price higher and have it better represent the underlying value of the assets that we own. We think the buyback's gonna go a long way towards that.
We will be actively buying our stock, and if some of them want to sell, then great, they can sell it to us. If they wanna hold, then we'll buy from others in the market. We're eager to execute on that because at this point, that cash can go a long way towards retiring the share count, which is gonna make all of our per share metrics that we talked about earlier that much better and should really continue to highlight the value in the stock that should drive the share price higher. We're, you know, we're gonna continue to execute on our plan. We're gonna continue to push for the buyback, and we're pretty optimistic about what that will do for our share price.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Charles Meade of Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Nick and Mohit, and the rest of the Expand crew up there.
Morning, Charles.
I think I just have one question. It's about the Chief assets up in the Marcellus. When I look at that map of, you know, what Chief brings to the table next to your map, you know, that moves your center of gravity or extends you kind of northwest into more, I guess, central Bradford County. As you've, you know, spent some time with these assets, are you seeing anything different than what you expected as you move northwest, you know, kind of away from where your historic core has been?
Yeah. Good morning, Charles. This is Josh. Let me answer that for you. You know, I don't think so. You know, the rocks will vary a little bit, but you know, this is extremely you know, strong reservoirs with you know, unbelievable deliverability, which result in great returns. You know, we do think there's some opportunities you know, to make the asset better. A couple things that you know, we're specifically looking at that I'll maybe point to is you know, we think there's some room to improve completion designs you know, simply by you know, cutting back a little bit on the amount of water.
We think there's some opportunities to, you know, potentially, you know, widen spacing a little bit and, you know, specifically around, you know, existing producers. Those are things that we've proven within our own assets and are transferable. Even, you know, a little bit more tactically than that, it's just simply, you know, how we choose to steer a well and land it within a particular zone. Really it's about maximizing the contacted reservoir within that lateral. You know, as we've looked at, you know, some of the wells in the Chief data set relative to how we operate, you know, we're convinced we'll improve performance there.
Got it. Josh, just so I understand, this is how Chesapeake would do things differently from Chief, or is this how you do things differently just as you move to the northwest, kind of on your existing, you know?
Yeah
your existing designs?
Yeah. I mean, really it's about, you know, us using the history, and I think the technical expertise that we have to expand it into that acreage rather than it's something unique about the, you know, the rock that we're developing there.
Great. Thank you.
This question comes from Josh Silverstein of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Was curious just talking about the ability for you guys to try to contract on the LNG side. It's obviously been a growing focus, and you guys do have a lot of capacity down in your Haynesville play to be able to supply directly to some of these facilities. Can you just give us an update at your potential to sign some offtake agreements and whether you might be able to or thinking about potentially taking an equity stake in one of these facilities?
Yeah, I'll start this one, and then, Mohit will probably have something to add here too, again. We're really excited about the opportunity to do something like that, Josh. Exactly where we land on that spectrum of signing offtake agreements, taking position in facilities. There's a lot of work for us to do to determine which facilities we wanna partner with and how we want to gain that exposure. What we're really focused on is creating diversification of price. At the end of the day, these prices. Anything you do in the LNG world is gonna be a very long-term contract. While there is a big delta between U.S. gas prices and European or Asian gas prices today, over the tenor of that contract, you'd expect there to be plenty of volatility in that spread.
Sometimes good, sometimes less good, sometimes maybe not good. It's really about a diversification strategy. You know, we'll continue to think about the right way to approach that. You know, we're seeing a lot of opportunities to do it with a number of different counterparties, and we're gonna take our time to work through it, but we're excited about that potential.
Hey, Josh. Good morning. The only thing I would add is from a diversification angle, if the deal is linked to Henry Hub, that's not as attractive to us. I mean, what we are trying to diversify away into is some sort of a LNG index deal. Whether it's TTF, and the arguments or the discussions we are having internally is what's the right amount. As you know, we sell our production into different bases. The way we view the LNG complex is that that's another basis that we want exposure to. From a diversification point of view, I would encourage you to think of maybe 10, 15, 20% of our production.
If we can link it to some sort of an LNG index price, whether it's through some of these agreements or whether it's synthetic kind of a netback deal, then that's what we are driving towards.
Great. That's helpful. You guys have done a lot of portfolio management since reemerging, you know, a little bit over a year ago. You still have the East Texas asset in the portfolio, and just wanted to see what activity you're doing there this year, and are you looking for something to kind of figure out whether or not it remains in the portfolio?
Yeah. Josh, we don't have anything material in East Texas. Sometimes there's some rights that show up on an acreage map, depending on what you're looking at, but we don't have anything material that we maintain in East Texas.
Yeah. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Noel Parks of Tuohy Brothers. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning.
Morning, Noel.
I had a couple questions. One, I was just curious, based on some of what I've been hearing from other producers, I wonder if you would comment on, as far as, services quality, and what you're seeing in this field, how things have been as far as the quality of the equipment, its maintenance, reliability, and so forth. I'm just trying to think back to the last time we had a boom on the service side. I just have heard a few anecdotes here and there of, you know, problems or slowness with, maintenance, repairs, and so forth, and of course, what we'd expect from a, you know, supply chain and parts.
If you could just talk about that and if there are any particular basins where that's more on the table, that'd be great.
Yeah. Good morning, Noel. This is Josh. You know, I don't know if I would say there's any particular basin that this is a bigger problem than others. I mean, I think, you know, just much like, you know, the broader economy, you know, I think labor is tight. You know, when in an industry like ours, where, you know, we've seen growth with rigs being added, you know, over the last year, you know, clearly that's stretching that service organization. You know, you see rigs coming out of stack, you know, potentially and being restarted. You know, generally across the industry, that's gonna lead to some inefficiencies as that equipment gets warmed up, so to speak, and crews get some experience operating it.
I wouldn't say you know, we're seeing any more or less of that. I think it's just a general industry trend that we have, you know, kind of carrying throughout the industry. I think anytime you're in a constructive commodity price environment that we're in with, you know, activities ramping up, you know, those struggles are gonna persist. So it's really, you know, I think I would say it's present everywhere. You know, as an operator, of course, what we do is we try to manage our strategic partnerships very closely, you know, such that we're constantly on top of our service quality. You know, safety obviously is a huge focus and a concern of ours. Then, of course, that, you know, ultimately all translates into overall cost performance.
We think some of our longer-term strategic partnerships are shielding us from some of that. You know, generally it is, you know, just an industry challenge as a result of the tight labor markets that we find ourselves in.
Great. Just drilling down a little bit on that. Could you talk about how things stand with sand availability across the basins for you, what that looked like?
You know, sand as a commodity for us is not really an issue. You know, we feel really good about you know, the sources at which we supply the basins that we operate in. Of course, we're advantaged in Texas. You know, we own our own mine at the Burleson Mine, just outside of College Station. So that you know, provides us you know, with some security there. I think you know, the biggest issue that you know, we fight not to the point that it's created any problems for us, but it's just an ongoing challenge that we face day in and day out. It's just sand logistics is probably you know, the bigger issue. That varies by basin.
You know, a lot of it's just the distance from a mine to a location. You know, interesting in the Marcellus, it's been with rail cars. We've had union strikes there, you know, which created some problems for us. You know, something we maybe wouldn't have expected out of our control, but, you know, glad to say it didn't necessarily disrupt any operations materially. You know, in places like the Haynesville and our assets in Texas, it's just about, you know, availability of truck drivers. Really it's just about partnering with those logistics managers, you know, to ensure that, you know, we're attracting and retaining drivers to ensure they can service our operations.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from John Daniel of Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for putting me in. Just a couple operations questions. First, can you update us on the experience you guys are having with the new generation electric frac fleet?
This is Josh. You know, today within our frac fleets, we're running roughly five frac fleets, one of which is an electric frac fleet up in the Marcellus. You know, that's definitely there's been some learning curves there. You know, we were one of the first adopters of that up in the Marcellus. But you know, really, I felt like we've kinda hit a stride there and seeing some efficiencies. You know, theoretically, you know, those electric frac pumps should be, you know, more efficient, but you're of course reliant upon the quality of the gas and the generation that's being used on site, you know, to manage it. But definitely I would say it's a learning curve. We definitely see opportunities to expand that into the future.
Just like most equipment within the service sector, equipment's tight and, you know, for more e-fleets to enter the market, they have to be built, which requires capital to be deployed. We're in constant communications with our suppliers and talking about, you know, additional opportunities to expand that segment of the business.
Josh, do you ever see a scenario where you could be 100% electric, or are there operational reasons why that doesn't make sense?
It is definitely possible. I would never rule that out. You know, of course we constantly monitor that market. We need the capacity to be developed. I think the simple answer is yes, it could be at some point in time.
Okay. Just one final quick one from me. Assuming no one in the world cared about capital discipline anymore, and you decided you wanted to ramp activity from here, how quickly could you do that?
Yeah, I'll take that one, John. That's a big assumption. You know, we're in a world where people do care a lot about capital discipline.
Right.
We think that's right and appropriate. You know, I think if you said you wanted to get a new rig and start, you know, going after a growth wedge, I think you're at least six months from that rig showing up, at least.
Yeah.
It's gonna take a while.
Got it. Thank you guys very much for letting me in, and congrats on a great outlook.
Thanks, John.
This concludes our question- and- answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Nick Dell'Osso for any closing remarks.
Well, thanks again for joining our call. Behind our exceptional employees, I believe Expand Energy continues to deliver what the market demands today for a premium valuation. We're focused on our portfolio of high return assets with scale to matter. We're generating significant free cash flow and have one of the industry's strongest frameworks to return cash to shareholders, and we're committed to ESG excellence and to answering the call for reliable, affordable, and lower carbon energy the world desperately needs today. We're eager to provide a deeper dive into the depth of our portfolio and what we believe it will deliver for our shareholders at our Analyst Day, which we intend to host later this year. In the meantime, we look forward to continuing to update you on our progress. Thanks again, and have a great day.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.