Good morning, and welcome to the Magnolia Oil & Gas Q3 2021 earnings release and conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing Star, then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star and then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Brian Corales. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Magnolia Oil & Gas' Q3 2021 earnings conference call. Participating on the call today are Steve Chazen, Magnolia's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Stavros, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meanings of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Additional information on risk factors that could cause results to differ is available in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. A full safe harbor can be found on slide 2 of the conference call slide presentation with the supplemental data on our website.
You can download Magnolia's Q3 2021 earnings press release, as well as the conference call slides from the investor section of the company's website at www.magnoliaoilgas.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Chazen.
Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. My comments this morning will provide a brief update on our business and operations, how we plan to allocate our free cash flow for the remainder of the year. Chris will then review our Q3 results, provide some additional guidance before we take your questions. Our strong Q3 financial results demonstrate the quality of our assets and the efficiency of our capital program. We continue to execute in our business model, which prioritizes disciplined capital spending, moderate production growth, high pre-tax margins, and low levels of debt. These principles, combined with an improved lower overall cost structure as well as an unhedged production, allows us to achieve several records during the quarter, including EBITDAX, free cash flow, net income margin, and earnings per share.
We generated $143 million of free cash flow after capital outlays and interest on our debt, and repurchased 5 million shares of stock during the Q3, or about 2% of our total outstanding shares, for approximately $99 million. Despite the $79 million allocated to share value-enhancing activities, our cash balance grew by nearly 30% during the quarter to $245 million. For the year to date, the largest use of our free cash flow has gone towards opportunistically repurchasing our own stock. So far this year, we have repurchased 22.6 million shares, or about 9% of the total shares outstanding when compared to the Q4 of 2020's fully diluted share count.
Therefore, we have returned 9% to our shareholders in form of share repurchases for the first 9 months of this year. Since establishing a share repurchase program in the Q3 of 2019, we have spent approximately $396 million acquiring our own stock and reducing our diluted share count by 34 million shares. Our share repurchase efforts continue to enhance our per share metrics. We expect to continue to repurchase at least 1% of our shares each quarter. Magnolia also paid its first interim semiannual dividend of $0.08 per share during the Q3, which was secured despite oil prices under $40 a barrel. We plan to make the remaining dividend payment in the Q1 of 2022, based on our full year 2021 results and adjusted for oil prices of $55.
Our total production volumes grew 4% sequentially during the Q3 as a result of continued strong well performance, despite lower non-operated activity, investing only 30% of our EBITDAX on drilling and completing wells. Quality of our asset base is reflected in the continuing overall growth of our production volumes, low reinvestment rates and finding costs, and high full cycle margins. We currently have two operator drilling rigs across our assets. We plan to remain at this level into next year. At current product prices, this level of activity would result in D&C capital program well below our cap of 55% of our adjusted EBITDAX. One rig will continue to drill development wells at our Giddings asset. While still in the early stages of development in Giddings, the results of our drilling program have become more repeatable and increasingly predictable.
Second rig will drill wells in both Karnes and Giddings areas, including some appraisal wells in Giddings. We continue to see improvement in our operating efficiencies at Giddings while maintaining well productivity. The 2021 development plan program has averaged four wells per pad, with lateral lengths averaging greater than 7,000 feet per well. This compares favorably to the prior year, where we averaged less than three wells per pad, with average lengths about 6,000 feet. More wells per pad, combined with longer laterals while increasing the average drilling feet per day, have helped in driving further efficiencies at Giddings and partly offsetting some materials and oil field-related inflation.
Our ability to generate moderate annual production growth with strong operating margins, together with our ongoing share repurchase program and the payment of a secure, sustainable, and growing dividend are important components of Magnolia's total shareholder return proposition. I'll now turn the call over to Chris Stavros.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. As Steve mentioned, I plan to review some items from our Q3 results and provide some guidance for the Q4 and some initial thoughts for 2022 before turning it over for questions. Starting with slide four in the presentation found on our website, which shows a summary of our Q3, Magnolia delivered a very strong Q3 2021 financial and operating results, achieving several records. The company had adjusted net income for the quarter of $158 million, or $0.67 per diluted share compared to total net income of $116 million or $0.48 per diluted share in the Q2 of this year. Our adjusted EBITDA was $221.5 million in the Q3, with total D&C capital of $67 million or 30% of our EBITDA.
Magnolia's fully diluted share count declined by 6 million shares sequentially, averaging 236 million shares during the Q3. Total production volumes grew 4% sequentially to 67.4 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Q3. Production in Giddings now represents 55% of total company volumes as Giddings has grown by 80% year-over-year. Sequential improvement in our quarterly financial results benefited from higher product prices, especially for natural gas and NGLs, increased production volumes, and lower total costs. Product prices have risen further into the Q4, and as a reminder, we're completely unhedged on all our oil and gas production. Looking at the quarterly cash flow waterfall chart on slide 5, we began the Q3 with $190 million of cash.
Cash from operations before changes in working capital was $211 million during the period, with working capital changes and other small items benefiting cash by $6 million. Our D&C capital spending, including land acquisitions, was $68 million, and we generated free cash flow of $143 million during the Q3. Cash allocated towards share repurchases was $75 million, and we paid our first dividend of $0.08 per share in September, or $19 million, ending the quarter with $245 million of cash on the balance sheet, or more than $1 per share. Slide six shows our cash flow through the first nine months of 2021. For the year to date, we generated cash from operations of $528 million before changes in working capital.
During the nine-month period, we incurred $163 million on drilling and completing wells. We spent $284 million on share repurchases and paid $19 million in dividends. Summarizing our progress during the first nine months of the year, we've grown our total production by 11% from Q4 2020 levels, reduced our diluted share count by 22.6 million shares or 9%, leading to 20% production per share growth over the period. This growth was all organically driven without incurring any debt and while building $52 million of cash. Looking at slide seven, this illustrates the progress of our share reductions since we began repurchasing shares in the Q3 of 2019. Since that time, we have reduced our total diluted share count by 34.1 million shares, or approximately 13% in two years.
We plan to continue to repurchase at least 1% of our outstanding shares each quarter and currently have 8.5 million shares remaining under our repurchase authorization. Management's philosophy is to maintain a strong balance sheet, and we do not plan to issue any new debt. Our $400 million of gross debt is reflected in our senior notes, which are not callable until next year and do not mature until 2026. We have an undrawn $450 million revolving credit facility and total liquidity of $695 million, including our $245 million of cash. Our condensed balance sheet and liquidity as of September 30th are shown on slides eight and nine.
Turning to slide 10 and looking at our cash costs and operating income margins, our total operating costs and expenses declined by nearly $10 million sequentially and despite the increase in product prices. Most of the improvement was in the form of lower G&A expenses and other associated costs as a result of the termination of the operating services agreement with EnerVest in the Q2. Our total adjusted cash operating costs, including G&A, were $9.66 per BOE in the Q3, representing a 14% sequential decline compared to the Q2 of 2021. Including our DD&A rate of $7.74 per BOE, which is generally in line with our F&D costs, our operating income margin for the Q3 was $27.66 per BOE or 60% of our total revenue.
Turning to guidance for the Q4, we continue to run two operated rigs across our assets and expect our Q4 capital to be approximately $80 million. This is lower than our earlier guidance and primarily due to ongoing efficiencies at Giddings. Total production is expected to be in the range of 68,000-70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the Q4. As I mentioned earlier, we are completely unhedged for both our oil and gas production should benefit from any further improvement in product prices. Oil price differentials are anticipated to be approximately $3 per barrel discount to MEH during the Q4 and in line with recent quarters. We expect our Q4 2021 effective tax rate to be approximately 2%.
The fully diluted share count is expected to be approximately 232 million shares in the Q4, and we expect this to decline further into next year as we continue repurchasing our shares. Looking into 2022, our current plan is to continue to run two operated rigs on our assets.
Our operated activity should be similar to the level seen during the H2 of 2021. One rig will continue to drill development wells in Giddings, with the second rig drilling a mix of development wells in both Karnes and Giddings, in addition to drilling some appraisal wells at Giddings. This level of activity should generate year-over-year production growth in the mid- to high-single digits. As Steve mentioned earlier, we continue to see improvement in our operating efficiencies at Giddings while maintaining well productivity. Some of these improvements include increased drilling efficiencies up 10% compared to last year in terms of drilling feet per day.
A 14% increase in average lateral lengths per well to more than 7,000 feet, and a greater than 30% increase in the average wells per pad, leading to fewer pads. Since we're still in the early stages of development in Giddings, these improvements should allow us to partially mitigate some of the materials and oil field inflation into next year. To summarize, Magnolia's high quality assets and capital efficiency should continue to generate strong operating margins and sizable free cash flow, allowing us to execute our strategy. Our strong balance sheet provides an element of security amidst product price volatility, and is also an advantage in creating optionality for us to opportunistically repurchase our shares, pursue small bolt-on accretive acquisitions, and pay a safe, sustainable, and growing dividend. We're now ready to take your questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. The first question comes from Neal Dingmann of Truist. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. Steve, great quarter, by the way, guys. Steve, I can't help but notice you continue to have very impressive efficiencies that to me most recently resulted in this 4% sequential production growth with only about a 30% EBITDA spend. My question around that is, would you suggest the crux of this is coming from Giddings upside, or really just what else should we read into this?
Yeah, it's really driven by Giddings. You know, the Karnes is pretty predictable. Costs are predictable. Production's reasonably predictable. You know, the only, you know, the variation, you know, running two rigs, you're going to have some variation. A well gets delayed or starts a week earlier or later. It looks like something's happening, and really nothing's happening. You know, it's basically the efficiencies at Giddings. You know, we continue to look for additional opportunities there, you know, outside the current area, and we'll continue to do that in the next year. You know, the only, I don't know if I'd call it disappointment, but the only difference this year is that, you know, we haven't had a lot of non-op activity. It's been much less than historical. Next year.
What's happened is we drilled less net wells than we thought we would drill. Generally speaking, the non-op was like running half a rig for the year, and it's maybe half of that this year, maybe not even that. If that continues, you know, we may add a rig sometime next year to make the net wells work to compensate for the non-op. You know, that's the only change I see. That rig would probably be mostly focused on new opportunities in the Giddings area. We see a number of areas that look interesting. We've drilled some wells. We don't have complete, you know, we don't have 90 days of results to talk about.
You know, I remain optimistic about it over the next decade or so.
Great points. That's kind of what I thought on Giddings. Then just to follow up, you've bought back now quite a fair amount of stock back, and I'm just wondering, given, you know, your stock has gone up like others, do you still see the discount when you look at the options to do with the shareholder return? Does that still look to be most accretive, the best use of your proceeds? Maybe just talk about that a little bit, given the, you know, the run that you all have had with your stock today.
Yeah. You know, I don't. I've, you know, for 40 years I've never talked about the value of the stock. I'm not a stock market expert. You know, and if, you know, if I were, I'd be wrong around half the time. Maybe more, but at least half. 'Cause, you know, it's usually you're wrong or right, so I guess it's 50-50. The stock is. It depends on your view about oil prices. You know, the industry works reasonably well at $60 oil and, you know, works almost too well at $85. You know, I'm not a believer in $85, but $60 works really well for us. I think the share repurchase makes sense.
We also have a sizable shareholder, and I don't want him. I don't have any control over him or don't know what he's going to do. But I also don't want him to be harming the existing shareholders. You know, we buy shares in quantity at the same price he gets, which is basically set by the market forces. You know, that's worked out for us. I don't know what our average price is, about $13 in less than $13 for all the shares we've purchased. You know, it's worked out well for the people who bought the stock in the offering, and it's worked out well, I think, for the shareholders. You know, stock's gone up a lot, that's for sure.
Luckily, my wife doesn't, you know, compute this for me. But she does count dividends, so you know. I just hate to get into, you know, valuation, but I think, you know, as a practical matter, once we set the dividend in February, you know, we could fairly easily grow that dividend 10% a year for a very long time. For me, that's an attractive investment. You know, it's not Tesla or something like that, but you know, it's a fairly attractive investment. I just think, you know, that's the way I think about it.
You know, how much can we distribute that doesn't, you know, that we can give and take in my case. How much can we continue to grow? The M&A market is not real attractive right now. Almost everything is dilutive to us. You know, we got a low finding cost and a purchase of PDP production, maybe two or three times our finding cost to go in. The locations that come with these PDP packages, you know, basically wouldn't meet our economic standards for drilling. We wouldn't drill them. Somebody might, but it wouldn't be us. You know, it makes it very difficult to buy anything in the current environment.
You know, we find some small pieces here and there in our existing areas. Other than that, you know, the share repurchases and dividends for the next few years, I think will be the driving force. Once EnerVest has gotten to whatever level of ownership of any that it wants, you know, then, you know, we'll shift to a more dividend-intensive strategy.
I guess, Steve, you'll be very careful when you do, if your wife is watching those dividends close. Thank you again.
Sure.
Thank you, sir. The next question is from Leo Mariani of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hello? Hello? Are you on mute, Leo?
Yeah. Hello, guys. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Now we can hear you.
Okay, great. I just wanted to dig a little deeper into Giddings here. Clearly, you guys have increased, you know, your ability to drill more wells per pad, longer laterals. I know you've kind of historically talked about kind of a rough $6 million, you know, type well cost, but clearly laterals are getting longer. Just wanted to get a sense if maybe you could give us a little idea of kind of what the cost per foot maybe you've done, you know, during the course of 2021. It sounds like you guys are optimistic that you might be able to continue to reduce those maybe a little even in the face of inflation.
Just any comments you could make on results in the development area, the 70,000-development area at Giddings. I think you guys did say, compared to Marks, that they're looking, you know, more consistent these days. Maybe a little more color if you had around that.
Yeah. In the existing area, they look very much like what we showed you before. We drilled more wells. There really isn't enough difference to talk about. It's a little better, you know, but it's not. You know, it's about the same. Because again, we, you know, have a repeatable model, so it's designed to do that. You know, it's not designed for very, you know, large swings. Outside of it, you know, we continue to look for areas. Some of them are a little gassier, but the economics are the same, especially now with gas at, you know, reasonable prices.
NGLs, yeah.
NGL pricing. You know, the economics are basically the same even though you're drilling a gassier well, because there's always some oil, a fair amount of oil associated with the wells. You know, I'm pretty optimistic about that over next year. You know, we were cautious this year on our capital and what we spent, and, you know, we'll be cautious next year, but, you know, probably a little less cautious next year than we were this year. You know, I think the Giddings thing is working reasonably. As far as the cost per well, you know, we've basically overcome the inflation so far. I mean, inflation is basically steel and labor costs. The labor costs, I'm really not bothered with.
You know, we want good crews. We want the best crews. If you got to pay a few dollars more per hour or whatever it is. You know, I'm really not worked up over that. These are small bucks. You know, I always tell people this is not 3M, where we got to raise the price of the Scotch tape, you know, in order to pay for the stock. We already got the raise, so there's no question about passing it through. I just think that, you know, if it goes up, the total cost goes up, you know, $1 or $2. You know, that's about all we see right now. I mean, it's driven by the fundamentals.
The well cost I don't think will move very much, even with a little longer laterals and stuff. It's sort of doing what it's supposed to do, and we're getting better at it. You know, I just wouldn't worry about this until you get a lot more inflation and a lot more craziness. Now people start, you know, increasing their capital program by 100% and things like that to capture this, you know, and you put more pressure on the service companies. I think that's one thing. But with the small program we have, we can have, you know, good crews, and manage this reasonably well.
You know, if you had, you know, if you're some other company with 25 or 30 rigs running, you know, it's a lot more complicated. With two or three rigs, you know. That's the advantage of a small company. There are disadvantages, but that's the major advantage is you get to keep this under control.
Okay. That's helpful. Just a couple things around some of the comments that you folks made. Steve, you did mention potentially adding what sounded like a third rig in 2022 to offset the fact that there isn't you know much non-op activity. Just wanted to make sure I understood that. Would that be kind of a you know a partial rig for the year?
A partial rig.
To compensate for the lack of non-op?
It's intended for a short period of time. We probably would send the whatever you want to call it, the development or exploration rig, you know, or whatever you want to call that activity to that rig. Because, you know, you'd be drilling single wells, or maybe a two-well pad with it. That would be simpler to do in that, and then focus the other two rigs on the pure development. The idea is, you know, it's a certain number of net wells in our mind to create the production growth we're looking for. If, you know, we're not getting the net wells 'cause we overestimated how much this year, overestimated how much the non-op would be.
Now, the Giddings wells did better than we thought, so it sort of compensated for some of that. We still have a vision of what the net wells ought to be. The rig would be, you know, I would guess sometime in the spring and for a relatively short period of time to just make sure we're drilling the right number of net wells. It's not going to generate a lot more capital spending, I don't think. We're, you know, spending-
Okay. That's
Spending at such a low level, we're only spending, you know, whatever it is, 30-some% of our EBITDA. You know, it wouldn't be the end of the world to go to 40%.
Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense for sure. Then just a couple number clarifications from you guys. Certainly noticed that in the last couple quarters, cash taxes have started to come in a little bit. Still a low level, but you know, they were kind of zero next year. I wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts on where those may go. Then also just noticed on the oil cut, it was 49% in the Q2, 46% in the Q3. Where do you guys anticipate that going as we get into Q4 here on the oil cut?
We'll let them answer about the cut. As far as the taxes are concerned, if we continue to spend at 40%-45% and you have these earnings, our financial statements are fairly accurate because we're looking at real finding costs. While we have some tax loss carryforwards and some increased DD&A from the conversion of the B shares, eventually you're going to pay taxes. It's not going to be full tax rate, I don't think next year, but I would think that the cash taxes will go up some next year. I really don't know how much, but it's probably not a huge number.
You know, if you only spend 35%-40% and, you know, you're generating EBIT margins of 50%-60%, you know, at some point you're going to pay taxes. Which is not the end of the world. I mean, you should, you know. It's better to just pay taxes than to generate net operating losses, to be honest.
No doubt. All right, guys, appreciate it. Thank you.
Well, go ahead and answer the question on the cut.
Yeah. I think on the cut, on the oil cut, I mean, part of it is for sure, you know, timing, drilling timing. Part of it is certainly for this year a bit of the lower non-op spending and drilling and activity in Karnes that Steve mentioned. I think had that come in as we had originally expected, you probably would've had the oil cut a little bit higher. That's not to say that, you know, what we're seeing in Giddings is, you know, sort of very strong on the oil cut and relatively better than what we probably thought early days.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Umang Choudhary of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you for taking my question. Just one from me. Steve, you mentioned the sector looks healthy at $60 oil price, and oil prices are currently much higher. Would love your thoughts around the macro and your long-term oil price expectation of $55. I know there are a lot of moving pieces here on the macro. Say oil prices are higher longer term, how does that impact your free cash flow deployment between dividends, share repurchase, organic drilling and completions?
Well, you know, I'm sort of return-driven. If oil prices were, say, $65 or $70 on a long-term basis, rather than my view at around $60. You know, eventually the EnerVest shares will be gone. You know, they'll go to whatever level they're going to be, and we're then looking at buying shares in the open market, which is very difficult to buy shares of our stock in the open market at this point. There's just not enough volume, and that's just a fact. The share repurchase part of it just won't be executable at the level that we're doing now. It really leaves, I mean, there's only so many things you can do.
As far as raising the capital goes, I think spending a lot of money is the road to hell. We're capped at 55%, and I might reduce it to 50%. I think that's the road to bad returns. It only leaves you with dividends.
And then-
I guess that's your answer.
Look, given you have, like, a cap of 50% towards dividends, right? Like, would that mean that a variable dividend would be on the cards once the EnerVest shares are gone?
No, I don't like ratable dividends because dividend investors, in my limited experience, care about three things. They care about balance sheet quality. They want to make sure the dividend's safe. They care that the dividends are paid out of earnings. You don't pay them out of so-called cash flow, but you pay it out of what you earn. Finally, they care about growing dividends. If we had some excess, we would just pay a special dividend and, you know, wouldn't be part of the normal dividend stream. The normal dividend streams, at least our working assumption would be that once you see the dividend in February, you can plan on, you know, at least a 10% increase in that every year.
You know, we want to keep that for the standard dividend investor. If we build too much cash, you know, we can pay a special dividend, but it won't. We're not going to put a in there. Again, I'm very cautious about tying payments to things that aren't related to earnings. You know, this cash, this free cash flow thing is. Free cash flow is the difference between your EBITDA and your capital. I don't know what that means exactly. You know, you could spend more money or less money and generate more or less free cash flow, and I don't know whether that's permanent or not. I look to this permanent dividend level and the growth in that as a way to.
The investors can rationally look at the company, and if we build too much cash, you know, we can distribute them in, you know, sort of a one-time, sort of thing to sort of distribute the cash. My wife will like that.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Charles Meade of Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Steve and Chris and the whole crew there. I'd like to go back to the question of the product mix for Q4. I appreciate your earlier comments that it relates to non-op activity, particularly in the Karnes area, which you know for reasons we don't need to go into much you know it can be difficult to forecast. Are there things happening in 4Q, either with your turn in line schedule or other things that would make the mix change versus 3Q?
I mean, it looks like there was actually a slight decline on oil quarter on quarter, and I'm guessing that in you know, without knowing anything else, I would expect to see that same trend play out in 4Q, especially with the strength in Giddings. What are the pieces there?
Well, you know, don't forget, you know, most of the wells are going to be producing in the Q4 are producing now. You know, we're halfway through the quarter. Whatever we do is probably going to affect the Q1 or the Q2 more than the Q4 at this point. You know, I think it's roughly similar to the Q3 because the carryover works that way.
Right.
If you lose sight of the fact that, you know, and one or two or three or four or six wells even doesn't move the thing very much. The other thing is, you know, while I'm sure some people believe natural gas prices and NGL prices are going to double from here. You know, we are attracted to drilling in gas and NGL areas because of, you know, the profitability is exceptional on those wells. We've got a lot of NGLs. I mean, we were getting, I think, $9 a barrel or something like that for NGL a year ago, and we're getting over $40 now. You know, you really underestimate the windfall effects of that.
Charles, we did tell you last quarter that we were steering some of our activity towards the completion of some gassier wells in Karnes and DeWitt. That had an influence over the mix in the Q3 and sort of dribbles into the Q4 as well. They did also have a bunch of oil, so they weren't. But they were, you know, generally a little more gassy.
A little more gassy. You know, it was deliberate.
Right.
You know, a deliberate way of thinking about it because, you know, I view, you know, $5 gas is. There's a lot of gas in the United States. I don't know if you noticed. You know, if it sits at $5 very long, you're going to be a lot more. Despite their hedging.
Yeah. A lot of hot air in the United States too. You anticipated a bit of my second question. You, Steve, you talked about the results at Giddings becoming not just more repeatable but predictable and, you know, but maybe a little bit, another piece of the picture there's been some really eye-opening, strong well results offsetting your position in Giddings. I'm curious, as you look at 2022, and I guess you've already approached it a bit or adjusted a bit with the, you know, saying you're more open to those more gassy areas.
How is that playing out between some of these your well results, offset well results coming in strong versus the tilt to gassier areas? And how's that? How are you guys approaching that, and what should we look for?
Well, that, you know, the acreage is ours forever. You know, locations don't go away. We look at what other people are doing. You know, we try to see how that fits into the modeling we have. You know, we sort of like them drilling their acreage up because, you know, generally we have offsetting acreage. You know, we're always happy to have somebody prove it up for us. So that, you know, from my perspective, we'll let them experiment and, you know, we can drill it next year or the year after. I'm not really. You know, I view it.
One of the problems in Giddings historically for us was that there was nobody else drilling, so nobody believed the results. You know, we hope these guys drill and, you know, make good money, and that would be swell and because we got more acreage than they got by a lot.
Got it. Thanks for that, Steve.
Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and then one. The next question is from Noel Parks of Tuohy Brothers. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning.
Morning.
Just had a couple things. When I was thinking as you look ahead in your modeling and sort of plan various scenarios, are we at the point that as you essentially, you know, self-funding your maintenance drilling, essentially where the interest rate environment is irrelevant or neutral, you know, as you look ahead and think about cost of capital as you forecast?
Well, you know, for us, we're not borrowers of money. You know, when we said that I didn't even want to borrow the $400 million that we did when we started, I complained about that. You know, we got $24 million in interest expense, roughly. You know, we could borrow cheaper, I guess, than that now if we wanted. You know, I don't think. You know, with the kind of returns we're making, even at a $60 or $65 oil price, you know, I'm not sure leverage is, you know, is particularly helpful or anything. You know, I just, you know, if we didn't have any interest expense, we could pay more dividends. My wife would like that better.
I just think that, you know, it doesn't really matter to us at this point what the interest rate environment is. Now, to the extent that interest rates. You know, oil's about demand. People always want to look at what the Saudis are doing or Russians doing, and certainly they can muck things up for a while, you know, if they make an error. It's really about demand, and demand is going to be strong, you know, in the next year. Now, I don't know, you know, what it'll be over time. Certainly in the next year, as you know, economies open up, international flying builds, which is a major user of it.
Mm-hmm.
You know, so, you know, you're looking for a very strong demand pull on oil prices. I think for the-
Right.
For the next some period of time, that's important. A lot more important than what the Fed or some, you know, somebody does. It, you know, to the extent that we're bound and determined to weaken the dollar, it just, you know, when we get oil that's paid in dollars. You know, that, you know, we'll make more dollars. We may not be able to buy anything with it, but, you know. We'll make more dollars. I, you know, I think this is about demand. You're in a clearly strong demand growth era at the time.
You know, as the world economy opens up, you're going to have a lot of demand pull in the Saudis and Russians for their own reasons, you know, are feeding to some of the growth. Frankly, you know, my guess is they like $80 oil or $75 oil.
Fair enough. Thinking about the Eagle Ford from the technology standpoint, do you view the Eagle Ford as having essentially caught up technology-wise with the advances, you know, a few years ago when there's a lot of capital flowing into the Permian and less into the Eagle Ford? Do you view the play as essentially caught up with technology advances from other basins? I guess I'm talking about pre-COVID days when we had a lot more activity. Is there still, you know, fruit to harvest? You know, some gap that might still be closed?
Yeah. You know, I'm talking not the Chalk, but the Eagle Ford itself and Karnes and the rest of that play. You know, in the general play, I think there's more room. There's a lot of inefficiencies in the play if you look. Well, Karnes is extremely well developed because the wells are so good. As you move to the weaker areas where, which are gassier and you know, they're probably not as efficient as they could be. On the other hand, for us where we are, they're not, you know. Monkeying with that is not an efficient use of capital.
We could put that capital to work in Giddings or even some of our Karnes stuff and make a lot more money over the next five years than trying to, you know, do some kind of science project in sort of a marginal production.
Okay. Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions, and the conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.