Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the third quarter 2022 Matador Resources Company Earnings Conference Call. My name is Justin, and I'll be serving as operator for today. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. We will facilitate a question-and-answer session at the end of the company's remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes, and the replay will be available on the company's website for one year, as discussed in the company's earnings press release issued yesterday. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mac Schmitz, Vice President, Investor Relations for Matador. Mr. Schmitz, you may begin.
Thank you, Justin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Matador's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Some of the presenters today will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures regularly used by Matador Resources in measuring the company's financial performance. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures with the comparable measures calculated in accordance with GAAP are contained at the end of the company's earnings press release. As a reminder, certain statements included in this morning's presentation may be forward-looking and reflect the company's current expectations or forecasts of future events based on the information that is now available. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
Additionally, information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company's earnings release and its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. In addition to our earnings press release, I would like to remind everyone on the call that you can find a slide presentation in connection with the third quarter 2022 earnings release under the Investor Relations tab on our website. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Joe Foran, our Founder, Chairman, and CEO. Joe?
Thank you, Mac. As we begin this call, we're very excited about the way this year has developed. We're looking forward to finishing it off during the fourth quarter and have full year results. Everything to this point has been working for us. As you can see through the year, that we've made a real effort to improve the fixed dividend and to reduce debt and to increase production reserves and increase the value and contribution of our midstream assets. We feel we've made improvement in all areas and appreciate your interest and support. Notably, just kind of put a couple of numbers in perspective. We went public a little over 10 years ago, and we have more cash on the balance sheet today than was the whole market value of Matador at that time.
We also have more cash on the balance sheet than first Matador sold for. The improvement has come from a lot of people pushing on the rock. Great work and support by our board in helping us make decisions, great decision-making among the staff here in a lot of individual ways out there in the field. We think our forward outlook is positive, and we intend to continue to grow, as we say, profitable growth at a measured pace. With that, Mac, I'm open for questions.
Great. Justin, we'll start with some questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one. Again, that is star one one. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up until all have had a chance to ask a question. After which, we would welcome additional questions from you. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from Scott Hanold from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning, congrats on the quarter. My first question is actually going to be directly referring to the comment you made, Joe, about that cash balance you have. It is growing, and it looks like you've got a pretty good trajectory of potentially even building that through next year. Like, when—how do you think about the best ways to use that cash? You know, what, where do you feel comfortable with that position and how you want to allocate it going forward?
You know, I guess notably, if I'm just gonna add in a little tail to this, you know, it looks like you did a little bit of acquisition activity in the quarter, if you had some color on that as well.
All right. Thank you, Scott. It's a good question. We're in the process of thinking about the different alternatives that we have and the different options that we have with that kind of opportunity that cash provides. As you know, we tend not to do targets. What we like to do is think of it in terms of opportunities and plan not only for the immediate opportunity but for the long-term opportunity. You know, the nice thing is when you're in turbulent times, like as you are now, having cash will assure that you'll get through if prices fall. It'll have opportunities because drilling costs and operating costs are lower, more acquisition opportunities.
If they should stabilize and be consistent, then you have, generally some more acquisition opportunities or, and then you look at your number of A-plus locations, and we've got plenty of A-plus locations, you know, well, somewhere between 10 and 20 years. At the same time, you don't, we can do those, but we want to do them at the most opportune time. We would like to see consistent, oil and gas prices. You know, Waha has been mentioned, and we may someone may have a question, turning negative on a part of it. If you know those are, things that might happen, then you look towards getting your firm takeaways, firm takeaways from the basin and other deals. It isn't a one-decision game.
Prices are low, prices are high, and the money is a resource, and you don't wanna spend it all at once. You want to keep some dry powder for the changes. We have a business that changes very rapidly, from high prices to low prices in recent years, and supply chain problems and environmental problems. Keeping that cash gives you insurance, plus the options to take advantage of the special opportunities each pricing environment gives you. I know that may sound like an, "It depends" answer, but it really is that way. We're not gonna grow for the sake, just sake of growth. We want it to be proper and value-added, and we want to have a reputation for what we do, be really value added.
I think that's been proven now in the most recent example with the midstream. That's been integrated and is a core part of our business now, and we think it helps us with the environment. It's becoming a bigger and bigger profit center. It helps us with timing if we tell the market that we're gonna be producing from these wells on such and such day to deliver. It helps us on recycling. That's one example of what we feel we were able to take advantage of during a more difficult time. Whatever the situation is, we want to have plan A for high prices, plan B for medium, and you know, plan C for low prices.
The cash that we have in the bank helps us make those transitions in a very orderly way, as well as to take advantage of the opportunities that those different price environments and other circumstances generate. I know I mean, I don't want it to be, "It depends," 'cause it isn't. We're planning for it anyway, so we can turn and make an adjustment as needed as new technology comes out. For example, in the completions, we're doing our completions differently than, say, what we did a year or two ago, that have helped mitigate the increased operating costs. I give a lot of credit to our completions group for coming up with those innovations that have made us a more efficient producer.
Scott, I know you asked me a simple question, and I've told you how to build the watch. That's our culture here, is all the groups are talking together, and you know, we don't have 50 different plans, but we have different plans for different scenarios. That's. We think it helps us move more quickly as the operating environment changes.
Scott, this is Billy Goodwin. Dr. Frost down the table from me here has some ideas on what we could do with that free cash flow.
Yeah, you know, hey, Scott, Ned here.
Ned is a geologist. Let me put that in.
We always have ideas on what to do with excess cash. You know, I think to kinda reiterate what Joe said is there's a lot of good options in front of Matador, and I think these options are definitely all sustainable through a wide range of commodity prices. You know, I know we're just kinda adding color on the topic that you asked about. You know, Matador is really, I think, across this year, come into a really good position of developing new acreage, adding value through testing new zones and really optimizing our operations to run efficiently in this environment. A lot of good stuff going on.
Hey, Scott, this is Billy again.
Yeah.
I noticed that Ned was having to add some horsepower to the department there because of all the different targets and zones we have to look at now. You know, he has to get more people because there's so much A-plus rock, you know, for the, you know, for the geologist to be able to look at all of it. You know, the-- it's really exciting times right now.
You asked the question I didn't fully answer about the acquisition this past quarter. That's an example. It's another bolt-on transaction in an area where we're active and have been drilling. There's, you know, the risk is much less because we're in those properties, and it was just an add-on, and we'd like to do more of those as the opportunities present themselves. Ned's done a great job of building up the geoscience group, just as Billy's built up our operations group. Then the way they work together has been very seamless. Good job to all the staff.
No, I appreciate all that color. Hopefully, we just have to worry about the plan A and plan B in the higher, the medium price commodity price environment. You know, Joe, you did actually, you know, also make a point on something I was gonna ask, and you know, obviously, it's become a little bit more prominent and visible in the last few days, with Waha going negative yesterday. You know, I think some of that is just, you know, we'll call it transitory because of, you know, some pipeline maintenance, but we're also seeing Permian gas growth as well. You know, one of the pipelines that is going down for maintenance is GCX, which you all affirm on.
Can you give us a sense of how that's impacting your operations and you know, what that means in terms of like, you know, production? Do wells need to be shut in? I don't think a lot of people wanna flare at this point, but can you give us a little color on what that means specifically for you?
All right. Scott, I'll give it a try and Glenn or Gregg or somebody can jump in to do a follow-up. First, it's a four-day deal, so it's not gonna be especially material. The second, we had planned ahead for this, even during the summer that you knew there's likely to be some maintenance work, and we worked around it so that some of our production will be reduced. Some of the price we're gonna get during that four -day period will be reduced. I still think we're confident we will still, taking the steps that we did, on a weighted average basis, we'll still be getting somewhere between $2-$3 for the gas. It's not disabling. It's just a little more work on our marketing group and a little more work for Glenn.
We don't have plans to flare. We're pretty proud that on our emissions, we've gotten our emissions down to less than one-half of 1% or thereabouts. Glenn, what do you wanna add?
Yeah. Joe, you nailed it. This is Scott. This is Glenn Stetson. I commend our marketing team, you know, years back to get that firm on GCX, which has helped us, you know, reduce our exposure to Waha pricing. As Joe mentioned, for the four days, we'll see a bit of a lower price, just for those four days. The marketing team, you know, going into the shoulder months, did a good job of selling gas at a fixed monthly price. Has also helped in that regard. As to the future, we're always in contact with marketing for 2023.
If you see that tightening in the market, there are ways similar to, you know, getting selling gas on that fixed price. There are other ways to help mitigate that Waha differential.
I appreciate that color. Thanks.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann from Truist Securities. Your line is now open.
Morning, team. Another great quarter. Joe, your wife's probably happy with that increased dividend. Nice to see you out there on the base dividend. My question's gonna be on the ops side. Joe, you guys continue to do fantastic work with, you know. When I was on the road, the guys talked about all 11 zones, that they're having success. I know you don't have a 2023 plan yet, but can you give ideas? I mean, will the focus continue, you think, to be around the six to seven rigs? And would it be in, you know, some of those same areas around the Rodney Robinson and Rustler Breaks? Or do you have any idea what you can give yet on early 2023?
Yeah. We're gonna be working a lot of those same areas. They're working well for us. We're finding new zones as Ned and Billy talked about. Tom, on his teams, he's got six teams, they all have good ideas. They'll be more of the same, plus trying to work in some new. Tom, do you wanna elaborate?
Yeah. I think, Joe, I think that's right. Neal, you know, we've got eight new Rodney Robinson as we've talked about, expected to come online, you know, sometime in the i n late Q1, early kind of Q2 part of next year. We'll be spreading the ball around.
I think that as Ned mentioned, they've got a lot of great ideas all around the basin. You know, particularly in the northern part of the Delaware Basin, you're seeing, you know, us and other good operators out there, you know, trying all sorts of different new targets. The state line will be in the mix as well. Still got a lot of wood to chop. As Joe mentioned, you know, optionality is something that we really put a big emphasis on here. We're very excited for the future. We look forward to announcing our plans early next year.
Now look forward to all the activity.
Yeah, Neal.
Go ahead, Joe. I'm sorry.
Yeah. Yeah, Neal, I'd just say the other big factor that goes into it is just kind of looking what commodity price is and what the costs are. Our best guess is they're gonna be about like what they are now. We don't expect radical change at this point, and it seems to be stabilizing. I hope that pertains because we can make money at this $80 oil and these costs while going up, we're finding ways to mitigate. Our marketing group, for example, taking the fixed prices during the summer work so that when this situation came up on maintenance, we've been able to mitigate the impact and make it minimal compared to where it was. I think the outlook is still very positive, and we like our chances.
Yes, sir. I really like you all stay with the steady growth program versus others that have no growth. My last question, just maybe Joe, for Michael or one of the guys. You got the upgrade, I think, in September from Moody's and the agencies, inching closer. Certainly appears like you guys should be investment-grade, to me. Any, you know, if you want to comment on that, I think you're certainly getting close to there. You know, again, look, your financials speak for themselves, operations speak for themselves. I'm just wondering, you know, what you guys think about getting to or how soon maybe to investment grade?
Well, Neal, if it was up to me, of course, we'd be there tomorrow. You know, but the way the agencies explain it to us, it doesn't make, I know they've got the rationale, but they put an emphasis on size, and you know that if we were 200,000 barrels a day, we'd be a better candidate than at 100,000, even if our leverage ratio was 0.2, as it is now, or 0.1, and theirs is a 2.0. They pay more attention to size, seem to, than they do the actual strength of the balance sheet. You know, it's a little arbitrary. You know, they're the umpire in that situation. It doesn't do much good to question them too much. They're gonna do things on their own pace.
We were real pleased that Moody's, who's the most conservative, was the very first to upgrade us. We think we're good candidates for further upgrades this next year if we keep doing what we're doing.
Neal, this is Michael Frenzel, EVP and Treasurer. I want to pile on to what Joe said. I mean, I think we're really very pleased to get the upgrade that we got. I mean, the rating agencies do focus on size. However, you know, they really emphasized to us in our discussions how much the work that Matador has done in improving and really strengthening the balance sheet mattered in the cases that they made to their credit committees and also the track record that Matador has shown in the financial prudence and focus on continuing to drive value. Those factors really weighed well in Matador's corner.
It was great to see that they considered those, because we probably are a little bit small relative to our rating, but I think the track record really shone through there.
Thanks, Joe. Thanks, team, for the time.
Thank you.
Thanks, Neal.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Tim Rezvan from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, guys. This is Tim Rezvan from Key. Appreciate the time. Joe, I wanted to follow up on your comments on San Mateo in the quarter. So record revenue there. I know Pronto was a driver of that. You know, we look at the $400 million in cash on the balance sheet and know there's, you know, a lot of options for it. But can you talk about how big the opportunity set is for midstream in, you know, the Delaware on M&A and really how big your appetite is, you know, to kind of increase your presence?
Well, again, Tim, it's a great question that we talk about virtually every day here. What we try to avoid is a target. Because when you get into targets, you sometimes will overpay on a target. If you just look at the opportunity and be patient, opportunities will come along. We don't go into the year. Brian Willey did a great job and Gregg Krug and others, Matthew Spicer saying, we're gonna buy $300 million worth of midstream or something. We just look for opportunities, see where we're drilling wells so that we can provide some of the anchor tenant aspects of it, ensure the profitability of it, as well as to see where there isn't modern or I'd say recent pipelines put in.
When we first came out to the Permian, the infrastructure was old, and it was leaky and needed to be replaced. A lot of it's already been replaced, but we still look for areas where, you know, there aren't people and consider adding there as well as adding where we're doing most of our drilling. We see those opportunities are good, but we also look at the drilling opportunities we have or other it's all one big opportunity box, and we meet as a group and talk about them, and we don't, we're not trying to. No one's an empire builder, and that's what makes it work. Everybody's looking to see what's best for Matador.
The same way on our board is that, there's y ou know, if you could be in this room as we prepare for this, you'd see that everybody's here together, as Billy likes to say, better together. We'll do it whatever way is best for the shareholders. Billy?
Yes, sir. There's a lot of opportunities.
Billy's our president. I wanna make that clear.
Okay. President of Operations. We do, we have lots of opportunities. On the midstream side, there's different things going on all the time in the different, you know, parts of the basin where we're operating and things to look at. Like Joe said, keeping that dry powder ready. You know, we weigh that against all the other things we're looking at. It's just, you know, exciting time and everybody's staying after it, you know, so we keep winning the game, but I see a few more smiles now.
Okay.
Okay. I appreciate that color. We'll stay tuned on that front. You know, one more question related to cash. Again, you know that $400 million is a big number on the balance sheet. You know, you've quadrupled the dividends, you know, in recent quarters. To be frank, you know, this is a high class problem with the share price doing what it's doing. Your yield is really not meaningful at this moment relative to a lot of peers. Do you think at some point as the company matures, there's a yield more in line with the S&P 500? Or, you know, how do you think about that dividend right now, given that it is sort of de minimis, you know, relative to peers?
Well, Tim, you know, one thing that's different about us than a lot of companies is that our staff owns a lot of shares. You know, we're all big shareholders, all of our VPs, you know, I am, our board are all large shareholders, so we like dividends. I mean, make no mistake is that not many send back their checks. That they all seem happy to cash them. We believe, we think the dividends are the fairest way for a company to reward its shareholders and, you know, pay back that cash, because everybody is treated the same based on the shares they own. We can't think of a fairer way to do that. If you buy back, it's just, that's a small part of your shareholder group that, you know, really benefits directly from that. So, we like that.
We also want a dividend that we are looking long term, that'll hopefully increase year to year and be one of those companies that's recognized as having a sustainable dividend that goes up a little bit every year. We're still feeling our way, and we hope that prices and costs and results will enable us to comfortably increase the dividend next year sometime. I don't want anybody to think I'm guaranteeing it, but look, if things stay right now as they are with $80 oil, costs in a livable range, all the areas working good, I'm hopeful that we could do that.
I look at other companies and, we're observers, and if it works out that one of the methods that they're doing is sustainable and the public likes that, we'll look at that. We always reserve the right to get smarter, but we think at present, the fixed dividend is what's the fairest to do. It's better to be slow but sure. That's the feeling of our shareholder group. If you look at the vote that we had at the annual meeting, they clearly were very happy with the way things were going. You know, you're in a volatile business, and so we wanna be. Again, it's better to be slow but sure. Better to be a tortoise than a hare on some of these return to shareholder matters.
First Matador always paid a dividend, and we are glad to be at that inflection point where we could start paying it and then build it up now each year that we've been paying it and would like to continue to do so for many years to come.
Okay. Yeah. That all makes sense. I think the simple base dividend is gonna be the long-term winner. I appreciate your comments on that. Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, Tim. Good to hear from you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Zach Parham from JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I guess first one on the quarter, y'all reported pretty minimal cash taxes during 3Q. In the first half, you were around 6% and, you know, we had expected that level of cash taxes to kinda continue through the year. Can you just give us some color on that 3Q number? Was that just timing related? Maybe how do you expect cash taxes to trend in 4Q and into 2023?
Hey, Zach, this is Rob Macalik, Chief Accounting Officer. You're right. In Q3, current tax expense was really close to zero, and it was really for two reasons. The decrease in the strip price from June thirtieth to September thirtieth, and also some tax planning and other strategies that our teams worked really hard on. It basically reduced our expectations for taxes for the year to around $75 million. We expect Q4 cash taxes, therefore, to be about $20 million or so. You know, my team's working really hard. We're working with you know, the outside advisors, making sure that we're doing the right thing, you know, making sure we get it right, pay our fair share of taxes, and that's really been our focus.
Got it. Any color on how cash taxes could trend in 2023?
Well, we're looking at that. It is very dependent upon just the amount of CapEx and the amount of income that we have. You know, as we go into February, we'll continue to look at that. You know, we definitely at this point are looking at you know somewhere in the neighborhood of under 10% of cash taxes for next year as well.
Zach , it's a high-class problem to start paying taxes now. I think our guys have really worked hard to make sure they get it right. That it's the same way on our audit, is we try to make sure we do it right so that if we're audited, all the numbers will check out. That's my instructions to them. Whatever you do, make sure it's right, 'cause I don't wanna be arguing that we haven't done that. That applies. We've been audited a number of times on state taxation, and we've always had generally a clean bill of health.
Got it. Certainly a high-class problem. Then I guess just one follow-up on Scott's question earlier on the acquisition. Were there any production volumes associated with that acquisition?
Yeah, this is Tom Elsener. You know, we're always looking at you know, bolt-on purchases. Our teams do a great job working with land and geology and accounting to you know, put that together. There's probably a little bit. I think Michael Frenzel may know the kind of exact number. Most of these deals have a little bit of production associated with them, but not a ton.
That's right. This is Michael. Yes, there was a little bit, but we had factored that in when we gave our guidance in the last quarter. We were anticipating that transaction.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Good answer.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Leo Mariani from MKM Partners. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Wanted to follow up a little bit more on your exposure, you know, to Waha. I know you do have some firm on Gulf Coast Express, but when you look at kinda where the production is today on the gas side, can you guys offer us like a, you know, a rough percentage? Do you guys feel like you're 70% exposed to Waha? Any number you can kinda throw out there that might help us. You also kind of alluded to the fact that you might be looking at some additional firm. I know that some of these pipes had, you know, done some open seasons and offered more firm that's gonna come on in the fourth quarter of 2023. Did you guys elect to take any more firm?
Maybe just in general, just talk about your strategy for mitigating what could be, you know, some sloppy Waha prices in 2023.
Yeah. Hey, this is Glenn again. Yeah, I mean, I think we, you know, just as I said before, we're always evaluating it and it certainly depends, you know, to give you that answer, but, you know, what volumes are moving through San Mateo's facility, what third-party volumes, and then, you know, what.
You know what the amount of volumes that are being produced out of the basin, it really just depends. Again, you know, we have the 115 million on GCX, and then, you know, the remainder of all those volumes, you know, has the potential to is exposed to Waha. We have, you know, the pricing structures that can be both fixed and variable, so.
Yes, this is Gregg Krug, EVP of marketing. As far as what Glenn has said, that is correct as far as the GCX piece. We also have seasonality transport on southern Cal to SoCal. We do have exposure to the Waha, but there are ways of mitigating that, and that's kind of what we already did, like last summer, for instance, as far as selling our gas on a fixed basis based on the Houston Ship Channel. That allows for us to kind of pinpoint timing a little better than going out and actually taking on a transport deal that you may be committed to for 15, 20 years.
Those are all things that we have to look at each time that one of those deals come up as far as the transport opportunities.
Just to be clear on that, it sounds like you guys did not elect to take any new firm on some of the pipes that are coming on in the fourth quarter 2023.
No, we did not.
Okay.
No.
All right. Just shifting gears a little bit, maybe you folks can talk a bit more about your bond buyback program here recently. Obviously, you've bought back quite a bit of those bonds. Looks like you did about $7 million so far in October. Can you kind of just speak to what your appetite is to buy more of those? Do you think there's bonds available to take kind of another meaningful dent in that debt number at this point? Do you think it's gonna be just kinda little tiny pieces around the edges sort of going forward?
Now, Leo, we'll be opportunistic like we were this year, you know, we set a goal of, you know, that what we might be willing to do, and we had to disclose that goal as, you know, as we were buying in the open market. We reached that and we're looking at setting, you know, entering the open market again and on the buying opportunities. We're in all probability, with a high probability, we'll keep some debt on the books so the rating agencies know that we're handling the debt in a professional manner.
If the bond prices fall much below par, we're likely to buy some because that has the advantage is when we buy them, we increase our cash flow because we save the interest expense, and we save money on the ultimate redemption of the bonds, and allows us to continue to have bond partners that get to know us and develop confidence in us. We found that we sold the bonds out. People who bought the bonds came to buy the stock, and people who own the stock came to buy the bonds because they had mutual trust and confidence. We think we'll keep our toe in the water and continue to have some bonds.
On the other hand, we, you know, under the appropriate conditions, we would redeem more bonds now. Very pleased with the way things work. We provided liquidity to some of our bondholders who during the year needed it. I think that was just a win-win situation. We'll try to continue to build a relation with our bondholders as well as our shareholders. Whatever we can do in that regard, we wanna keep up the good feelings we think we've built up already.
Okay. I appreciate that response. I guess just one last one here from me. What is Matador's kind of appetite to look at, you know, slightly larger, you know, M&A deals? You know, is there anything out there that's kind of in the several hundred million? Just noticed recently a lot of the deals you guys have done have been, you know, really small. Just curious on, you know, is there availability of anything a little bit bigger on the packages out there and an appetite for that? You think you can kind of continue to put up, you know, $50 million, $60 million, $70 million of kind of small deals, you know, every other quarter or something?
Well, Leo, we've done big deals. You know, proportionate to our size, for example, the BLM deal, we spent about $400 million buying those BLM leases, for which the market treated us pretty roughly. Now we've drilled 54 wells on Stateline and had the results that we have, nobody's saying we didn't do right. When we spent that $400 million. That was a very big percentage of our then market value. We're not restricted to just buying $60 or, you know, $100 million deals. We find those have the least risk if they're in our operational areas. It's hard to find deals that have a concentration like that. You know, usually a bigger company, when they're selling, they put in, it's not all choice acreage.
We like the selectivity of going for these tracts that are adjoining our operations, and our operations are in the center of it, because we have reduced risk and can neatly incorporate them or trades or the like. We bid on some bigger deals. But again, we've tried to be cautious and appreciate the inflection point that we have of staying out of debt. You know, if you go into debt when prices are high up here at $80-$90, and it's volatile, you're taking on a lot of risk. We're growing double-digit growth right now without taking those risks. You know, we're creating a lot of value or adding value to Matador without the risk.
If there comes a time that we make a larger acquisition whose risk factors are no more than what we currently have, hey, we'll go for it. It's a risk and opportunity, but we want it to fit into our drilling program, so we don't want to buy some in Wyoming, even if it's at a good price. It needs to be in our operational area. We need to be able to integrate it. We need to be able to incorporate it into our drilling plans and program. The size of the deal doesn't really bother us, unless we've got to go into debt, and we'll do that just as we did in the BLM deal if the price is big enough. Don't want to take a lot of chances for very average growth.
You know, we want to emphasize the quality of the deal has more effect on our willingness to go after bigger deals. You want the overall quality to be very high. It's easier to compress that quality in a smaller deal. You know, we play a straight game here, and we'll go for a bigger deal if the quality is there and it fits our own properties, fits in well with our operating plans. If anybody's got a really good deal out there, we wish they'd come see us.
All right. That was a very thorough answer. I really appreciate that, Joe. Thank you.
Well, thanks, Leo. I'm, you know, again, I didn't mean to tell you how to build a watch, but we give thought to that every day. You know, how do we grow, you know, in the most value-creating way?
Thank you.
Yeah.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from John Freeman from Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Hey, John.
Hey, John.
Hey, John.
I realize y'all are still working through the 2023 plan. Just sort of given the tightness in the oil service side of things, the supply chain issues that you know everybody's dealing with globally, especially with steel, it seems like you'd probably have to lock in a lot of those or secure a lot of those services and kind of any storage services and equipment sooner than maybe in years past. Can you just give some sense of kind of how y'all go about that? Do you have a certain base level of activity that's already sort of locked in in terms of all the necessary equipment, et cetera?
Just maybe how y'all go about that process and where you stand today versus maybe where you would have stood in years past when going through that process?
Yeah. Hi, John. This is Chris Calvert, COO, SVP of Operations. You know, it really starts with planning and really kind of liking the plan that we have, the seven rigs that we have, and then working with our vendors that we've had for, you know, 40 years since Matador, in one form or the other, has been in business, you know. On the drilling side, you know, we're happy with the seven rigs that we have, both performance and staffing on the drilling side with the seven rigs that we do have. With regards to steel, you know, it's another one of those 40-year relationships that we've cultivated and built upon in that history.
It comes down to transparency with that service provider and the trust that we have with them and that they have with us that we are gonna say what we're gonna do, and to them as well. From a logistics standpoint, you know, we have had no, you know, operational downtime, so to speak, due to any supply chain constraint, whether it's sand, steel or fuel. You know, on the sand side, it's working with service providers such as Universal and Halliburton, which we've been happy with, making sure that we have sand on location. As far as securing these services into, you know, the fourth quarter of this year into 2023, on the casing side, you know, we have casing with Matador's name on it.
On the sand side, it's working with those service providers and giving them line of sight into our activity and into our plan with our seven rigs and the amount of frac fleets that will be.
We're confident. Once again, we're confident in our position operationally to execute on the plan that we have and that we've set forward. Into 2023, you know, we're confident in what we have. Obviously, regardless of where price goes, we're gonna continue to operate at a high level and kind of push forward the plan that we have set forward.
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate that. Just my follow-up question. Obviously, in years past, when y'all enter a year, y'all typically been more like 35%-40% hedged, and kind of y'all's hedging philosophy has been, kind of protect the balance sheet. Just given that y'all are basically at roughly zero leverage, almost at this point, should we just assume that kinda going forward that the hedging strategy just expect y'all to be a lot less hedged than you would've been in years past going forward, just given the strength of the balance sheet? How much does maybe the backwardated curve also play into that?
John, that's a good question. You know, I've always been of the philosophy, or our philosophy has been grounded in the notion that you hedge when you need to protect yourself on your debt, just so that you don't get crosswise with, you know, prices really coming down and having a lot of debt. When you have debt, you need a certain amount of hedge protection, so you're not at risk of your debt tripping you up or the banks calling in things. We've always tried to maintain that, and we have. We've never been in a situation. Each time on our debt with our bank group, we have had a great bank group, and they've always renewed our credit, generally without any change and have never cut us back. I think hedging played one part in that.
Now we don't have debt, we don't have to do it that reason. There are still opportunities where you wanna hedge, which in effect is what Gregg did last summer, so we were selling on a fixed price and not subject to problems at Waha. I thought that was a very clever stratagem that Gregg and Anton and his group had. There are sometimes reasons, and we will two different facets of our business, we'll hedge in one way or another. There's lots of different ways to do it other than just buying a forward contract.
It is an added cost, and if you don't need it, you shouldn't do it, but you do it to protect yourself, either that you won't go negative on price as we did, you know, is why we did it on that this summer in the fixed price scenario. It's a useful tool. We'll use it. We won't, you know, use it just as a reflex or as a matter of course, but it needs to be tied to in support of our main activity. Michael, you and Gregg are in charge of that area. What did I leave out?
Yeah. I think you hit how we think about it really well, Joe. I mean, obviously, we think about it just like we do other things. We wanna be opportunistic, and we wanna protect the balance sheet. Obviously, you know, backwardation makes it a little bit more difficult to hedge, to your question, John. We wanna make sure that we're doing the right thing for Matador. It really is a good team effort. We have a committee that gets together, and we discuss the hedges that are available, and I think we've come to good decisions.
Well, tell them who's on the committee, a few of the makeup of the community, 'cause it's a cross-section of the whole company.
Yeah. Obviously, you know, myself and Gregg and Joe participate. Billy Goodwin, president, and Craig Adams, the EVP and chief of staff. Obviously, Ryan Bellinger, Tom Elsener and Glenn and Chris Calvert all participate as well. We've got a good cross-section, and, you know, we really try to be strategic about it.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate the answers.
Well, appreciate you, John. Thanks. Come see us.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Joe for closing remarks.
Thank you. We just wanna thank y'all again for your time listening in, your notes, and wanna once again extend the invitation to come see us, and we'll have breakfast or lunch or dinner and have more substantive discussions on whatever y'all wanna talk about. We wanna develop the same kind of relationships with you that we have with our various vendors and supply chain. You know, part of our aim is to continue to be fairly transparent in what we're doing. We want to invite all the shareholders and not just analysts to come in and see us sometime. I just appreciate these 10 years that I hope that we've gotten better on these calls. I'm not sure I'm more succinct than I ever was.
The real important point is this is a team effort, and that everybody's contributing and make the train run on time, and this is what we think it takes, and to meet new challenges like the ESG. But we appreciate your questions. We think y'all make us better and sharper with each quarter that we got to meet with y'all. Please know we appreciate y'all and want to invite you. You're always welcome here. Thanks to all the staff for pitching in and getting us ready here and for their hard work and planning. That's a big part, we think, of why the years worked out. We weren't reacting at the last minute, but the planning effort was done months ahead of time.
You feel good when a circumstance comes up and you plan for it and you were ready. I think the gas at Waha is an example of that. Its effect on us is minimal. We're kind of prepared for it, and I think they handled it in a very professional way and hope that y'all get a sense of the planning on that and on the taxes and other areas. New ground that we're experiencing at this time that our groups thought about it and supply chain everything else, they started on that long. Give a lot of credit to our board and staff for being prepared.
Thanks, everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation today. This concludes today's program.