Hello, everyone. My name is Kevin Andrus with EnerCom. It's my pleasure to introduce Brent Clum, Co-CEO and CFO of TXO.
Thank you. Thanks, Kevin. It's nice to be back at EnerCom. I don't think we've been back for a considerable period of time. I got my Co-CEO, Gary Simpson, with me as well down front. Tell you a little bit about TXO. We've not been big on the conference circuit. Just to give you a little bit of a refresh about the story, the headline things I'd point out to begin with is we have a nice portfolio of assets, and I'll give you a little history lesson. I know the last thing you want is an old guy up here telling you history, but I'm going to give you a little history, and I think it sets the stage about how we think about the business and how we manage the business, which I think is really helpful.
We do think like long-term owners because we own a lot of the stock. Our board and our insiders own about a third of the company. We try to make decisions with the owner view in mind, and we think that's very, very helpful. Again, building value with the right assets over time. This is what I call the placemat. It tells you a lot about what we've been able to distribute. We are a unique company in that we're a production and a distribution company. I think I'll start here at the bottom, really, with the timeline, because I think how we got here is relatively important. For those of you who don't know us, we started this company shortly after we sold our old business, XTO, to Exxon.
For perspective, that was a business that started essentially from zero, much like this business. We sold to Exxon for $41 billion in 2010. At the time we sold, we were the largest producer of natural gas in the U.S. We did that primarily through an acquire and exploit strategy. I'll talk a little bit more about the strategy we used to build XTO and the things we did at XTO were really the same strategies we deploy today. If you go back legacy wise, Bob Simpson and Keith Hutton were two of the most important drivers to what we built at XTO, and their DNA and their training really flows through to what we're doing today. Most of the important people making the decisions in the business today all have that legacy and all came up the same way.
That history is very relevant to what we do today. As I said, we started this business in 2011, 2012. You can see it down in the bottom, really in the Permian. We started it with assets we got in a joint venture with Exxon. I will talk later about the unwinding of that joint venture. Really, that was the foundational asset of the company. It really relied on the expertise we had at the time. We really recentered the business in 2020. We had the conviction that the commodity environment was going to be different, that the industry discipline was finally more foundational and was likely to be sustainable.
We had a view on commodities that while AI and data centers were not necessarily a big thing then, we did think that the supply and demand equation and the regulatory environment that had been present over the previous period of time was likely to be more favorable to what we did. I would say we repositioned the company, and it was critical to where we went today. We built it foundationally. In 2020, we did an acquisition in the San Juan Basin. It was a basin that we had been in at XTO for a very long period of time. We followed that in 2021 with two assets in the Permian, both from Chevron.
In 2024, we went public in 2023, and really, that was a foundational event for us, and we thought that was the ability for us to build a more valuable company, not necessarily a bigger company. As I relayed earlier, at XTO, we were the largest producer of natural gas at the time we sold. We were not interested in being bigger. We were interested in making a more valuable company. What does that mean? Assets that are not as operational intensive as some of the legacy assets we had in our portfolio. High margin assets. If you look at what we have done to the cost per barrel over the last three or four years and where that has gone, we brought that down a lot.
While we had a view that commodity prices were likely going to be sustainably higher for longer, we wanted to build our cost structure for if that was not the case, we would have a nice sustainable business. Again, as I said earlier, we are big owners of the company. We are interested in building a sustainable, durable business that is much more valuable, and I think we have done that.
If you look at what we have created, we did two acquisitions, one in 2024. It marked our, I call it our re-entry, but for TXO, it was our entry into the Williston Basin. When we talk about the Williston Basin, what we are really talking about is the Montana side. That is the Elm Coulee Basin. It is a basin that for us, we had been in at XTO. We bought the assets in 2008 from Headington Oil Company.
Interestingly, in 2025, when we did our White Rock acquisition, we rebought those assets. We viewed that as an asset that was going to be very high margin for us, and we viewed that as an asset that really had been underexploited. When I talk more specifically about the Williston, I will tell you why that was underexploited. Really, it has given us a nice foundation. So between the asset we have in Montana, the foundational assets we have in the Permian, and our assets in San Juan, we have a business where we can toggle between gas and we can toggle between oil. As the world sits today, oil is where we are spending most of our capital. I will talk a little bit more about that. We have built a business that we have 520,000 net acres across these three high impact basins.
We have about $1 billion in PDP. We think we have a very valuable business. Because all this is HBP, we view it as having a tremendous amount of optionality. Bob likes to say you always find oil or find natural resources where they are, and by all means, that is what we have done. It is kind of the gift that keeps on giving. We have been talking about the Mancos for a very long period of time, and I will show you a slide. When time is right, we will be in a position to really exploit that asset, and I think we have one of the most valuable assets in the Mancos that anybody has.
As you may or may not be aware, LOGOS, who presented yesterday, just sold their business for north of $1 billion here recently, and we think we have a really compelling position as well. Very low decline rate. Again, when you go back to what built XTO, it was the low decline rate of the assets. We think the decline rate of the assets are about 12% over time. We have taken it probably from about 9.5% when we went public in 2023 to 12%. We want to keep it less than 15%. I think when we exited at XTO, we had a 14% decline rate. We do think we have some great targets and some great ability to move the needle, but we want to be very, very sensitive.
When we went public, as I said, we did things to make a more valuable company. We branded as a production and distribution company. Our goal, we wake up every year saying we want to raise our distribution every single year. This is a commodity business. The commodity curve is typically backwardated. It is not easy to do, but that is what we strive to do every year. Our goal is to maximize, is a strong word, but I will use it, maximize our distribution in the short and intermediate term while building long-term value, right? We do not want to go in blow-down mode. We think we have the assets to make a more valuable company. That is what we set out to do every year. We think we have done a pretty good job about it, but we call ourselves a production and distribution company.
If commodity prices are such that it's a favorable environment, then we will seek to grow, but we're not going to be growing organically 10% every year or 5% a year, maybe a couple percent a year. If commodity prices look like they did back in January, there may be a period of time we say, "Hey, look, we're okay with the business declining a couple of percent because keeping our distribution and managing our business for the long term is what makes sense to us." That's the way we think about the business. One of the things we did is kind of looked at the portfolio. We've got a nice portfolio of conventional assets that help our decline rate. We've got a nice portfolio of unconventional assets. Then we've got some sensitivity.
We did the White Rock acquisition about a month after Liberation Day last year, right? The right assets come to market when the right assets come to market. For us, it was very critical for us to do that transaction. We issued equity against it as an MLP and distributing cash flow. We are dependent on using the public markets as a means of financing our transactions on a go-forward basis. We'd like to think we've earned the ability to do that, and we'd like to think the results would suggest we've done that. What we did here is just gave a little bit of sensitivity. Commodity environments have been a little bit volatile. We want to give you a sense of what we think the business can earn over time.
I think as we take the cost structure of the business down, as we take the resource and convert the resource over time, you have the ability really to scale this business up into $700 million of cash flow. One of the questions we get asked a lot in our breakouts is: What does this business take for a maintenance cash flow? We don't necessarily think about maintenance cash flow in that regard, but we think we'll spend about 40% of our capital to grow the business at the margin, a percent or two every year. That's how we think about running the business. Obviously, you have to think about that through cycles, but that's how we think about the business. This gives you a sense of, depending where you are on your optimism or on non-optimism, just how sensitive this is.
As I mentioned earlier, we're in three high impact basins: the Permian, the San Juan, and the Williston. You can see kind of our mix of assets. I mentioned earlier, we started the business with a joint venture with Exxon. We've been in business with them for 16 years. Once we completed the White Rock transaction last year, we made the decision to move forward with disposing of that joint venture. We entered into transactions with three sellers. We closed all those transactions, the last of which closed in May. You'll see that fully reflected on the balance sheet at the end of the second quarter, but we'll unwind that partnership, and you get a clearer sense of the balance sheet at the end of the third quarter.
But as we think about running the business, we want to run with about one to two times debt as we go through cycles, as we do transactions. This is the Williston Basin. I would say this is very core to us in what we're doing. I probably did a poor job here. If you look at the map on the left, I'm probably not smart enough to use the pointer here, but the assets, if we showed what we bought in 2024 and 2025, the assets just marry up on top of each other. This field was originally developed in the 2000 to 2008 period of time. If you go back in that time, and I know history is a tough thing, but this was developed on open hole completions, 5,000-foot laterals at the longest. Really no separation when you do completions.
So very, very first generation fracking technology and first generation horizontal. Well, we've come back in, and we had the view that we could essentially redevelop this field. So there's a lot of embedded production in the field. But our view when we bought in 2024 was this was a field that was primarily going to work on refracs. There was some new drilling to be done, but it was going to be a refrac. As we've gotten into this, we've determined really something quite different, that this is a field that you almost can forget about where things are and think about how you would optimally go back and redevelop the field. That's how much technology has changed in the last 25 years for this field. The White Rock acquisition allowed us to take what we did in 2024 and go from 10,000-foot laterals to 15,000-foot laterals.
So if you think about our program, in 2025, we did our first organic development. We only drilled three wells. Again, we're a relatively small company with a lot of firepower. But we had drilled three wells. Average lateral length there was about 10,000 feet. In 2026, we are going to do seven organic wells, of which we're down on all seven wells at this point. We've completed one. All seven of those will be fracked and online by the end of October. But the average lateral length of those wells is just shy of 15,000 feet, about 14.7. So you can imagine we get a bunch of productivity gains there to start with. Secondarily, last year, all three of those wells were drilled on single pads. This year, we have one of our seven wells drilled on a single pad. The other six wells are all two-well pads.
As we move forward into 2027, you're going to see us developing wells on two and three-well pads, which ought to give us further efficiency. And again, we're getting better in this. We're learning it with every well we've drilled and applying technology. It's been a great success so far. We're very thrilled with the results we've seen. We've got a lot of runway here. I would tell you we probably have in excess of 100 additional locations to drill at 15 to 20,000-foot laterals. We have a very good operator who's a non-op that, in some of the white space you see there, does good things. Continental's a little bit to our north. They're good drillers.
There's a lot of knowledge transfer that goes on in the basin, a lot of ways to make this basin better, a lot of cooperation as well to really exploit the resources, to exploit the efficiencies, to really make this a better business. So again, when I talked earlier about making a more valuable business, lowering our cost structure, we really think the things we're putting in place here today will help us to do that. So, just two little slides or two little charts up on the right. Cumulative oil, you can see what's happened relative to our type curve. We've outperformed our type curve. I would expect that'll continue to do.
Oil cut, one of the things that makes this so advantageous that lowers the cost for us, there's a much lower oil cut here on this side of the Williston Basin than there is in the traditional Williston Basin, and we think that's a critical comparison as well. Yeah, so that's really the highlight of what we've got going on in the Williston. We're quite excited about what's happening there and really think we've got the opportunity. I guess the one thing, so I talked earlier about our move from refrac to new drills. The other thing I'd say is the refracs still work, and part of the magic of that is you've got offset. So when we go in to drill a new well, I said you almost do it without regard to what else is going on in the field.
If you've got producers around those, we will typically do frac protect around those wells. I would guess we probably have at least 10% of our production in the field on frac protect as we go through and frac the existing wells. We get some beneficial interference and beneficial help from fracking those wells as well as doing refracs. So when we think about it, we think about a whole program. So just for perspective, you'll see quite beneficial gains and again, capital efficiency's very, very good in that regard. San Juan, again, this is an asset, I would say, probably Bob would say his favorite asset in the portfolio is San Juan. It's the gift that keeps on giving, and we've been in the San Juan Basin in one form or another at all of our companies since the 1970s.
I'll talk about the Mancos here just at a very high level, but keep in mind that this asset is underpinned by a great level of PDP. We probably do 45 a day on just traditional San Juan production from normal horizons in the San Juan. Here with respect to Mancos, when we talk about the Mancos here and on these slides, when you hear us talk about Mancos, we're talking about New Mexico Mancos. No offense to where we are, we'd rather not operate in the state of Colorado unless we really have a meaningful meaty platform. That's not what we have. We have some Mancos acreage you can see on the map up there in Colorado. We'll make other arrangements. We don't intend to operate there. We do intend to operate here in New Mexico. We've got almost 60,000 acres.
We've identified in the green pod, which you may or may not be able to see from the back, kind of what we call our phase one, but you can see we've got some very blocky positions off to the east and then again to the southeast. We spent a lot of time and effort, and I think if you ask Gary and I in each of the last years, we would tell you next year we're going to drill, start our program, and do a two to four well program in the Mancos, and every year the commodity prices don't really allow us to do that. I would expect once we commit to drilling wells there, you will see us spend meaningful capital.
You will see us with a two or fou well program, and we'll go to it, but it's a program we will be committed to once we go for it. At this point, it's probably not going to be 2027. Maybe if commodity markets change in that regard. We think we probably need $3.50 to $4 realized price in the basin, and basis has not been particularly favorable in the San Juan Basin in the last 18 months. There's some hope that maybe that'll get better on a go-forward basis, but we've spent a lot of time in 2026, and we have spent non-productive capital in 2026 to help build the infrastructure so when we're ready to go here, we'll be ready to go. Again, we think we've got a very attractive position locked up very, very nicely. There's been a lot of activity.
The most prominent operator in the basin has been LOGOS. That's most of those red sticks you see just to the south of us. They've done a great job proving up our acreage. There's no question those are good economic wells and producing wells. Hilcorp has also done a nice job producing wells, and the wells you see to the west are primarily Hilcorp wells. They've done a nice job there as well. They paused their completion, so again, that ought to help the system as well. That's how we think about the Mancos. It's a great asset for the future, and again, we think there's a lot of value there. We've got 60,000 acres. Again, for perspective, if there are 100 sticks there, that's $2 billion of capital given our infrastructure, our cost structure, our balance sheet. That's a lot of capital for us.
We may do it in partnership with somebody. We may do it farm-in with somebody. We're kind of open to any and all ideas on how to best exploit this. This is a tough asset and a distribution model, but we'll think of ways about monetizing it. We have a big idea of what we think it's worth. These commodity prices, we probably won't be able to realize what that's worth, but on a small basis, we're open to any and all ideas on this, and people call us with those ideas from time to time. Someday we'll find one that actually works. This is our Permian Basin position, and it's kind of anchored by, I guess anchor's a bad word, but anchored by the Vacuum Field, which is CO2 flood for us. We've got a plant that operates along with us.
It generates very, very rich NGLs. This is a great asset for us. It is incredibly flat. The decline rate here is 6%. When we think about layering on growth to the business, this is really the asset that helps us mitigate the decline rates as we do that. Again, as I said in the beginning, decline rate is critical to what we do. One of the other things as we go into Mancos development, it is going to be very critical for us to think about how we manage that business and manage that decline curve on a go-forward basis. You can see a relative focus position here. There are things for us to do here, much as there are things for us to do in the San Juan and the Williston Basin acquisition-wise.
I think if you ask Gary and I separately, we would tell you if we had to live with these assets for the next 10 years, we would be perfectly happy doing that. We think we have got a great asset base with very, very high returns embedded in the portfolio that we can exploit. If the right thing comes along, that is great. We have got a great team, and we would not have gone down this path if we did not think we had a great team, and our operational team is, you can see the results for yourself going forward, has done a great job, and we think they have got the ability to handle other stuff as well. Financial strategies. We are going to spend $80 million plus or minus this year, probably at the margin on the plus side. We like what we are doing.
We have got the opportunity to refrac and clean out some additional wells. I expect in this price environment, we will probably do that. Could this number be closer to $90 million before we are done? Probably. Again, we will make prudent capital allocation decisions as we go forward. I guess I really have not said the word capital allocation, but I think in the MLP structure, which is what we are structured as, capital allocation is kind of the whole ballgame here. Having the right assets you can invest capital in while also maintaining a distribution policy that is compelling to holders and owners is the whole key. We have got great assets to invest again. We have made the decision to actively invest against those assets.
Gary and I were talking about back in January, you have got $52, $53 oil, and these wells are highly economic at $52 or $53, but how smart do you feel about drilling wells in $52 and $53 environment? Not so smart is the answer. We looked at all our optionality, and luckily, we were cued up. If we were going to cut the program, we could have done that in January and February, and if we wanted to ramp it up, we could do that too. Again, having the optionality, the flexibility to do things is really, I think, helpful to our structure. I talked a little bit about the It is a variable distribution strategy, although let us be quite frank, we do actively manage the distribution.
We do not think there's a lot of benefit to having a $0.30 distribution one quarter, a $0.60 distribution one quarter, a $0.30 distribution the next quarter. We'll try to give you a process. I think we did $0.30 last November. You would've said at that point, as we look forward, we thought we could probably do $0.30 the next four quarters. In the March quarter, I think we did $0.36, and then in the most recent quarter, we did $0.40. As you think about the world, what we're trying to communicate to you is we think we've got the ability to generate a $1.60 distribution over the next 12 months, and that's how we're trying to manage the business. With that in mind, we want to keep a strong balance sheet.
We do understand there are other things for us to do, either spend additional capital on wells, do additional bolt-on acquisitions. With that in mind, we talk about 1x-2x ratio. I think in an ideal world, we'd run closer to one to one in a quarter. There are times we'll run up to two times, but we aren't going beyond that. There's no need to do that. Protecting our distribution, protecting our capital is critical to what we're trying to do. On a hedging basis, we try to be optimistic. The practical reality is our bank facility is such that we're going to have to hedge about half of our production for the next 24 months as long as we're three quarters of turn. As we sit today, we intend to run the business with probably one turn of leverage.
You should expect us to be about 50% on a molecule basis hedged. In 2026, the good news is we are way under earning because we are super hedged at lower prices on the oil side. We made the active decision that, again, if you kind of roll back to where we were, we were fairly leveraged as a result of the White Rock. We were probably close to two times. We had a deferred payment due on White Rock that was due the end of July, which we've subsequently paid, and we were trying to sell the Cross Timbers assets in a process where commodity prices were going down, and we thought it was prudent to make sure we hedged the balance sheet so we could protect distributions. That's what we did. We probably are 80% hedged on oil or have been about 80% hedged on oil.
All the upside is from better performance on wells, which hopefully will deliver for you guys before we're all said and done. That's kind of how 2026 lays out. You've got a lot of embedded EBITDA that you ought to have a nice step-up for as you go into 2026. Like I said, I think I began with, we wake up every year saying, look, we want to grow our distribution every year. That's our goal. That's what we work hard to do. We're probably not going to deliver on that in 2026, but we absolutely are going to deliver on that in 2027. I won't spend a lot of time on the MLP other than you look, we're heads up. There are no IDRs. There's no funny business. It's a straight up heads up.
We did it because we had the view that commodity prices were likely to be higher and there was going to be much tax leakage. We also have the view that, we're not of the view, it's factually true. We can trade our MLP units for working interests, and that's a tax-free transaction, so there are a number of families that own a lot of oil and gas interests. We've not yet connected on one of those. We continue to try to do that, so we think there's an advantage in the structure we intend to exploit at some point, but that's why we've done it that way. Those are our hedge book. You can find that in our presentation. Then just kind of the summary slide. I see I've got about a minute left. I won't be laboring the points on here.
This is a management team that's been there, that done that. We know how to do it. We know how to acquire assets. We know how to exploit the assets, and really it's the same strategy we used at XTO, except the idea is rather than building for terminal value and a sale at some point in the future, we are going to kick out the cash to our owners, allow them to get the benefits of higher commodity price, and allow us to build a better business. That's really what we've set out to do, and I think we've accomplished over the last three years. Thank you for your time.