Infinity Natural Resources Q3 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Infinity Natural Resources EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.37
• Consensus EPS: $0.82
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$1.19
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Infinity Natural Resources Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $197.58 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Infinity Natural Resources (NYSE:INR) is an independent energy company focused on acquiring, developing and producing oil and natural gas. Its operations are concentrated in the Appalachian Basin, where it produces natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil from formations including the Utica and Marcellus shale.

Based in Morgantown, West Virginia, the company’s assets are located in the Appalachian region, including Ohio and Pennsylvania. Infinity was founded in 2017, and Zack Arnold serves as its president and chief executive officer.

Infinity Natural Resources Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Infinity reported record third-quarter production and Adjusted EBITDAX: total volumes doubled year over year to nearly 432 MMcfe per day, and Adjusted EBITDAX reached approximately $138 million. For 2026, the company expects production at the high end of its guidance range and development capital spending at the low end.
• Positive Sentiment: Greater use of Infinity’s midstream system is reducing costs: utilization rose to about 35%, controllable cash costs fell 8.2% sequentially, and GP&T costs per Mcfe declined 12%. The company said its REX transportation contract could provide a net gas price uplift of roughly 15%–25% versus in-basin pricing, though winter differentials may narrow.
• Positive Sentiment: Management expects to capture more than $25 million in 2026 cost and capital synergies, citing redesigned wellbores, use of existing pads and infrastructure, and more efficient development of acquired Utica assets.
• Positive Sentiment: The company ended the quarter with 1.1 times net leverage, approximately $900 million of liquidity, no revolver borrowings, and no near-term debt maturities, giving it financial capacity to pursue growth opportunities.
• Negative Sentiment: Diesel and stimulation costs are pressuring development economics, and management has not yet finalized 2027 spending plans. The timing of further deep dry gas Utica development will depend partly on the outlook for gas prices.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Infinity Natural Resources Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Tom Marchetti, Vice President of Investor Relations. Tom, please go ahead.

[Tom Marchetti, VP of Investor Relations at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining Infinity Natural Resources Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With me today is Zack Arnold, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Cary Baetz, Infinity's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In a moment, Zack and Cary will present their prepared remarks, with a question-and-answer session to follow. An updated investor presentation has been posted to the investor relations section of our website, and we may reference certain slides during today's discussion. A replay of the call will be available on our website later today. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's call may contain forward-looking statements. All statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements.

[Tom Marchetti, VP of Investor Relations at Infinity Natural Resources]

Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please review our earnings release and the risk factors discussed in our SEC filings. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release and investor presentation for important disclosures regarding such measures, including definitions and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, I will turn the call over to Zack.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thank you, Tom, and hello, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to review Infinity Natural Resources' third quarter results. We are almost three quarters since closing our Ohio acquisition, and it is a good moment to take stock. The assets are integrated into our operations. We are growing production, we are putting more volume through our midstream system, and we are delivering the synergies we outlined. Just as important, we have the team, the balance sheet, and the platform in place to act on the next opportunity that meets our underwriting criteria. That progress is visible in our third quarter results, where we continued to execute on our playbook and delivered both record production and Adjusted EBITDAX. In the third quarter, our oil volumes came in ahead of our expectations, increasing 79% year-over-year to approximately 14,000 barrels per day.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Our total volumes averaged nearly 432 MMcfe per day, which is a 100% increase from the prior year. Higher volumes and a favorable oil mix drove Adjusted EBITDAX of nearly $138 million. We also brought our controllable cash costs down sequentially on a per-unit basis. Consistent with expectations, our per-unit GP&T costs declined as more volumes moved through our own midstream system. On the marketing front, our REX Zone 3 contract is starting to highlight its value. Most of our Ohio gas and over half of our total gas is sold into markets served by this pipeline, which we expect to give us a meaningful uplift relative to local in-basin pricing. As we continue to develop our portfolio, we remain very encouraged by the opportunity to scale our upstream assets on a midstream system with substantial available capacity.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

The system has approximately 1 BCF per day of throughput capacity, enough to support our organic growth with room for third-party volumes as well. About 70% of our gross operated natural gas volumes already flow through it, and utilization of almost 35% continues to move higher, with incremental volume lowering our per-unit costs. That capacity gives us a long runway to grow, both organically and through strategic acquisitions that add volume to the system and lower our cost structure. Our conviction in the long-term value of these assets continues to strengthen. Taken together, our strategy remains unchanged. We continue to execute the disciplined growth plan we have outlined, scaling production, increasing utilization of our integrated midstream system, maintaining capital efficiency, and lowering controllable costs, all while focusing our capital on our highest return opportunities.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

As you saw in our earnings release, we now expect to spend at the lower end of our capital guidance range and to produce at the higher end of our production guidance range for 2026. Both are within our initial 2026 guidance ranges. We have continued to be efficient with capital allocation, even as cost pressures increased, primarily from diesel and stimulation cost increases, while delivering a higher liquids mix. We took advantage of our flexible portfolio by reducing gas development and increasing oil development in a very favorable oil price environment to drive record Adjusted EBITDAX. Turning now to a summary of our third quarter operations. Our field and operations teams had a very productive third quarter, and I want to thank them for the work behind these results.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We have continued to deliver strong operational execution with optimized laterals and consistent in-zone geosteering, which increased reservoir exposure and value capture per well. We recently drilled our longest lateral at nearly 24,000 ft, all of which was done with a single bit. On to the deep dry gas Utica. Recall that we spud our well in the second quarter, and then in mid-October, we concluded stimulation activity. We have taken a measured pace to collect subsurface data along the way, including full core analysis across the entire Utica and point-to-point mineralogy. We look forward to bringing the well online and sharing more information in due course. Turning to synergies. For 2026, we expect to capture more than our previously announced $25 million of cost and capital savings.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We are developing the Utica assets we acquired earlier this year with our own operating model on pads and midstream infrastructure that are largely already in place, and that is where the benefits of the acquisition begin to show up. The largest contributors have come from development optimization. By drilling from existing pad locations and redesigning wellbores, we eliminated vertical sections, their associated production equipment, and the construction of multiple new pads. That also removed the facilities, pipeline interconnects, and waterline interconnects those pads would have required, all with a rig move and the related trucking. We also connected our existing water withdrawals to the acquired water delivery system, which lowers our per barrel water cost across this year and the future completions. We believe that our REX contract will be a meaningful contributor.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

When you look at the basis differential between M2 or Dominion South and REX Zone 3, the firm transport capacity we acquired on REX to Zone 3 should be a valuable asset. It gives us more marketing flexibility and should improve our natural gas realizations. We added a new slide to our earnings deck that helps explain this competitive advantage. Beyond acquisition-related synergies, we continue to find ways to lower CapEx and improve returns across our operations. Within completions, we are reducing costs by optimizing our completion fluids design by field. On the production side, we have been able to improve well returns by installing capillary strings as an alternative to production tubing. Given the cost inflation in 2026, we are further evaluating ways to reduce our diesel cost exposure, including dual fuel utilization on our drilling rigs and frac fleets. Ultimately, our plan is built on returns.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We have a diversified portfolio of projects that clear our return thresholds, giving us the flexibility to adjust activity as returns dictate, as we have shown in the past. Development remains our first priority for capital, followed by acquisitions and leasing, where we look for opportunities that deepen our drilling inventory, add scale, and put more volume through our midstream system. We stay disciplined, putting every opportunity through a rigorous evaluation and letting capital follow returns, not commodity prices. With that, I'll turn the call over to Cary.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thanks, Zack. I'm delighted to join you for my first earnings call with INR. I have very much enjoyed my first couple of months in the seat and working alongside a great group of colleagues. As we look ahead, an important priority will be continuing to build on the strong financial foundation we've established and ensuring our organization is positioned to support the next phase of growth. To that end, we've added depth to our leadership team with the addition of an SVP of finance and a VP of corporate development, while continuing to evolve our financial processes and capabilities as the business scales. Alongside organic growth, strategic acquisitions remains a core component of our long-term strategy. Having the right team and capabilities in place is critical to executing that strategy successfully.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Our focus will remain on pursuing opportunities that enhance the quality and scale of our asset base while maintaining the financial discipline that protects our balance sheet and preserves a clear, compelling investment thesis. We also recognize the importance of scale, not only in driving greater operating efficiencies and economies of scales, but also in expanding our public float and improving the accessibility of our shares to a broader institutional investor base. Ultimately, our objective is to grow thoughtfully, maintaining financial flexibility, and continuing to build a business that can deliver sustainable value for our shareholders. Turning to our results, third quarter Adjusted EBITDAX was $138 million, or $3.47 per Mcfe, compared to $3.62 per Mcfe in the second quarter. Higher volumes, a favorable liquids mix, and relatively strong realizations, higher utilization, and lower per-unit costs all contributed.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We saw our controllable cash costs decline 8.2% sequentially from $1.58 per Mcfe in the second quarter to $1.45 per Mcfe in the third quarter. This reflects the structural advantage of our integrated midstream system and the meaningful operating leverage of our platform. As production volumes grow, we are leveraging existing infrastructure and available capacity to drive greater efficiencies, with midstream utilization increasing from 29% in the second quarter to approximately 35% in the third quarter. Importantly, GP&T expenses per Mcfe declined 12% sequentially, even as liquid productions increased. Our ability to reduce GP&T expenses per Mcfe despite this inherent cost headwind demonstrates the differentiated value of our integrated midstream system and reinforces our ability to expand margins as production continues to grow. Now turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with net leverage of 1.1x.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We have no near-term debt maturities and no borrowings outstanding under our revolver credit facility at the end of the quarter. We ended the period with approximately $900 million of liquidity. We also recently completed our fall redetermination with our bank group, with our borrowing base being reaffirmed. Turning to risk management, our hedging philosophy is unchanged. We hedge at the project level, and we do so methodically to help ensure that we can deliver on all of our growth plans. Our focus remains on project returns while using hedges to protect our cash flows. As a result, our returns are less sensitive to commodity price movements, and we have strong visibility of our cash flows to support our organic growth plan.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Finally, on 2026 guidance, we have narrowed our guidance and now expect net production to fall in the high end of the range, an average between 355 and 375 MMcfe per day. Similarly, we expect development capital expenditures, which are a combination of drilling and completion and midstream capital expenditures, to be in the range of $450 million-$475 million. That's it for me, and now back to Zack to conclude our opening remarks.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thanks, Cary. Before we open the line, I want to leave everyone with a few key takeaways. We have spent a lot of time this year talking about the opportunity embedded in our platform and the value we believe we can unlock through disciplined execution. We have told you previously what to expect from this business, and this quarter, we delivered it. We demonstrated our ability to improve the performance of the upstream assets we acquired while working on maximizing our midstream infrastructure to drive down per-unit costs and capture stronger realizations through our firm transportation capacity. All of this translated to record production and Adjusted EBITDAX. Most importantly, we continue to build a team that focuses on safety, efficiency, growth, and value creation. These results reinforce the differentiated value of our integrated growth-focused platform, and we are just beginning to unlock that potential.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

We are going to continue to let our execution and results speak for themselves. Operator, you may now begin the Q&A session.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Scott Hanold with RBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Scott Hanold, Managing Director for Energy Research at RBC]

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. It looks like that midstream is starting to really show the value, and so it looks like that utilization of both the REX contracted infrastructure keeps increasing. Could you give us a little bit of color on, as you enter the winter, your ability to kind of scale that utilization to premium markets, and what does this do to realizations and GP&T cost? If you could just give us a sense of the range of potential outcomes and benefits there.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, Scott, this is Cary. There was a couple of questions there, so let's see if I answer them all, and if not, Zack will fill in the rest. I think from a REX point of view, the idea is we're going to maximize the value of that contract. We're doing so today. We look to be doing that for the foreseeable future. Obviously, you can kind of see on a daily differential the improvement pickup we get with that contract. It can cover roughly north of 10% of our total production volume on a gas basis point of view, so it is meaningful across the board. From a GP&T point of view, it doesn't have a substantial impact on that. I think more importantly on GP&T, it's really where are we producing, what's the volume coming out? If we're heavier on oil or liquids, obviously GP&T expenses go up.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

If we're heavier on dry gas, we'll see GP&T expenses go down. I think really that can be variable on a quarter-to-quarter basis depending where our volumes are. Overall, I think, again, the REX contract's been very good. It's been very accretive to us. We'll continue to maximize that until we start seeing in-basin differentials getting to a point where that contract's probably not as strong as it was. But today, it's meaningful to us. Did I get everything, I think, Scott?

[Scott Hanold, Managing Director for Energy Research at RBC]

Yeah, just kind of curious if you could kind of range bound the potential benefits into the winter, what you're seeing today given the spreads.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, I think on a net-net basis, if you count an idea of including transportation costs, you're probably looking somewhere between 15%-25% net pickup improvement versus in-basin when you count transportation on that as well. So, carrying that through throughout the quarter, as obviously we're seeing in-basin differentials for the winter months coming down, so that narrows the gap a little bit. But I think 15%-25%, or $0.25 per, is probably a decent enough range.

[Scott Hanold, Managing Director for Energy Research at RBC]

Okay, appreciate that context. As my follow-up on production, you obviously raised to the high end of your full-year guidance, but you did outperform quite a bit in 3Q, and I guess the implied 4Q was a little bit soft relative to street consensus. Can you give us a sense of some of the moving parts on that? Is that just timing of the TILs that you did in 3Q impacting 4Q?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, I think that's a great question. This is Zack. When we started reconsidering our development schedule early in the year to react to oil price movement, that just has a little bit of a ripple effect on turn-in-line timing. In Q3, we really saw the benefit of full quarter contribution from early quarter turn-in-lines. Q4, we haven't had our turn-in-lines yet. They'll come in at the back of the quarter, and they'll have some ramp-up period. So, as we evaluate our individual well results, we continue to be very pleased as they meet or exceed our expectations. A company our size is always subject to timing, and we're really grateful that we were able to deliver the production the way we have to date, and our updated guidance reflects that. Anything that you're seeing in a Q4 dip is just related to timing.

[Scott Hanold, Managing Director for Energy Research at RBC]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of John Annis with Texas Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[John Annis, VP at Texas Capital]

Hey. Good morning, all, and thanks for taking my questions. For my first one, maybe for Cary, you're stepping into the CFO role as the company's delivering strong production growth and cost reduction. Now that you've had some time in the seat, I'm curious where you see the greatest opportunities to improve, I guess, the financial strategy, and is there anything that you expect to emphasize or focus on differently going forward?

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

John, yeah, great question. Again, Zack and the team have done a great job of building a long-term sustainable business. I think a lot of it has to do with moving fast, and with moving fast means there are some things that get left behind. We're working on improving processes, but I think probably more importantly is focusing on data, quality of data, and getting them better dashboards so we can do things on a more proactive basis, and giving them visibility so we can make better business decisions quicker. I think that's going to be a biggest key. That will provide us more efficiency in the business, hopefully driving down cost, reducing There's times where we have a rig sitting for a couple weeks as we're moving things around and all that. Getting things like that lined out will again improve efficiency, drive down the cost.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

But I think it's really visibility to the information to make better decisions on a proactive basis is one of the key items we're focused on now. Obviously, we talked about we're building up the team to help us on the corporate finance side and the business development side, so we can get things where we're really looking at everything that we're prioritizing, what we're looking at. We're really driving down on how you create the value, where the value drivers are, how that helps us not only on an existing production, but helps us on the inventory side of the equation.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

I think overall, from the accounting visibility side of the equation I've talked about, and then on business development and all that, it's just being able to do things where we're not just running in a hamster wheel, but we have things in a much more linear fashion where we can react quicker, and also have the capital be able to move those quickly and give us a competitive advantage.

[John Annis, VP at Texas Capital]

Got it. I appreciate that color. For my follow-up, looking beyond the acreage bolt-ons, what opportunities do you see to extend laterals and expand the inventory through either step-out drilling on existing pads, U-turns that some of your peers have highlighted this quarter, or other initiatives? Could any of those move current sub-economic locations into the development plan?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Well, that's a great question. Thanks for asking it. I'll take it, probably touch on the first question a little bit, then spend a little more time on the second part. When you think about lengthening laterals, that is something that we think our ground game is really strong at delivering. That comes either through leasing, and we see opportunities to do that, and we've got some things in front of us today. That also can come through trades. As we continue to develop stronger and deeper relationships with our peers in the basin, trades can really help us optimize those laterals too, because we've seen that the operations team can execute 24,000-foot-plus laterals.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

That really allows us to continue to lengthen inventory that might be less economic than a longer well, particularly as we've seen some upward pressure on service costs with diesel and other things. As far as some of the U-turns and other things, we demonstrated in the script and in the slides some of the synergies that we are delivering from the Antero acquisition that we did. I think that really starts to drive home some of the points that you were making. Our team wants to be fast followers and quick adopters of technology, and all of those things have converged for some real savings here in Q3 and into Q4. We've already eliminated two pads from construction that would have been necessary with the legacy development plan.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

That elimination of construction also means for us, because we control the midstream, the elimination of pipelines and water lines and facilities. Especially when you get into these liquids-rich areas, those facility costs can be quite expansive. Also the rig mobilizations that can come when we're able to use the same rig on the same pad we're already deployed to drill wells adjacent to us. All of that is done with improvements to safety, environmental, timing. All those risks go away when we're able to do what we delivered on this last quarter, which is developing three wells that we were excited about drilling, and noticing that adjacent to that was a unit that was planned to be developed with shorter, less economic wells.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Instead of building a new pad, tying a pipe in, and drilling four wells that would have been suboptimal from a lateral length, we drilled two U-turns off of an existing pad and went and captured that in a much more capitally efficient manner. All of that combines to demonstrate that we are going to exceed the $25 million of synergies we identified, and we see lots of opportunities in the future as we rethink the development of this field and other fields as we continue to look across the M&A landscape.

[John Annis, VP at Texas Capital]

Great color. I appreciate it. I will turn it back.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of John Freeman with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[John Freeman, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I just want to follow up on Scott's earlier question on REX. Appreciate the marketing slides and the presentation. It looks like just backing into the third quarter REX sales that you all are utilizing just over half of that 300 that you have got on the FT on REX. Is the remaining capacity all available to accommodate you all's incremental volumes, or were there any preexisting third-party arrangements when you all acquired the Antero assets?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, there were definitely third-party arrangements. We are able to either fill that with our own volumes or work with gas marketers to fill shortfalls that we have had in the early stages of our development cycle. We anticipate that we will be really maximizing that usage in 2027.

[John Freeman, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Got it. My follow-up on slide 11, you all detail all the meaningful improvements you all have had on the drilling completion side, on lateral feet drilled per day, the pumping hours per day. On the well cycle times, I am assuming that the 2026 relative to 2025 is just impacted by larger pads. If that is true, can you just sort of maybe quantify sort of that difference in this year versus 2025, and then maybe what you all are anticipating for kind of pad sizes in 2027?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

No, that is a great catch there, and I wondered if someone was going to see we had a small tick up in cycle time. Thanks, John, for highlighting that. I think what you saw there was a little bit of pad well count, but it is also a function of facilities. When we have more and more of these volatile oil wells like we have shifted to in 2026, it takes a little bit longer for us to have some of the facilities and some of the things put into place. We are still very proud of the work that the teams do to minimize those. I think we can deliver really efficient cycle times, but occasionally, a project takes a little bit longer because of just the amount of equipment that is required.

[John Freeman, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Got it. Thanks, Zack.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Rezvan with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Tim Rezvan, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Good morning, folks. Thank you for taking our questions. I wanted to start and kind of follow up on the REX discussions. Maybe this is for Cary. As you settle in the role here, we can see sort of the benefits to realizations from this Antero acquisition and the FT. Can you talk about any other sort of aspirations you have to sort of support marketing efforts to further drive realizations? Is there anything you see on the horizon, or do you think just maximizing that FT is the majority of the opportunity in the near term? Thanks.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, Tim, I think in the near term, obviously maximizing, but then you have the power gen side of the equation. There'll be something that I think people will be looking forward as we go into 2027, 2028, and 2029. Nobody knows what's going to happen around the data center side of the world and all that, but again, I think you'll still see capacity coming online. It may not be as enthusiastic as people originally thought, but I think you're going to see a continued increase in power gen, and that will provide just more opportunities in the basin to be able to maximize.

[Tim Rezvan, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay, so you are starting to look into those now. Is that what you are saying?

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yes, sir.

[Tim Rezvan, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay. Appreciate the context. As my follow-up, when you all hosted everybody last month at your Southside rig tour, I believe the commentary was that you are open to increasing your footprint anywhere within that sort of area, that Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania area. So, maybe Zack, can you talk about kind of what you are seeing from an M&A perspective, maybe looking at the gassy and the oily acreage separately? Thank you.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Great question, Tim. Thank you. I think first and foremost, before you get into M&A deeply, you need to make sure you have the balance sheet in place, and Cary has been helpful in managing that, and also the team to evaluate it. Cary talked in his opening remarks about some of the expansion we have had at that team level to make sure that we have the right people in the right places to help us analyze things, because we have a benefit at INR in that we have an operating experience across the entire basin. We are somewhat agnostic as to where the deals fall, but that also means we need to be able to analyze and evaluate things across the entire basin quickly.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Cary touched on systems and processes. I think we're going to be focused here near term on making sure that we can evaluate deals faster than our competitors and make sure that we can do deals that work well for us. For us, it needs to be accretive on a long-term basis, and it needs to stack in well and help us with either production volumes or inventory depth or midstream utilization. Now that we've got the midstream piece, it gives another flavor to consider when we evaluate M&A.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

As far as where we see deals going, this basin is always a little bit interesting when you see the deal pipeline. We'll continue to participate in public processes across the entire basin, oily or gas, and we'll also look for private processes where we can maybe find an asset that is a better fit for us than the current owner and see if we can negotiate something there. In the meantime, we remain poised and ready, and we will be very conservative in our underwriting cases to make sure that the investments we make are not scale for scale's sake, that it is going to be accretive to our shareholders.

[Tim Rezvan, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

I appreciate the context. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Scialla with Stephens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Michael Scialla, Managing Director at Stephens]

Hi, good morning. Zack, you mentioned in your prepared remarks about some expectations on inflation, diesel, and I think you said stimulation costs moving up. You also mentioned you're looking at potentially dual fuel rigs and e-fleets. I just wanted to see what you're thinking, if you could throw out any numbers in terms of even high-level inflation for next year that we should be thinking about, and where you stand with giving those e-fleets or dual fuel rigs.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Great question. I think it's something where we're focusing a lot of energy as we wrap up the year and are focused on the 2027 budgeting cycle. I give the operations team a ton of credit because we were able to reduce the high end of our CapEx guidance despite these issues that are prevalent in the market. I think if you ask people for the top three impacts on cost, it's diesel, and diesel. As such, we're curious as to what the diesel pricing will do into 2027. But we told the team that their job is to counteract that through efficiencies and through optimization of processes, and they've answered that bell so far. I think we're optimistic that we will minimize those impacts into 2027, and we are now at a scale in which we can negotiate longer-term contracts with people.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

That will help, and we're finalizing those. I can't give specific guidance on what type of budget impact that will have, but I can say that we're very well-positioned to counteract the market forces here while we continue to optimize and become more efficient with our development program.

[Michael Scialla, Managing Director at Stephens]

That sounds good. I guess, staying on thoughts on next year, should we be thinking about something similar at this point? I realize it's too early to give guidance, but something similar from a high level to the two-rig plan that you're running this year for next year. I guess along that too, is the deep dry gas Utica going to be part of the 2027 plan, or do you need to just kind of watch this well and watch where gas prices go before you make a decision there?

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Michael, this is Cary. I will take over at least the first part of that, and I will dive into the second part of it. But the answer for right now is, I think, from a modeling point of view, I would continue to say look at 2027 to be similar to 2026 at this point in time. Obviously, we are still in the budgeting process, so do not want to get up and over our skis. As Zack just pointed out, I think the other thing we need to think about is, where does cost inflation versus efficiency? I think right now, we do think efficiencies can offset most of the cost inflation that we are going to see on the service cost of the equation. From a deep dry gas Utica point of view, obviously, we are very excited about that well coming online.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

I think your second part of that question was correct. I think depending on how the outlook is for gas prices for 2027 will impact the timing of the next wells coming online. We are not looking to curtail anything that we can curtail through our CapEx dollars and the timing of our CapEx dollars based on it. But again, we are very optimistic and excited about that well coming online. Also, from an inline point of view, we have, I think, 66 locations. So it gives us 65 more locations, which obviously is a meaningful addition to our inventory and our NAV, and those are other things that we are looking at from that opportunity as well. But I do not know, Zack, do you want to add anything to that?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

No, you covered it.

[Michael Scialla, Managing Director at Stephens]

Great. Appreciate the details, guys. Thank you.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Diamond with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Paul Diamond, Equity Research Analyst at Citi]

Thank you. Good morning, all. Thanks for taking the call. Earlier this year, you guys shifted a bit more towards the oil side versus gas on production timing. Given current market realities, can you talk about any shift you're seeing? Is there anything in the market that would make you kind of shift backwards, or is this cadence kind of what we should carry it forward?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Great question, Paul. Thanks for asking that. It's good to connect this morning. I think, obviously, our cadence for 2026 is established and set in stone. As we look at 2027, things change quickly. There are world factors that impact commodity prices, so we're taking that into consideration as we finalize our budget and our development views for 2027. I think, generally speaking, what we've approached in the past is starting from a place of balance in which we develop both oil and gas locations, and then you might see us tilt a little bit and try to optimize whichever commodity we think we can hedge and be a little bit stronger. So, year over year, we may be a little bit less flexible as we just get bigger and each of those projects have a smaller impact.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

But for today, we are happy with the way we allocated capital in 2026, and we are actively reviewing the 2027 development program to make sure that we can optimize shareholder value.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Paul, this is Cary. I will add one comment onto that. The 2027 budget is going to be a little different budgeting cycle for us. We are building up from a bottoms up, looking at each project on an economic basis. So I think we are really going to be economics-driven from our 2027 budget. So, and that may change how we allocate the capital based upon the economics of each individual project. So I think once we get into a 2027, we will have a pretty good outlook of what we are going to do for the year, where we are going to do it, and obviously from our hedge book point of view, gives us some flexibility as well, from visibility of the cash flows.

[Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO at Infinity Natural Resources]

But I think a little different budgeting cycle than what we have done in the past, and it gets back to my early comments about better data, better transparency, visibility, and proactive for the business. So I think those are the things we are working on.

[Paul Diamond, Equity Research Analyst at Citi]

Got it. Appreciate the clarity there. Just one quick one on, you guys talked about Utica development a bit over the last several quarters. Can you talk about any design differences versus the prior operator? Is it, I know you talked about mainly proppant loading, but has there been any other, I guess, lesson learned with a couple quarters under your belt?

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Yeah, if you're focused specifically on the acquired Utica assets, I think we were basically backing up and taking a fresh view of the asset and the right way to develop it. Today, what we've delivered on so far are a couple of U-turn wells that we think were the most capital-efficient way to develop some adjacent, somewhat stranded acreage. I think that's a place where we've seen capital savings. I think we've also that's a savings component. I think we're also investing more in some of the completions than the legacy operator did, where we've increased water per foot and sand per foot. Sometimes you spend more to make more, and that's the case there. What we're demonstrating on slide 12 was really our ability to do that, the more intense stimulation design, but do so faster than the previous operator.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Puts us in a position in which we can do more in fewer days and really help us tighten up those cycle times. We acquired those assets from a world-class operator, so that means there's some things that have been done very well. We're just able to take a fresh view and look for some opportunities to optimize casing designs and completions designs to make the projects our own.

[Paul Diamond, Equity Research Analyst at Citi]

Understood. Appreciate your time. I'll leave it there.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Thanks, Paul.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Zack Arnold for closing remarks.

[Zack Arnold, President and CEO at Infinity Natural Resources]

Well, thank you all for another quarter here at INR. We appreciate your continued interest and investment in our company, and we look forward to catching up again next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Tom Marchetti, VP of Investor Relations
• Zack Arnold, President and CEO
• Cary Baetz, EVP and CFO

Analysts

• Scott Hanold, Managing Director for Energy Research at RBC
• John Annis, VP at Texas Capital
• John Freeman, Managing Director at Raymond James
• Tim Rezvan, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Michael Scialla, Managing Director at Stephens
• Paul Diamond, Equity Research Analyst at Citi