Viper Energy Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Viper Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.49
• Consensus EPS: $0.47
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.02
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.10

Viper Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $209.59 million
• Expected Revenue: $210.54 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$950.00 thousand
• YoY Revenue Growth: -28.50%

Viper Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 11/4/2024
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Viper Energy (NASDAQ:VNOM) Partners LP is a publicly traded master limited partnership that owns and intends to acquire mineral and royalty interests in oil and natural gas properties. As a pass-through entity, Viper Energy Partners does not engage in drilling or production operations directly; instead, it generates revenues by holding overriding royalty interests, mineral fee interests and royalty fee interests. These interests entitle the partnership to receive a percentage of the proceeds from hydrocarbons produced and sold by third-party operators.

The partnership’s assets are concentrated in the Permian Basin, with a primary focus on the Delaware Basin region of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Viper Energy Partners continually seeks to expand its acreage position through strategic acquisitions of mineral and royalty interests, targeting assets that are operated by established producers. This approach provides unitholders with exposure to production growth and development activity in one of North America’s most active crude oil and natural gas basins, while limiting operational and capital expenditure risk.

Formed in August 2018 as a spin-off from Diamondback Energy, Inc., Viper Energy Partners is governed by a general partner, Viper GP LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamondback. The partnership benefits from its affiliation with Diamondback through technical oversight, lease acquisition support and financial backing. Management’s stated objectives include enhancing per-unit cash flow through disciplined acquisition and portfolio optimization strategies designed to capitalize on ongoing drilling and development in the Permian Basin.

Viper Energy Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Viper delivered continued organic production growth on its legacy asset base and closed the Tumbleweed acquisition in Q3, bolstering its acreage position.
• Activity remains strong with a substantial increase in work-in-progress wells on Diamondback-operated acreage and added line-of-sight wells from Tumbleweed, driving near-term volume growth.
• The Diamondback-Endeavor merger, closed in Q3, enhances alignment and provides Viper with better visibility on future drilling activity across its high-concentration royalty lands.
• Viper paid out 83% of cash available for distribution in Q3—above its 75% minimum commitment—to compensate new investors post-Tumbleweed; the base dividend remains protected down to $30/barrel.
• The forthcoming Endeavor mineral dropdown is expected to be funded with a modest leverage increase (targeting ~1.5x pro-forma) and rapid deleveraging, positioning Viper for further strategic consolidations.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Viper Energy Q3 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Adam Lawlis, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Thank you, Steven. Good morning, and welcome to Viper Energy Partners Q3 2024 conference call. During our call today, we will reference an updated investor presentation, which can be found on Viper's website. Representing Viper today are Travis Stice, CEO; Kaes Van't Hof, President; and Austen Gilfillan, Vice President. During this conference call, the participants may make certain forward-looking statements relating to the company's financial condition, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance, and businesses. We caution you that actual results could differ materially from those that are indicated in these forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. Information concerning these factors can be found in the company's filings with the SEC. In addition, we will make reference to certain non-GAAP measures. The reconciliations with the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release issued yesterday afternoon. I'll now turn the call over to Travis Stice.

[Travis Stice, CEO at Viper Energy Partners]

Thank you, Adam. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for listening to Viper Energy's Q3 2024 conference call. The Q3 marked a continuation of Viper delivering on its differentiated strategy and value proposition and was highlighted by both continued organic production growth on our legacy asset base and the closing of the Tumbleweed acquisition. As we prepare to head into 2025, we look forward to further delivering on our strategy of consolidating high-quality mineral and royalty assets through a disciplined and focused approach. Looking specifically at current operations, activity remains strong across our acreage position, as represented by the substantial amount of work in progress and line-of-sight wells, and we continue to benefit from Diamondback's large-scale development of our high-concentration royalty acreage.

[Travis Stice, CEO at Viper Energy Partners]

Importantly, Diamondback's merger with Endeavor, which closed during the Q3, only enhanced this alignment, as Endeavor was previously the second-largest third-party operator on Viper's royalty assets in terms of both production and acreage. Bigger picture, we continue to believe that Viper presents a differentiated investment opportunity with zero capital or operating costs, alignment with a parent operating company that has helped Viper deliver consistent organic growth, and a current size and scale that positions us as a strategic consolidator in what remains a highly fragmented minerals and royalty space. In addition to these attributes, our market presence and acquisition strategy has been greatly enhanced now that we are one year post-conversion to a Delaware corporation. Looking back 12 months later, we've witnessed a dramatic change in our investor base and trading liquidity.

[Travis Stice, CEO at Viper Energy Partners]

On this point, Viper was added to the S&P MidCap 400 in September following being added to the Russell 1000 during the Q2, both of which are milestones that demonstrate the continued execution of our strategy in highlighting the advantaged nature of mineral ownership and the unique value proposition that Viper presents within the space, as well as in the energy complex more broadly. Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Neal Dingmann of Truist Securities. Your line is now open.

[Neal Dingman, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Thanks for the time. Travis, my question for you as a team is on your future well activity. Specifically, last quarter, you guys talked about, I think, 81 gross FANG wells with a 5.1% royalty interest and then 249 remaining with a 1.1%. So my question is, when you look at your Q4 guide of the 29.5 MBO per day and then you think about 2025 production, I'm just wondering, is this based on sort of a similar FANG versus other operators split, and would you anticipate the royalty interest of either of these changing much next year?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Hey, Neal, this is Austen. A couple of points on that, really as it relates to the work in progress and line-of-sight wells that we disclose. As you can see in the current stats with activity, we had a pretty material step up in the work in progress wells on the Diamondback operated side. That's really the legacy Diamondback and legacy Viper acreage, particularly Gillen/bond, which is enhanced there in Northeast Martin County. That's going to drive a lot of the growth that we're going to see over the next two or three quarters. Then you kind of on the tail end of that have a big step up on the line-of-sight wells on the third-party side. We added about five to six net wells in that bucket from the Tumbleweed acquisition.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

So we've got a pretty good portfolio effect now, kind of following that growth on the Diamondback side. Going to see a pretty big step up on the third-party side. So overall, feeling pretty good about activity. And then not to mention, as Diamondback continues to high-grade the activity plan post-Endeavor and post-Tumbleweed, we have a lot of that growth coming in 2026 that we talked about along with the Tumbleweed acquisition.

[Neal Dingman, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Yeah, I'll look forward to that activity. Thanks, Austen. And then second question, just quickly on shareholder return and capital allocation specifically, is the goal to continue to pay out roughly around 85% of cash available for distribution? And I'm just wondering, how do you pair this with what you consider to be sort of appropriate debt repayment quarterly?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Yeah, Neal, good question. I think Q3 was a little unique because of the amount of shares added for the Tumbleweed acquisition, particularly a good amount of shares added on October 1st in early Q4, and I think what we decided to do as a board and a management team was to continue to be shareholder-friendly and make our shareholders whole for their participation and ownership of Viper through the Q3, so the 83% was kind of a one-off. It's 8% higher than the 75% minimum commitment, but we felt it was necessary, particularly for the added 10 million shares in October, to make our Q3 investors whole, so sticking with 75, I think it's a really good number for this business. The base dividend, well protected, down to $30 a barrel, which is as low as anything in the space. That's going to continue to grow.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Our break-even at Viper is going to continue to decrease as well as we continue to build size and scale and grow this business.

[Neal Dingman, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Makes sense. Thanks, guys.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Thank you, Neal.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Betty Jiang of Barclays. Your line is now open.

[Betty Jiang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Hello. Good morning again. I wanted to ask about the Endeavor mineral dropdown, just given it's such a significant event for Viper. Can we just talk through the timing and how you're thinking about the funding of that drop? How much debt could you take on at the Viper level? And how does that, how should we be thinking about Diamondback's share exposure on that mineral activity side and the implication on growth from there?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Yeah, Betty, good question. I think there are some things we can say as we continue to do a lot of work on the dropdown. I don't think we can give you perfect detail on everything. I think that's going to be up to the two boards to decide cash stock mix. I do think overall, though, both boards and management teams are very aligned that it's not prudent to lever up the sub in exchange for cash upstairs at the parent. So I think you can assume a modest leverage increase that gets paid down very quickly on the cash side.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

I also think you can assume that Viper's done a lot of cap raises over the last year and a half and has continued to build its float and the ability to raise equity capital in the market and also reward those investors that participated in those capital raises. We've had three successful deals here over the last year, and that momentum is very important for future success. And then I think we also recognize the size of the trade means Diamondback's going to have to take back some equity, but taking back equity has been well-rewarded for Diamondback shareholders as well. So I think that mix is going to stay. It's going to be a mix of those three things. I think there's work to do on value and accretion.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

As we said on the Diamondback call, this is the number one priority for both businesses to get this done and move on to more corporate development opportunities after that.

[Betty Jiang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

No, I appreciate that. Look forward to more details around that, and my follow-up is thinking through the impact of the Endeavor merger on the visibility Viper has on Diamondback activity. I think the Tumbleweed acquisition really highlighted the power of the symbiotic relationship with Diamondback and providing that visibility out to 2026 onward. With the Endeavor merger, how much work have you guys done so far in optimizing the Diamondback activity to give more visibility on the Viper mineral assets?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Yeah, Betty, it's definitely been a work in progress kind of with the Viper land and business development teams stacking hands with the Diamondback land and planning teams to see where Viper owns kind of concentrated interest in undeveloped units and kind of see where those can slot into the pro forma development plan and also how that might impact future acquisition opportunities, which is what we highlighted in the Tumbleweed deal. So kind of as I was mentioning to Neal's question, you haven't really seen those show up in either what's classified as work in progress or line-of-sight wells yet, just given the lead times on the project size. But it's definitely something that the teams are working on together, and I think would be a tailwind to 2026 and beyond because, as we mentioned, Endeavor was previously the second largest third-party operator on Viper's acreage position.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Definitely a sizable opportunity set to kind of high-grade development plans.

[Betty Jiang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Appreciate that. Thank you.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Thanks, Betty.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one. Our next question comes from the line of Leo Mariani of Roth. Your line is now open.

[Leo Paul Mariani, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Roth MKM]

Hi, guys. Totally appreciate that it's going to take some time for you guys to figure out the consideration in terms of cash stock mix for the Endeavor dropdown. But I guess I just wanted to talk about sort of leverage parameters. I mean, you did mention you will increase leverage at Venom somewhat and then attempt to kind of quickly pay that down over time to kind of get back in line. Is there kind of like a max leverage number you think about for Venom as you're kind of working through some of that math and calculation?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Yeah, Leo, I think a turn and a half on a pro forma basis seems reasonable. We can debate what oil price that needs to be at, but somewhere around there because you think about the size of the business pro forma and the ability of the business to delever both from either growth or debt paydown is pretty unique, right? 75% of free cash goes to equity, 25% goes to the balance sheet. But at the end of the day, that cash flow stream is 100% free cash unlike an E&P that has a reinvestment rate. So I think a turn and a half-ish on a pro forma basis that can come down very quickly makes a ton of sense.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

I think with Viper's increased size and scale, we're starting to get more attention from the rating agencies, appropriately so, moving up the rating scale and improving our overall cost of capital. So Viper's going to be a big business with a lot of free cash. And I think we have a goal of this business being a comp to midcap E&Ps as the E&P universe continues to shrink. There's less and less Permian pure plays, well, look at this business called Viper with no CapEx, but exposure to some of the best rock in North America and the best operators in North America.

[Leo Paul Mariani, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Roth MKM]

Okay. No, that makes a lot of sense for sure. And obviously, just looking at the Endeavor deal, obviously, it looks like it'll be the largest transaction in Viper history. Obviously, the plan will be to pay down debt shortly after that. But you guys also mentioned that this will just continue to increase the size and scale of Venom and maybe make the company in an even better position to do more consolidation over time. So just kind of curious, if the drop happens sometime in the first part of 2025, do you envision that Venom will be in a position to look at other deals as we get later on in 2025? And you obviously have a nice multiple advantage, I think, versus the other public equities in the mineral space.

[Leo Paul Mariani, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Roth MKM]

But just wanted to see if you could give us kind of an update on how do you think about other deals post-drop, and you think there's still a lot out there available, and what's the landscape for other deals in the space?

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Yeah. I mean, I think certainly the business has been rewarded this year, and rightfully so. And while I won't comment on specific opportunities, I will say that there is a larger opportunity set out there for high-quality mineral assets to be consolidated. I'll also say that our unique size and structural advantages that we offered Tumbleweed caught the attention of a lot of significant mineral holders around the basin that recognize that Viper can raise a good amount of cash, but also give them something in the form of, like we gave the OpCo units, where they can defer taxes and still essentially hold an interest in mineral rights, but in a public setting where they can get liquidity. So I think those deals sparked a lot of interest. We're going to be picky.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

I think we have a very unique market position, and we don't take that for granted.

[Leo Paul Mariani, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Roth MKM]

Okay. I appreciate that.

[Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations at Viper Energy Partners]

Thanks, Leo.

[Operator]

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Travis Stice, CEO, for closing remarks.

[Travis Stice, CEO at Viper Energy Partners]

Thank you again to everyone participating in today's call. If you have any questions, please contact us using the information provided.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Austen Gilfillan, VP of Investor Relations
• Travis Stice, CEO

Analysts

• Leo Paul Mariani, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Roth MKM
• Neal Dingman, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities
• Betty Jiang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays