Good morning, and Welcome to the Talos Energy Q2 2022 Earnings Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sergio Maiworm. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q2 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Tim Duncan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Shane Young, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Robin Fielder, Executive Vice President, Low Carbon Strategy and Chief Sustainability Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in yesterday's press release and in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ending June 30th, 2022, filed with the SEC yesterday.
Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures was included in yesterday's earnings press release, which was filed with the SEC and which is also available on our website at talosenergy.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Tim.
Thank you, Sergio. As I mentioned in our earnings release, it was a great quarter for our company that included record revenues, strong margins, and significant free cash flow facilitating rapid debt repayment. This quarter, we achieved our lowest leverage multiple and our highest liquidity in the company's history, positioning Talos well for the second half of the year that will focus on our deepwater drilling campaign, continued growth in our CCS business, and ongoing debt reduction. All of these developments are continuing to strengthen the company for sustainable and profitable growth, enhancing a solid credit profile and positioning the company to build long-term shareholder value. I'll first address quarterly results and recent updates from our upstream business.
We delivered a record quarter, which included over $500 million in revenues, nearly 80% adjusted EBITDA margins before adjusting for financial hedges, and over $130 million of free cash flow after hedges and before changes in working capital. Shane will provide more details on our financial performance during the quarter in his prepared remarks, but I wanna recognize our team for their strong cost control efforts and a diligent focus on ongoing operations that generated strong earnings despite an inflationary macro environment. As we have discussed in previous calls and in our Analyst Day, our intention is to use a constructive commodity environment to accelerate higher impact drilling opportunities in our portfolio, starting in the second half of 2022 and throughout 2023.
These opportunities exemplify how we utilize our core skill set in an organic growth strategy to leverage our existing acreage set, proprietary seismic reprocessing expertise, and well-positioned operating infrastructure to unlock meaningful additional resources with attractive economic returns, even when accounting for the risk of an occasional dry hole along the way. The projects we are undertaking later this year and early next year are both operated and non-operated opportunities that we expect will provide reserve and production growth over the next 12-18 months. On the operated front, we expect to take possession of our contracted Seadrill Sevan Louisiana deepwater drilling rig in the coming days and launching our open water drilling campaign, which will run through the remainder of 2022 and into 2023.
As previously announced, we extended the rig contract to take additional slots, allowing us to perform six straight operations in which we plan to target at least four prospects totaling 65-100 million barrels equivalent of gross resource potential. With individual potential well rates between 5,000 and 15,000 barrels equivalent a day gross. All of those are in proximity to our owned and operated facilities, which will help accelerate first oil and deliver attractive economics on those projects. We have recently brought in industry partners into our Lime Rock, Venice, and Rigolets prospects, allowing us to reach our target working interest of 60% on each of these wells. This has multiple benefits for us. 1st, it provides industry validation on our drilling program. 2nd, we have a better diversity of our capital allocation and concentration risk.
Third, it allows us to further monetize the value of our physical infrastructure by receiving a production handling fee on the production volumes owned by our partners that will flow through our facilities. We're excited to begin this campaign and expect these projects to provide a solid foundation for the future as we expect to bring successful wells into production over the coming 12-18 months. Separately, we are also participating in a number of non-operated projects. Most notably, we expect to spud the Puma West appraisal well early in the Q4 this year with our partners BP and Chevron. That well has been permitted to a depth of 26,000 feet and will be drilled with the Ocean BlackHornet rig following the completion of other rig operations BP is currently undertaking.
We are also actively working to finalize a 5-block exploration unit in the Green Canyon and Walker Ridge areas with another large Gulf of Mexico operator that will lead to a high-impact exploration well in 2023, targeting both subsalt Miocene and Wilcox targets across nearly a 30,000 acre unit. More details on that opportunity will be provided in due course, but we are proud of our track record of pooling our acreage together with some of the most sophisticated Gulf of Mexico explorers and producers to better execute our drilling inventory. We hope to announce additional partnerships in the months to come. In Mexico, at our Zama project, we're continuing to work with both our Block 7 partners as well as Pemex to finalize a field development plan ahead of the March 2023 submission deadline.
Simultaneously, we are also discussing the formation of an integrated project team or IPT, which is common in international projects, and would provide a variety of roles in the project for all of the partners and enhance governance rights for all the parties. In our opinion, that will significantly benefit the Zama project going forward. While the project has experienced significant delays during the unitization discussions, we're encouraged that the project is advancing towards the submission of the final field development plan. The approval of the FDP is the last major hurdle before final investment decision can be taken on this project by all the partners. As a reminder, the contingent resource of Zama, as prepared by an independent third party engineering report, was over 700 million barrels equivalent gross. Progress here still represents meaningful value for Talos to shareholders as we continue to move toward FID.
Once the project is sanctioned, we would expect to be able to book proved reserves that in this case would represent multiple years of reserve replacement, and we would have more certainty around final development timelines, financing, and ultimately first oil. Each step we are able to achieve in the coming months is important as we move closer to realizing significant value from this important discovery. Navigating Zama has not been easy, to say the least, but I would like to reiterate that we are doing everything we can to maximize the value of this discovery for our shareholders. Finally, on the upstream front, we have begun the process of mobilizing our HP-1 facility for the regulatory required dry dock maintenance to satisfy Coast Guard requirements.
A process that we expect will defer approximately 6,000-9,000 barrels equivalent a day net in the Q3, but at the same time ensuring long-term high uptime in our Tornado and Phoenix fields. This downtime has already been included in our full year 2022 guidance, though is now expected to be isolated in the Q3 instead of being spread across the second and Q3s as we had initially expected. In the end, the delay has allowed us to take advantage of a strong commodity prices over the full Q2. Moving into our carbon capture business. I want to applaud the Talos Low Carbon Solutions team for delivering an important transaction in May that brought Chevron into our Bayou Bend CCS joint venture, joining us alongside Carbonvert.
Financial terms of the transactions delivered upfront cash as well as a material capital cost payments by Chevron that we'll expect to cover all the expenses for the project through the project's FID. That capital is being put to good use as we finalize plans to drill our stratigraphic well test in the Q4. The Strat well will allow us to collect rock property data that will provide critical information for our Class VI permit for permanent CO2 sequestration. We are excited to have a major partner like Chevron in Bayou Bend. Not only do they provide critical sequestration experience and an unquestioned balance sheet to the project, we believe it's also another strong endorsement of the solid platform we are building as one of the CCS leaders in the United States.
Our overall portfolio today includes close to 1 billion metric tons of storage capacity across our four project areas in Texas and Louisiana, all operated by Talos, all with strong partners, and all in key industrial regions where we are aggressively working to secure long-term anchor customers. We're very proud of our rapid success in this new business unit, and we're working hard to enhance our leadership by continuing to advance these projects, as well as expanding our storage footprint in these core areas in the future. Lastly, I'll also quickly address recent developments in Washington with the proposed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, but I'll not comment on any political views.
While we recognize this bill may be subject to change and acknowledge the remaining process for potential passage in the law, we think it's important to highlight the potential impacts for Talos if this bill were to pass in its current form, as no other company in the small and medium cap E&P space in the US has both the level of exposure to offshore Gulf of Mexico and to carbon capture and sequestration, and both of these areas are key focus areas of this proposed bill. On the upstream front, if signed into law, as it's initially proposed, the Inflation Reduction Act would reinstate Lease Sale 257 from last November, in which we were one of the most active bidders and won 10 deepwater blocks. This bill would also ensure future lease sales in a prescriptive manner and remove more the regulatory uncertainty.
On the carbon capture side, the bill proposes an increase of the 45Q credit from $50 a ton- $85 a ton and introduces direct pay mechanisms, both of which we believe are key attractors for potential industrial partners around our projects in moving towards long-term carbon sequestration solutions. We believe this bill will be meaningful for Talos in both of our business lines, and we're closely monitoring future developments. With those key updates, I'll turn it over to Shane to address some of the financial details of the quarter.
Thank you, Tim, and thank you everybody for joining our Q2 earnings call this morning. I will focus my remarks today on the following three areas. 1st, our strong financial results in the Q2. 2nd, the strength of our balance sheet, which we believe positions us with significant financial as well as strategic flexibility for the future. I'll provide some insights into the outlook for the Q3 as well as the balance of the year. During the Q2, we generated revenues of $519 million from production of 65.4 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. Realized prices were approximately $108 per barrel and $8 per Mcf before the impact of financial hedges. This represents the company's highest ever quarterly revenue over our 10-year history.
On the cost front, our lease operating expenses were $88 million, equating to approximately $14.70 per barrel equivalent, inclusive of $11.5 million of HP-1 dry dock preparatory costs, and approximately $12.80 per barrel equivalent excluding those non-recurring costs. Cash G&A for the quarter was $18 million or approximately $3 per barrel equivalent. Despite broad inflationary pressures, our continued focus on efficiency and cost controls have kept our per barrel expenses in check year to date. For the Q2, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $251 million. Before the impact of cash settlement on financial hedges, adjusted EBITDA was $411 million for the quarter. These equate to EBITDA margins of 70% and 79% or $42 and $69 per barrel equivalent, respectively.
Net income for the quarter was $195 million or $2.33 per diluted share. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $101 million or $1.20 per diluted share. Capital spending during the Q2 totaled $86 million. Free cash flow before changes in working capital was $134 million, resulting in free cash flow of $226 million for the first half of 2022, allowing for significant deleveraging year to date. Turning to our balance sheet strength. With the strong financial performance during the quarter, Talos repaid $146 million of debt between our credit facility borrowings and the retirement of the final $6 million of our 7.5% notes, a legacy of the 2018 Stone Energy merger.
As of June 30th, we reached a leverage multiple of 1x and available liquidity of over $700 million. Both of these are best in the company's history. Cumulatively, over the past 15 months, we have reduced our net debt by nearly $350 million or approximately $4.20 per share of net debt reduction. Over the same period, commodity prices have increased significantly. The combination of these two factors has significantly increased the intrinsic value of Talos' shares. We expect to continue reducing our debt levels during the remainder of 2022, even with our capital program being significantly weighted towards the second half of the year. We are pleased with the free cash flow generation of the business in recent quarters, and expect to accelerate those strong trends into 2023 as our legacy hedges roll off.
It is important to note that while strong commodity prices have been a positive tailwind, the $350 million of net debt reduction since the Q1 of 2021 and associated improvement in our leverage ratios were based on average unhedged prices in the mid-70s per barrel and high 40s per Mcf. Even more, including the impact of our legacy hedges, those blended realized prices to Talos have averaged in the mid-50s per barrel and the mid-30s per Mcf. Therefore, we're excited about the long-term cash flow profile of the business on mid-cycle pricing and see our exposure to higher commodity prices increasing in the coming quarters as our weighted average pricing increases. Lastly, I'll address our financial outlook for the remainder of the year.
For the Q3, we expect production to be reduced by between 6,000 and 9,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day as a result of the scheduled HP-1 dry dock process that has just begun. Additionally, we expect 4,000- 5,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day impact from third-party midstream downtime at Pompano and other miscellaneous planned downtime activities during the quarter. On the cost side, the HP-1 dry dock should have a similar impact on lease operating expense in the Q3 as we experienced in the Q2. For the full year, we expect capital expenditures to be within our guidance range, albeit near the high end due to further inflationary pressures and expectations for non-operated capital project timing. The balance of capital spend for the year should be split roughly evenly over the Q3 and Q4s.
With that, I will hand the call back over to Tim.
Thank you, Shane. I want to reiterate my admiration for our team that works tirelessly to continuously help Talos create significant value for our shareholders. We've done a fantastic job controlling costs in an inflationary environment, allowing us to aggressively pay down debt, leading to our lowest leverage metric and record levels of liquidity. We have a series of drilling and development catalysts that we are ready to begin working on this month and a growing CCS business that recently attracted a material partner. I truly believe the tremendous value we have created and are continuing to create for our shareholders is not currently being recognized by the market in our stock. I'm fully convinced that it will be soon. We will not falter in that pursuit. We will continue to execute on our operational and strategic fronts.
Now more than ever, we are excited about the momentum and the direction of the company as we move into the second half of the year. With that, operator, we'll open up the line for Q&A.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our 1st question will come from Subash Chandra with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Tim, you know, I have to ask, the EnVen Reuters story, what are your comments there?
Yeah, hey, Subash, how are you? You know, I think you can go back and we can look at previous calls, and I think we get a question about M&A almost every call. I think we have a fairly standard response, would be the standard response here. It's a big part of our inorganic strategy. We're always in the market. We're always looking, y ou know, we've talked about looking at deals inside the Gulf of Mexico, which is where we start because we think we can affect synergies. We're familiar with a lot of the assets. We've also talked about even the potential being outside the basin if we think we can transfer our skill sets. I think the biggest thing we want to look for is that, you know, that it's accretive, and that can mean a lot of different things.
It's accretive in terms of how we use sources and uses. It's accretive in terms of the assets and synergies. Is there upside? Certainly, how do we buy it? You know, is it accretive to free cash flow generation? There's a lot of boxes we want to check when we're looking at deals. We're surprised at the robust, you know, market. I think there's more things on the market as we look at where we are right now than we thought we might be at the beginning of the year. You know, we're excited about how hard we're working on that part of our business. Now, am I gonna comment on any specific deal? I think, you know, that's, it's gonna be tough to bait me into that.
I would just tell you that we're focused on everything we're doing there, and we're focused on a lot of opportunities.
Got it. The IRA or whatever, Inflation Reduction Act. Obviously there's some good elements in there. The one thing I was sort of wanted to get your thoughts on was Congress can override a federal judge on the lease sale, on reinstating the lease sale?
Yeah. You know, look, I mean, I think there are particularities in this and you know that I think we're all trying to understand a little bit. I mean, that's, you know, a question that I have as well, and we need to see how that process plays out. I think, you know, the broader commentary on this thing is, Robin's here, I'm gonna let her talk to 45Q because I think it's worth talking about this piece of legislation, if you will, on the reconciliation bill, is if it goes through in its current form, you know, I think it really does, and I said this in my prepared remarks, I think it really does impact us more than any E&P sector, you know, carbon company that I can think of.
Certainly maybe with the majors as well, because we rely on and we participate in lease sales. I would tell you in that particular sale, and look, I hear your question. We're gonna have to figure out what the answer is. Not only were we one of the most active bidders, I can tell you a couple of those prospects that we bid on would fit immediately into our portfolio. Certainly future lease sales. That's been something that I think people have seen as a risk factor, and it would be nice to take that risk factor off the table and have predictable lease sales again. You know, certainly that part of the legislation is extremely interesting to us. In 45Q, we're seeing advancements.
Robin, you want to have a couple comments on those advancements.
Sure. There's certainly a lot of positive provisions in this proposed act that would both extend and enhance the existing 45Q IRS tax code and allow those taxpayers claiming that credit for CO₂ sequestration to also have a direct pay option. We think this is a very encouraging development, not just for some of the projects where we may try to claim the 45Q, but for many of our large industrial partners or customer base who are looking to see this enhancement in order to move forward on their projects. We'll continue to work with all of our stakeholders along the Gulf Coast and other regions as we try to put together these low-cost decarbonization projects.
Got it. Yeah, I didn't catch the direct pay. That's awesome. Just finally, I guess as we approach January and the refi period, how are you thinking about it? I mean, my quotes might be a bit stale, but it looks like the bonds are sub-eight at this point. Don't want to jinx it, but how are you thinking about the path to refining or repaying?
Yeah, look, I'll start. I'm gonna hand it over to Shane on this. You know, Shane will give you some thoughts on the strategy, but obviously it starts with, you know, getting your leverage stat down to something that the market really is attracted with. You know, Shane, why don't you talk about how your thoughts on the refi?
Yeah. Look, our goal for 2022, I think you've seen it consistently both in the Q1 and the Q2, and I think you'll continue to see it for the rest of the year, is to be in a position as we exit this year to deliver the best credit profile that we can deliver to the marketplace. I think, you know, that's sort of our job, number one, and that'll put us in the best position to effect a refinancing when the market's right. I think the thing we don't control is the market itself, but I think, you know, your guys and others out there would tell us that it's been a tough market, you know, over the last quarter or so.
We need that to firm back up. Look, there are cycles in the capital markets, and 2020 was a particularly rough time. When the window opened up, we went ahead and took advantage of it, y ou know, look, we're gonna fortunately have a lot more runway this time to look at that. In 2023, we hope to address the existing note.
Yeah. We think, you know, you never know with the credit agencies, and we try to visit with them from time to time, certainly let them know about our progress. I think if you look at just the level of debt repayments and where we are on a leverage stat, you know, and frankly, even as Shane mentioned in his remarks, over $4 a share on debt repayments ought to accrue to the equity owner. I think we put ourselves in a nice spot. The cost of that debt was fairly expensive, as you mentioned. It's trading lower. We'd like to push it even lower.
You know, we think the decisions we made in terms of what our goals were for the year with respect to being prepared to refinance those notes were all the right calls, and I think the team's executed admirably on it.
Thanks, everybody.
All right. Thanks, Subash.
Our next question will come from Cameron Lochridge with Stephens. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.
Hey, Cameron.
I wanted to start on carbon capture. Obviously a lot of exciting developments which we outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act. Talked about the 45Q, the direct pay. I was wondering if you guys had any indication on whether or not there's any sort of talk in Washington around state primacy on the Class VI permitting. I know that's something that you know, the permitting process is the longest lead item, right? Any update there that you can share would be helpful.
Right, Cameron, thanks for the question. You're right. Both the state of Texas and Louisiana are seeking primacy there. Right now, that jurisdiction for these Class VI wells and those associated permits resides with the EPA. It's with that agency, and both the state of Louisiana and Texas have been in discussion with EPA about that potential. Even as we prepare to file our very first Class VI permits, we are talking with all the associated agencies as far as what's necessary and what sort of documentation and what sort of supplemental data that we wanna make sure we have in place before we hit submit to make sure we've got a very robust application form that is easy to get through, and we can help accelerate that timeline.
Yeah.
We're highly supportive of the states and them being able to leverage their vast resources when it comes to knowledge of the subsurface and particularly in injection and disposal wells. We're gonna continue to advocate for that and work with all the agencies as we progress these projects.
Yeah. I think I would add that and just I think Robin made a great remark there. Although in the long term, I think putting this into the state's hands makes sense, and I think will be the most efficient process. I do think in the near term, it's really about the application you put together and the data in that application. Again, the team's working to go execute on the first stratigraphic test in the area, where we're gonna collect a lot of rock property. I would tease you as an oil and gas guy to go, you know, put a whole core in a wet sand. It's not. It's against my better nature, but that's the data we need to collect. You know, I think it's gonna be interesting. We're focused on the robustness of our application.
We think if folks have delays in their Class VI permit, it may be about the robustness of the application, and that's the best we can do right now while the politics works itself out. Yeah, in the long run, running this through the state I think would be a benefit.
That's helpful. Thanks to both of you. I guess as my follow-up, switching to the balance sheet and cash flow, I mean, the leverage reduction has been rapid and robust over the past several quarters. I mean, you're now tracking to end the year below the 1-1.5x target. In the past, we've talked about shareholder returns and once that leverage comes down, potentially implementing some form of dividend or buyback program. Any update there on what you can share, just discussions you're having with the board and anything on that end will be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Look, I'll start, and Shane may weigh in as well. I mean, obviously, we think our stock's way undervalued, and so, you know, you can think about what's the best way to use free cash flow and when you have a lot of it. We talk about it all the time, but I would continue to go back and say the cost of our debt is too expensive. We really think about the long term, driving that cost down as a first priority, leading to that next priority of, you know, returning capital back to shareholders is the way we've been continuing to think about it.
Look, I think that's right. You know, the game plan has been, you know, really since last year is to drive the leverage stat down. You know, pre-pandemic, we sort of thought 1-1.5x was a very comfortable place to be. Frankly, you know, it served us well. We were glad we started there as we went into the pandemic. Coming out of it, we wanted to get back into that range. I think as we've rethought about it, we've recalibrated that to say it's probably 1x or less now in sort of the new world order. We're there. We're touching on that. That's great. We intend to kind a stay in that zone.
I think the order of operations has been get the leverage stats into a great place and really have it as a position of strength, get the notes refinanced, and then focused on shareholder return strategies.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks to both of you. I'll turn it back. Great quarter.
All right. Thanks, Cameron.
Our next question will come from Michael Scialla with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everybody. Wanna see if we can get a little help on some of the numbers. Shane, you mentioned the impacts of the downtime you're anticipating for Q3. Should we just take those numbers and subtract from kind of the Q2 level of 65,000 BOE per day to get a Q3 number and then add them back for the Q4 so you're back to the 65,000 in the Q4? Is that the best way to look at it at this point?
Look, that's a good starting point. I mean, the Q2 was relatively clean. Obviously, we had some things in the Q1 that were disrupted. Q2, relatively clean. Then again, those are the known downtimes that we have coming up. You know, the big variable as always is the storm season. And so again, the Q3 is always tricky. We sort of bake it into our own guidance.
Some views on how the overall season will look and sort of spread that out throughout. Look, sometimes we're positively surprised and other times, like two years ago, I mean, it's just you end up with some negative surprises on that. But I think as a starting point, you know, that's a good way to get started thinking about it. You might have a view on hurricane season that you'd layer on top of that as well.
Yeah. Keeping in mind that we'd have to go look at the data, but if memory serves me, I think we've had some hurricane downtime. Again, maybe not material, but we've had it in each of the last several Q4s.
Absolutely, yeah.
Because October, you know, tends to be kind of the trailing season. Just, you know, again, Mike, as you do your modeling, keep that in mind.
Got it. That's helpful. I guess on the OpEx side, did sound like Q3 is gonna be similar to the Q2, and then that would step down in the Q4. Is that right?
Yeah, look, I think we'll have exactly like you said, we'll have a similar level of HP-1 dry dock maintenance expenditure that's gonna flow through in the Q3, based on our outlook. That obviously goes away after that. I think you're right.
Got it.
That's probably a pretty constructive way of thinking about the next Q2 .
Look, typically we do some of our repairs and maintenance. You're seeing a little more higher run rate, for example, on P&A and the CapEx side in the Q2 because we typically have our best weather. You know, so we're gonna do a lot of work when the sun shines, if you will. Some of that tails off as you get late to the Q3 and Q4s as well.
Okay. I want to see if I can get you talking at all about the exploration unit you're looking for in Walker Ridge and Green Canyon area. Do you know what your working interest would be there yet? Is this a prospect Talos that you guys have generated? Or has the larger partner done that? Maybe timing of a well, or do you need more seismic there? Anything more you can say on that?
Well, look, you know, I was hoping to get that one kind a right across the line by the time we got to the earnings call, Michael, and just didn't quite do it. I would tell you it's a large player. You know, it's a large player. If you go to the Analyst Day slide and you pour through all of them, you might find a graphic on it. You know, it's a prospect that we've worked on for several years, and we like it. It covers a large area. We needed to kind a tie up multiple blocks, and we did that with another large operator in the Gulf of Mexico. You know, as we roll out more decks and we go to more conferences and we get those fleshed out, we'll talk about it.
It brings up a different theme, really, of how do you monetize the value of a large acreage position, which we've talked about, and you guys know that we have, and we talked about that in the Analyst Day as well. You know, it's not about a single block, it's not about a single two blocks. Even if you look at the Puma West area, what makes that interesting area is we aggregated BP and Chevron into three or four different blocks. Then we were lucky enough to have a discovery, and now we're appraising that discovery. The question then becomes, what can you do in other areas where you have, you know, a portfolio of subsalt Miocene prospects, for example? You know, can we have those in different areas?
You know, some of those we have on our own, some of those we bid with joint parties, and sometimes you have neighboring blocks that have other operators. How do you pull your acreage into a position that you can execute on its value and create these catalysts? That's gonna be an example of one. Again, as we get more details, we'll roll that out. Hopefully, we have more examples of that later in the year or early next year. You're setting yourself up not only for the program we wanna execute with the operated rig that we have, but the program you're trying to execute in 2023 and 2024. You know, that's what makes our basin different than maybe some of the onshore basins, where you're just adding a rig, subtracting a rig, you're just prosecuting on the acreage that you have.
We're prosecuting against the entire basin, if you will, and how do you figure out how to pull together the best ideas over a long period of time? Then if those work, you know, ultimately, that's how you maintain a sustainable business. These smaller little JVs are important because they help set up what we're trying to accomplish in the future. We'll get more details. You'll see it on future decks. Just, you know, kind a letting the market understand that we're focused on it was really the main point of adding that to the earnings release and into the script.
Appreciate the color on that. Thanks, guys.
All right. Thanks.
Our next question will be a follow-up from Cameron Lochridge with Stephens. Please go ahead.
Hey, Cameron. You're back.
I'm back. You can't get rid of me. Thanks for taking the follow-up, guys. I just wanted to be clear on something. I know in the release we said that the HP-1 dry dock, as well as some of the other downtime was factored into prior guidance of 60,000-64,000 barrels a day for the year. I know, you know, hurricanes, no one can predict that, right? But barring any, like, absolutely crazy hurricane season, is that still a good range, 60,000-64,000 for the year?
Yeah. Look, we didn't make any changes to our guidance, so that would obviously imply that it is. You look at the first half of the year, and even with some pretty impactful downtime on a third-party pipeline north of the Phoenix field in the Q1, you know, I think we're on track, obviously averaging somewhere around for the year 64 or so. You know, again, we're gonna have real downtime in the Q3. We've known that, it's baked in. Then, you know, let's see how things come back in the Q4. You know, we didn't feel like we need to change the guidance today, and so we didn't. I think the team's done a heck of a job on cost control on that side of the guidance.
A lot of times offshore in the capital guidance is a function of timing on some of these big rigs, and I think we got better clarity on timing. Obviously on the CCS side, we've got some reimbursements from Chevron. You know, we've kept guidance the same, and I think that implied that, you know, it kind a answers the question.
Yep. Perfect. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Again, appreciate it. Thanks, guys.
Okay. Thanks.
This con`cludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Tim Duncan for any closing remarks.
You know, th`anks for turning it back, and we appreciate everybody listening into the call. I mean, when we go back and look at what we were trying to accomplish for the year, you know, we talked about we were comfortable with generating a significant amount of free cash flow. I think the team did a great job in the Q2 taking advantage of the price environment. Our operating costs were lower than anticipated. Our CapEx cost for the quarter was lower than anticipated, and it allowed us to really accelerate some debt repayments. We're happy about that.
We're excited about the catalyst we've put into the system, and we're gonna drill a lot of wells in the next 12 months, and we're excited to see about those results and where that leads us as we get into, you know, kind of the second half of 2023, as we get into 2024, and we have less hedged volumes, and so that opens up quite a bit of price upside for us. We're thrilled with what we're doing on the CCS side. I mean, to bring in a major partner like Chevron, who we think is going to really advocate for what we're trying to do in that particular area, gets us excited about how we're gonna develop the other areas in our portfolio. You know, the team's worked hard. You know, we think we're highly undervalued.
This is a company that we think has got a lot of momentum. We'd hope everybody continues to support us and pay attention, and we look forward to getting on the road and seeing and visiting with most of you. Thanks for attending the call, and we'll talk to you next quarter.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.