Good morning, and welcome to the Murphy Oil Corporation Virtual Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would now like to introduce the 1st presenter, Mr. Ted Bottner, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Mr. Bottner?
Thank you, Ms. Parson. During the meeting today, the company may make forward looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurances can be given that these events will occur or that the projections will be attained. A variety of factors exist that may cause actual results to differ.
For further discussion of risk factors, see Murphy's 2020 Annual Report on Form 10 ks. It's on file with the SEC. Murphy takes no duty to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman of the Board, Mr. Claiborne Deming.
Thanks, Ted,
Corporation's Annual Shareholders Meeting. As many have observed, it was an extraordinary year. In many cases, we took extraordinary measures to successfully navigate it. We were one of those cases, and our management team met and, in fact, exceeded the challenge. Roger Jenkins literally left the hospital bed after a close COVID call and after a quick assessment, started making decisions.
The streamlining and cost reductions were difficult but necessary, and we are now a more sharply focused, lower cost and better managed company, all necessary in today's world, in an effort I'm proud of. I would now like to introduce our talented Board of Directors. Jay Collins from Houston, Texas Steve Cosse from New Orleans, Louisiana Larry Dickerson from Houston Roger Jenkins from Houston Elizabeth Keller from Cambridge, Massachusetts Jim Kelly from Little Rock, Arkansas Val Meroche from Calgary, Alberta, Canada Madison Murphy from El Dorado Jeff Nolan from Little Rock, Arkansas Bobby Ryan, Jr. From Houston Neil Schmolly from La Jolla, California and Laura Sugg from Montgomery, Texas. A word about Val.
He steps off the board after 10 impactful years. As a lawyer, chemical engineer, and then an oil and gas executive, his level of knowledge and experience has been invaluable to our Board. And the time he has taken to quietly provide advice to our Canadian colleagues has been unsung, but now publicly noticed. Thanks, Val, for your advice, collegiality and friendship. We're joined today by Michael Hupp, lead engagement partner and Mike Terracina, partner of KPMG LLC, our independent auditor.
At this time, I would like to turn the meeting back to our corporate secretary, Ted Bottner. Mr. Bottner will be reporting on the company's business items of the meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before we begin the business of the meeting, I would like to review a few housekeeping items. On our virtual meeting portal located on the right hand side of the screen, you should see the meeting materials, including the agenda and rules of conduct. We will follow the agenda provided and ask that you please abide by the rules.
Only validated stockholders may submit questions and out of consideration for others, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Questions or concerns related to the proposals being voted on today may be entered into the box located on the lower left side of the screen. If you have general questions that do not relate to the business of the meeting today, we are happy to answer those at a later time. Please see the contact information for our Investor Relations group. As noted in the rules of conduct, this meeting is being recorded, but participants are not authorized to use any recording device.
Further, we have available for inspection during the meeting a list of the stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 15, 2021. This list can be found in the lower right corner of the screen. Finally, our Board has appointed Thiago Cooper to act as Judge of Election for the meeting. Mr. Cooper is present today and has taken an oath of office, which will be filed with the minutes of this meeting.
Mr. Bodner, will you provide proof of notice of the meeting and that a quorum is present?
Yes, Mr. Chairman. The notice of the meeting and Internet availability of proxy materials were mailed by Broadridge, the company's tabulation agent, beginning on March 26, 2021. As such, the meeting is being held pursuant to proper notice. An affidavit from Broadridge as to the mailing of the notice to all record date stockholders of the company will be filed with the minutes today.
The affidavit is further available for inspection by any stockholder. Proxies representing over 87% of the votes entitled to be cast by the holders of over 134,000,000 outstanding shares of Murphy's common stock are present at the meeting. As such, the Judge of Election and Broadridge have confirmed that a quorum is present.
Thank you, Mr. Bacher. A quorum is present and the meeting is duly constituted. The minutes of the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are also available for your inspection during the meeting under the meeting materials link on the web portal. I now declare the call is open.
We have 4 formal matters to be voted on today. 1st, to elect as directors the 12 nominees named in the proxy statement 2nd, to hold an advisory vote on the compensation of named executive officers as determined by the Executive Compensation Committee of the Board 3rd, the approval of the 2021 stock plan for non employee directors as presented in the proxy statement and finally, the ratification of the audit committee's appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year 2021. Under our bylaws, the deadline for submitting a nominee for director or any other stockholder proposal has passed, and no other nominations for director or stockholder proposals were submitted. Therefore, these four items are the only matters we will consider at this meeting. We will now address any questions specifically related to the 4 proposals.
If you have a question related to these proposals, please submit your questions now. Seeing no questions, we will now proceed with the voting. Stockholders who have already voted do not need to vote at this time unless they want to change their vote. If you have not already voted and would like to vote now, please do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. While we await the results of voting, Roger will provide a brief company outlook.
Thank you, Clayborn. There's no question that 2020 was a difficult year. However, I'm excited at the trajectory that 2021 has provided thus far. Including the rebound the oil and gas industry is currently experiencing. We have weathered many price downturns, and I can possibly say that in our 60th year as a New York Stock Exchange listed company, Murphy is on a solid path to continue executing along the foundation established so many years ago.
Last year, we were focused on 2 key initiatives: reducing our cost structure and setting up the company to delever our balance sheet in anticipation of an oil price recovery. In addition to these two significant initiatives, we wanted to ensure we protected our employees and environment while executing our day to day business. I cannot be more proud of our employees who remain resilient and continue to work safely during the pandemic, whether in the field or in the office. Reducing general and administrative expenses was a key goal in our cost reduction plans, and we've made incredible progress. Our 2020 general and administrative expenses were 40% below 2019 to follow on our Q1 2021 general and administrative expenses were further decreased by 20% from the Q1 of 2020 and pre pandemic levels.
These cost reductions are permanent and will benefit our bottom line and allow for further long term margin gains as oil price continues to improve. Last year, we developed a strategy to maintain a flatter production profile, which will allow for significant debt reduction in an oil price recovery. This plan would de risk our company's balance sheet long term, while still returning cash to shareholders through our competitive dividend. This year, our company is keenly focused on 3 priorities: delever, execute and explore. As highlighted on our Q1 earnings call last week, we're off to a great start.
Regarding delevering, we've already lowered debt by 7% from the end of 2020, and we are targeting in the current oil price environment to reduce debt even further this year to a total 15% reduction for 2021. With the recent increase in oil prices and staying committed to our flatter production profile, we are now forecasting to reduce our overall debt in half from our pre pandemic levels by 2024. Another key priority for the year is successful execution of our plans. All our onshore wells have come online this year ahead of schedule and below budget, which is in turn feeding our delevering success and capital efficiency. Additionally, we're very excited with the continued progress of our offshore projects that will deliver significant levels of free cash in the long term once they come online next year.
Our offshore execution ability is a differentiator for Murphy and provides a unique advantage to our offshore exploration portfolio and being an explorer has always set Murphy apart from our peers. This year we'll be drilling along with our operating partners to high potential opportunities, 1 in the Gulf of Mexico and 1 offshore Brazil. Overall, our total risk exploration resource base is near 1,000,000,000 barrels oil equivalent, which is very unique for a company of our size. We pride ourselves in working safely and protecting the environment. Benchmarking data shows that in 2020, we're in the top quartile for accident incident rates.
Also, we're a leading company in preventing spills. To date this year, we've operated without a single recordable spill across all of our assets. One area I'm most proud of is our exceptional COVID-nineteen response across our business and especially our offshore operations. Murphy experienced the least number of COVID cases compared to peers in the Gulf of Mexico through the execution of our safety management systems and strict COVID-nineteen protocols. As we look forward to the future of energy and the ongoing energy transition, Murphy continues to continue building upon its position as an industry leading low carbon intensity emitter.
It is clear that oil and natural gas be relied upon for decades to come as an integral part of the global energy mix and our low carbon emission intensity assets will remain an advantage for our company. To further shore commitment to the environment, we established a carbon intensity reduction goal last year and tied it to compensation metrics. Of note, our deepwater offshore assets are the lowest carbon emission intensity of any oil weighted basin in the industry. And along with our expanding tougher Montney natural gas assets, which will provide desirable natural gas as part of the clean energy transition going forward. In closing, I'm optimistic that Murphy's future as well as our position long term in delivering our strategy supported by our top tier execution ability.
Also offer unique exploration opportunity set for our investors, all this while continuing our long standing exceptional record of working safely across all our operations and focused on continual environmental improvements during the energy transition. By delivering on our priorities, Murphy will be able to continue our longstanding support of shareholders. As Claiborne did, I would also like to thank our retiring Director, Val Maroche, for the past decade of service of our Board. Val, you will be greatly missed. And now we'll move on to the next portion of our meeting.
Thank you.
Thanks, Roger. The polls are now closed to voting. Mr. Botnor, we have election results. Yes, Mr.
Chairman.
I am pleased to report that all nominees for director have been elected with greater than 80% of the vote. The stockholders have approved on an advisory basis the compensation of the company's named executive officers with approximately 81% of the vote. The stockholders have approved the 2021 stock plan for non employee directors with approximately 98% of the vote, and the appointment of KPMG LLP has been approved with approximately 97% of the vote. Our Judge of Election will prepare a final report on the vote that will be included as part of the record of this meeting. We will also report the final results on a Form 8 ks to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 4 business days of this meeting.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes all agenda items. You may adjourn this meeting. It's your pleasure.
Thank you, Mr. Botnor, and we are adjourned.