Northern Oil and Gas Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Northern Oil and Gas EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.13
• Consensus EPS: $1.18
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.37

Northern Oil and Gas Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $745.24 million
• Expected Revenue: $594.09 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$151.15 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.40%

Northern Oil and Gas Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/6/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Friday, August 7, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Northern Oil and Gas (NYSE:NOG) is an independent exploration and production company focused on acquiring and managing non-operated interests in oil and natural gas properties. Rather than serving as the primary operator of wells, the company invests alongside established operators and participates in the development and production of upstream assets.

The company’s portfolio includes interests in producing and undeveloped properties across several major U.S. oil and gas regions, including the Williston Basin, Permian Basin and Uinta Basin. Its production mix includes crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids, with operations concentrated in onshore areas of the United States.

Founded in 2006, Northern Oil and Gas has expanded primarily through acquisitions of non-operated working interests and mineral interests. The company is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Nick O’Grady.

Northern Oil and Gas Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong cash generation and shareholder returns: Adjusted EBIT rose 17% sequentially, free cash flow increased more than 400% to $159 million, and the company repurchased 2.95 million shares while maintaining its $0.45-per-share quarterly dividend.
• Positive Sentiment: Production increased 9% year over year, led by record natural-gas volumes up 35%; management also cited outperformance in the Williston, Uinta, Appalachia, and early Ohio programs, with Permian volumes beginning to recover as Waha-related curtailments eased.
• Positive Sentiment: NOG reiterated its 2026 capital and production outlook, citing lower normalized well costs, a growing development backlog of nearly 52 net wells, and approximately 17 net well elections—up nearly 20% from the trailing 12-month pace.
• Neutral Sentiment: The company emphasized continued acquisition and inventory-building activity, including the Duvernay joint-development deal and additional Permian and Bakken drilling opportunities, while saying capital could shift among acquisitions, drilling, debt reduction, and buybacks depending on relative returns.
• Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter results were affected by significant Permian production curtailments caused by weak Waha gas economics, and management cautioned that oil prices and operating conditions remain fluid despite signs of improvement in the third quarter.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings and welcome to NOG's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. To ask a question at this time, you will need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Evelyn Infurna, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Evelyn Infurna, VP of Investor Relations at NOG]

Good morning. Welcome to NOG's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Yesterday after the close, we released our financial results. You can access our earnings release and presentation in the investor relations section of our website at noginc.com. We will be filing our June 30th, 2026 10-Q with the SEC within the next few days. I'm joined this morning by our Chief Executive Officer, Nick O'Grady, our President, Adam Dirlam, and our Chief Financial Officer, Chad Allen, as well as our Chief Technical Officer, Jim Evans. Our agenda for today's call will be as follows. Chad will provide an overview of our financial performance, followed by Adam, who will share an overview of NOG's operations and business development activities. Nick will close with remarks about NOG's positioning and value proposition. After our prepared remarks, the team will be available to answer any questions.

[Evelyn Infurna, VP of Investor Relations at NOG]

Before we begin, let me remind you of our safe harbor language. Please be advised that our remarks today, including the answers to your questions, may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from the expectations contemplated by our forward-looking statements. Those risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our earnings release, as well as in our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We disclaim any obligation to update those forward-looking statements. During today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and free cash flow. Reconciliations of these measures to the closest GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release.

[Evelyn Infurna, VP of Investor Relations at NOG]

With that, I will turn the call over to Chad.

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

Thanks, Evelyn. Q2 was a clear demonstration of our diversified portfolio business model. When one region hits turbulence, other aspects of our platform pick up the slack. In this quarter, that showed up directly in the numbers. Adjusted EBITDA was up 17% sequentially, free cash flow was up over 400% from the first quarter. That's the model working as designed. Total production was up 9% year-over-year, with record natural gas volumes up 35% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. As previously disclosed, we saw significant curtailments in the second quarter as a result of challenging Waha economics. In a volatile environment, our operating partners in the Permian made prudent decisions to generate excess cash flows. With improving economic conditions, we've seen volumes come back online, including three net turn-in-lines that will contribute to the third quarter.

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

Outside of that Waha-driven curtailment, the underlying assets performed well. The Williston and Uinta both topped our internal expectations, our Appalachian volumes set another record with a full quarter of contribution of our Utica joint development, where early well results have been strong. On pricing, our unhedged net realized oil price improved 36% from the first quarter. Gas realizations were 90% of Henry Hub and with our hedges, Waha basis included, reached 123%. Strong NGL prices contributed as well. Waha pressures have receded, and we're seeing that trend continue thus far into Q3. On costs, production expenses per BOE were down 4% year-over-year. Budgeted capital expenditures were $196 million, comprised of $151 million of organic D&C and $45 million of ground game activity. Normalized well costs were $761 per lateral foot, essentially in line with the first quarter. Spending this quarter skewed more towards oil weighted.

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

Permian at 37%, Williston at 33%. Appalachian, Uinta, each at 14%, our newly acquired Duvernay position beginning to contribute at 2%. We ended the quarter with over $1 billion of total liquidity. Our balance sheet remains well-positioned to fund our development program and continue executing on inorganic opportunities as they arise. Turning to capital allocation and shareholder returns. This is where the free cash flow generation translates directly into returns. We repurchased 2.95 million shares, roughly 3% of shares outstanding, at an average price of $20.37, with about 81% of that activity completed before the dividend record date in late June. That repurchase largely offset the shares issued to the Duvernay seller, so we effectively funded a scaled acquisition while holding share count roughly flat.

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

Subsequent to quarter-end, the board increased our stock repurchase authorization, bringing total capacity to approximately $243 million, a clear signal of how we view the value in our stock at current levels. On the dividend, our board declared $0.45 per share for the quarter, or approximately $48 million paid on July 31st.

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

Against the $159 million of free cash flow this quarter alone, the dividend is covered several times over. We view the dividend as a floor, not a ceiling, on the capital we return to shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Adam.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

Thank you, Chad. We remain as confident as ever in the strength of our assets, confirmed through recent results and leading indicators. Looking ahead, we are seeing multiple positive catalysts as drilling activity materially outperformed internal expectations and the D&C list built to almost 52 net wells as operators modestly pull forward activity in the Permian and Williston. Additionally, we elected to do approximately 17 net wells, which is up almost 20% relative to the trailing 12-month run rate. 90% of those elections were weighted towards our oily basins with normalized AFE costs down 5% from our 2025 average. Moving to business development, our M&A engine has been firing on all cylinders. We continue to build on our track record of finding premier assets, including our latest with the Duvernay joint development deal that we closed in early June.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

The Parallax acquisition is a self-funding asset with 20 years worth of inventory at an average breakeven below $50 and with a price tag of less than 600,000 per location, highly competitive with the basins in the Lower 48. With it, we have strategically and meaningfully expanded our addressable market into Canada. We will continue to screen for other complementary assets. Our ground game has maintained strong momentum and the barbell approach of sourcing near-term drilling opportunities as well as long-dated inventory continues to be underappreciated. Since we have made a concerted effort to build out our inventory in Appalachia, we've amassed roughly 80 locations through our leasing efforts, excluding the acreage that has already converted to development.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

We believe that NOG is one of the few companies, if not the only, that budgets for the acquisition of new locations on an annual basis, which allows us to build duration and optionality for the future with core locations that would compete in any portfolio. This overstates the reinvestment rate that is needed and also means NOG is one of the few who is actively replacing its inventory year-after-year. That said, we can and will adjust how capital is deployed based on dislocations in the market. Capital can be shifted to buybacks or other near-term drilling opportunities, or both, as you saw us do in Q2. In the second quarter, we pivoted to more drilling opportunities, acquiring over six net wells weighted to the Permian and Bakken that are currently in process.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

To further put this into perspective, through the first half of 2026, our ground game has already capitalized on the same number of drilling opportunities than we did in all of 2025. NOG's opportunity set continues to expand and will remain dynamic capital allocators, directing capital to wherever it creates the most value as the market presents it. Nick?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Thanks, Adam. Thanks for joining us this morning and your continued interest in our company. I'll cover three pillars that reinforce the strength of our business and build on Chad and Adam's comments. Number one, unrecognized value. We have created an incredible business. This has fostered a fantastic industry reputation as a partner, acquirer, and asset manager and owner. We've built state-of-the-art custom AI-powered management and evaluation tools that are light years ahead of the competition. Most importantly, we have built a high-quality platform with tremendous value that is not being recognized by the public market today. By our conservative internal estimate, the assets we own are worth $7 billion+, trapped in a $4.6 billion enterprise value. Fortunately, we have multiple avenues for this value to be recognized.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

In the meantime, we'll continue to generate significant free cash flow, pay our dividend, and allocate capital to strong forward returns. We will make decisions that allocate capital in a way that will maximize value for our investors long-term, whether that's acquiring assets, selling assets, or returning cash to shareholders in the form of dividends or share repurchases, or a combination of these actions. Number two, cash flow strength. Based on current strip pricing, our assets should generate $1.4 billion to over $1.5 billion of adjusted EBITDA this year. We believe $850 million-$900 million of D&C capital will sustain these production volumes, generating approximately $375 million to over $500 million of free cash flow. Across that range, our dividend remains multiple times covered, leaving free cash flow available to reduce debt, acquire inventory and assets, or repurchase shares.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

A modest spending increase could also grow oil or total volumes, generating more cash flow while ultimately producing a similar free cash flow profile. Number three, acquisition track record. We are a proven disciplined acquirer. Using our advanced tracking systems, we consistently analyze successful acquisitions, opportunities we passed on. Bids we did not win. Our acquisitions have performed exceptionally well, with our systematic approach generating north of 20% annualized returns on a standard one times levered basis net of hedging. Monetizing selected assets could accelerate these returns further by bringing value forward. As we remind investors quarter-after-quarter, our value creation is grounded in long-term strategic thinking. That will never change. A long-term focus did not prevent us from adapting or capitalizing on short-term opportunities, including the fundamental disconnect in our equity today. Our largest quarterly open market we purchased ever demonstrates that approach.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Our dividend is solidly covered, our assets are materially undervalued, and we are capital allocators. When the market presents opportunities, we will act. Over the past seven years, we identified irreplaceable assets at compelling values, and the returns have validated that strategy, whether the market recognizes it today or not. Our job is to ensure those successes are recognized, and we will work around the clock and analyze every avenue to do so. That's what a company run by investors for investors does. With that, we can turn it over to questions.

[Operator]

If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from Neal Dingmann from William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Neal Dingmann, Analyst at William Blair]

Morning. I'll offer the remarks. Nick, my first question is on your capital efficiency. Specifically, it seems like most E&Ps, now that we're towards the end of the second quarter reporting, the trend I seem to see out there is many E&Ps, I should say, talked about higher expected 2026 CapEx. Yet, you all were able to reiterate your capital spend and your production, which we view should ramp up nicely going forward. My question is, could you discuss a bit your confidence in to be able to reiterate the CapEx and remind us what some of the primary drivers are there?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. Thanks, Neal. I'll talk about a couple things. One, recall that our guidance all along has sort of made the assumption that we would see a steady pickup in activity throughout the year. Obviously, it's probably happening a little bit faster, but the total quantum isn't changing. The second thing I'd point out is that if you look when we revised guidance when we announced the Duvernay acquisition, we had implicitly cut our capital by about $50 million. That's a combination of production efficiency, and just the fact that, we talked about this in the past, but when costs came down last year, you noticed that we said, Look, we're an accrual shop, which means we accrue for the cost of those wells, and it takes 180-365 days for those reduction in costs to be realized.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

If a well costs $10 million, we accrue the full amount at the AFE. If the actual comes in at $9 million, it can take 6-12 months before that money is credited back to us. We are seeing the benefits of that really starting this past quarter, even if costs do increase some, you'll probably see the tailwinds from that for us for some time.

[Neal Dingmann, Analyst at William Blair]

Great point. Nick, one more. I don't think I've ever asked you this on a call, but I'm going to ask. I'd just love to hear your thoughts on what I would call your value disconnect. It's certainly evident that, again, I think we all see Northern stock being relatively flat year-to-date versus some of the others have followed oil and now are up 40%-50%. I'd just love to hear you or any of the team's thoughts on what you think-

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah

[Neal Dingmann, Analyst at William Blair]

has been the cause behind this.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. Now you're going to get me monologuing. I think, look, at the end of the day, our cash flows and profits are up several hundred million dollars since the beginning of the year. The stock obviously is not. I'll be candid about the perception challenge we face. We are a non-op, which means at the end of the day, we buy and invest in oil and gas properties. In the public markets, we are rightfully or wrongfully compared against E&P operators. Their job is to manage production and spending and are judged accordingly. We ultimately should be managed by the investments we make and their value over time. That's tough, admittedly, when we typically buy and hold assets to life, but managing guidance is not the same thing as creating value. I think there's a fundamental disconnect in the analyst community today.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

As many of you know, I spent 15 years on the buy side, and most of that time, the idea was to look at a company's asset value as a driver for ultimate equity value. This did get out of control during the pre-2014 oil Armageddon period when companies were valued for acreage without regard to the capital required to keep it, not to mention the fact that much of it wasn't worth what was assumed at the time. Look, I have a ton of respect for the analyst community, and the market is at any moment what it is. Today, people, rightfully or wrongfully, are focused almost solely on quarterly guidance and free cash flow yield as they see them.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Eight years ago on my first call as a CFO, I literally discussed as one of the first people in the space openly to move the company to a self-generating cash position and to pay shareholders a fair and reasonable return. Don't get me wrong, free cash flow is really important, but the definition of it is very tricky and often misrepresented in a depleting business. I'll add that even those that do still attempt at NAV may not understand the differences between how we book reserves and inventory as a non-op compared to an operator, which are inherently different in the sense that we can't simply book inventory that we don't control the timing of, and we can't count locations before operators ultimately decide where they're spacing it.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

We're one of, as Adam mentioned, we're one of the only E&P companies that actually budgets for acquisitions in our regular budget every year. Most public E&Ps are not replacing their inventory. What you call free cash flow is actually, in reality, a depleting annuity. I don't think that's a fair comparison, which is why NAV should be an important part of the equation in what is, in the end, effectively a depleting real estate business. If you look at our reinvestment rate, of course it's less immediately productive by design, but we continue to stack on assets. That's not capital efficiency as the market views it, for the record. Over the last year, we spent over $100 million acquiring potentially north of 80 locations in the Utica.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

This does nothing but make us screen worse in the capital efficiency and free cash flow metric, yet it's definitively adding asset value into the enterprise, albeit non-productive at the moment. I can tell you, the bonuses paid for that land are up, in some cases, 50%+ since we began that campaign. No cash flow, just CapEx. Did we add value? Likely the answer is a resounding yes. As I stated in my prepared comments, screening leverage is another example. If we borrow money and buy an asset, the market has focused on the leverage as a negative when comping, but they don't recognize that now we have an asset that's worth a heck of a lot of money.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

I can say with a lot of certainty that the current and future values of our Uinta and Utica assets, which were funded with leverage, are greater today than when we purchased them, and likely grow further over time as the operators improve and delineate. Again, this is a business model viewpoint we struggle to reconcile at times. We could be unlevered and screen better. We could only spend money on D&C capital and look better by these metrics. At the end of the day, now we have these assets. In virtually all the cases, scarcity and quality has proven that the assets that we purchased are now appreciably more valuable. If we need to monetize them to prove to the market as a mechanism that the value, since only cash yields are being used, we're fine with that.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

At the end of the day, our job is to maximize value. It's a shame they're not analyzed for what they would be in virtually any private setting. Put to you this way, if our assets were at the lowest end of our expectations and we sold half, we'd take in roughly half our float and have zero debt. That implies a stock value more than triple the current levels. If the market wants to be singularly focused on production volume cadence versus expectations, a leverage multiple, and a free cash flow yield where 75% of the competing stocks are not replacing any inventory, but just depleting away, that's incredibly shortsighted when in reality, we're about owning and harvesting assets at good values. At the same time, we need to ensure the market understands how valuable all the assets we've purchased have become.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

You have an insane dichotomy going on at the moment where people are paying north of $330,000 per acre and assets have never been so sought after at significant premiums to even a few years ago, and yet a public market that wants to give it away. To be fair, when that happens, the onus is on us to prove it. Make no mistake, we will. Back to you.

[Neal Dingmann, Analyst at William Blair]

Thanks for the quick comment.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

I told you. You got me monologuing. Sorry.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Charles Meade from Johnson Rice. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Nick, that was a wonderful monologue.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Thanks, Charles.

[Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

I appreciate you sharing that point of view. It's a fashion in the market right now to be lower leverage, and maybe you guys aren't there. The question I want to ask actually touches on this leverage point. When you talk about, you and Adam also talked about allocating capital and putting it at the best places, whether it's the ground game or D&C or things like that. It's easy for me to imagine how you stack up, say, a ground game acquisition versus buying back your own shares. It's a little harder for me to imagine how you consider paying down debt. There seem to be more intangibles, benefits or maybe costs related to paying down debt versus looking at an acquisition or buying your own shares.

[Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Can you talk about how you view the desirability or the framework for debt reduction or debt additions?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Sure. Look, I would say that number one, there are a couple ways to de-lever, right? Obviously, highly efficient capital, which grows your cash flow, can lower your leverage metrics, and that's important, and that's a big part of the capital allocation. To be candid, what I'd tell you about our shares as an example is that that's a clear and present opportunity, right? That may or may not be there tomorrow, and we're extremely focused on that, as you see. Leverage is the easy part, because ultimately, I'd tell you that, as I mentioned just before in my long-winded monologue, which is that we have incredibly desirable assets. If we want to solve for leverage, we can do that almost immediately, right? I don't know, Chad, do you want to add to that?

[Chad Allen, CFO at NOG]

No, I think you're right. Obviously our stock right now, where it's trading, it closed yesterday, it's up at 9% yield. It's certainly massively accretive for us to continue to attack that. We'll be prudent about it, and it's a fluid and dynamic situation for us.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. I think you have to weigh in the fact that your asset value, your leverage is a function of the fact that we've acquired all these assets, right? We didn't have to do it the way we did it, but we did it because we knew that they would be more valuable. They are today. To the extent that the market wants to discount the value because the leverage you used to acquire them, that's an easy answer.

[Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Okay okay. Thank you for that detail on your thinking. Adam, I want to go back to something you said in your prepared comments. I believe I heard you say that you have a lot of recent wells that are outperforming your internal expectations, your type curves, and I wonder if you could just give a little bit more detail on where that's happening across your asset base.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

Yeah, absolutely. We looked to Appalachia. We just finished up our West Virginia joint development agreement. We've seen significant outperformance relative to internal expectations there. That was a driver in the gas volumes that you saw this quarter. We're also seeing it in the Uinta, notably both on legacy production from the XCL assets as well as the 2026 campaign. Jim, I don't know if there's anything else that is notable that

[Jim Evans, Chief Technical Officer at NOG]

Yeah, I think you can. We're really seeing it across all of our basins. Alright? Even in the Williston, we continue to see outperformance across operator units. They drill longer laterals, getting more efficient. We're not seeing the decline rates that you might expect as you go from a two to a three to a 4 mi lateral. Really, it's across all of our basins that we're kind of outperforming internal expectations.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah, and I'd say it's early, but even on our new Ohio program, where we've really started to just put on our first pads, we've seen really, really strong performance. Kudos to the Infinity guys.

[Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Thanks for the color.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Phillips Johnston from Capital One. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One]

Hey, thanks for the time, and happy Friday. I have to say that I'm also a fan of the monologue, so thanks for that, Nick.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Thank you

[Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One]

I'm actually going to be the guy that asks about the short-term production trends, so my apologies in advance. Your implied oil production guidance for the second half of the year is around 74,000 a day on average, I guess. If we adjust your second quarter volumes upward to account for the shut ends, it sort of implies your second-half production is going to grow by a couple thousand barrels a day relative to Q2. Obviously, there's a lot of positive momentum given your strong wells in process figure at the end of June, and you talked about the accelerated AFE and election activity.

[Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One]

I realize it's still a pretty uncertain operating environment, it seems like the guidance could be a little conservative with some upside potential. I just wanted to get your take on that.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. It's definitely possible. I mean, I think, look, to your point, it's very fluid. Oil prices are all over the place, it's too early to declare victory, obviously you have really just the base assets returning to trend. You also have the addition of the Duvernay assets on top of that. I'd say as we stand today, one of the things that has been difficult for both you and investors in general, which is that we got a lot of questions when oil prices spiked, why weren't you seeing the reaction? The answer was really that one of our biggest growth engines is the Permian, and it's really been hampered by the logistical problems. We tried to be really forthright about that it was going to take a little bit of time.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Obviously, I think what I would tell you is, as it stands today, some of those challenges have resolved themselves faster than I would've thought. We had frankly had those conversations with the operators, there was good reason for it. We had really pushed a lot of that development that had been delayed, really starting in the end of the fourth quarter of last year. Even in the third quarter, we started seeing things being moved towards the end of this year. We're actually seeing that trend invert, and we're seeing a lot of that stuff being brought forward. It really bodes well for the remainder of this year. Again, I think it's too early to declare total victory, and we want to make sure we see it before we really come out and brag about it. I'd say your thoughts in general are correct.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

Yeah. I think Phillips, we've seen some operators jockeying, kind of figuring out 2027 plans as well. Maybe picking up a rig sooner than otherwise kind of expected, seeing some drilling efficiencies there. Depending on how that all kind of shakes out net to Northern, that would be another thing to kind of keep an eye on.

[Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One]

Okay. Sounds good. On the LOE guidance, you did reduce the full-year guidance a little bit. As we look at slide four, which is a really great disclosure, by the way, there's a pretty wide range of operating costs across your basins. My question is, how will your evolving production mix and the addition of the Duvernay volumes, which obviously have the lowest LOE on the slide, influence, I guess, your LOE trajectory over the next four to six quarters or so?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. Number one, I'm not trying to be pissy or make a pissy comment, but our LOE is not LOE, as you would say. It includes LOE, but we don't have a separate GP&T line, so it carries a bunch of gathering and transportation costs. Some other portion of the GP&T is in our differential, which we really look at as from wellhead to sales. We report a little bit different than other people. What I would tell you is that if your production remains flat. And this is for any company. Your LOE will rise over time. Right?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

To your point, our goal in general is as we add growth areas such as the Duvernay, and then I think potentially the Uinta over time, those areas should offset the fact that if you look at our Williston total production costs, and our Williston volumes have stayed relatively flat for the last four or five years. Those used to be $10, right? Now some of that is just inflation, and work over costs have increased over time, but some of it's just the aging of the wells, right? Which is that you've got, call it in your LOE, I think about 60% of the costs generally are fixed. As the wells decline over time, that LOE naturally goes up, but obviously the maintenance capital associated with it goes down as well. While your operating costs go up, your capital costs go down.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

A long-winded way of saying, I think our goal is to try to keep LOE flat to down. Obviously, as our gas volumes grow, that also helps lower that because they're an advantage. I'd say our joint development program, which was extremely liquid, which as that declines and you see an increase in our Ohio volumes over time, that should actually offset that trend a little bit and get LOE to go down some over time. In general, I think we feel very good that we can kind of maintain the current levels for some time. I do think you have to keep in mind fuel prices and other things that can flow through LOE, right? And work over expenses, which we really saw a huge increase on as the wells have aged in both the Permian and the Williston over the last few years.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

That's generally stabilized at this point.

[Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One]

Excellent. That's great color. Thanks, Nick.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Noel Parks from Tuohy Brothers. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Noel Parks, Analyst at Tuohy Brothers]

Hi. Good morning.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Morning, Noel.

[Noel Parks, Analyst at Tuohy Brothers]

I was wondering. Did appreciate your comments on valuation and in particular, I sort of keyed on your mention that what I think it's what others call a free cash flow is actually a depleting annuity. It sort of got me thinking, as you've expanded into different basins and with sort of the realities of valuation, what you do and don't get credit for, I'm just wondering, I think of the story as being one largely of basin arbitrage, you recognizing opportunities and from that perspective, being able to get them at a good price that other people would overlook. I mean, doesn't basin arbitrage alone, if you continue on that path, doesn't that sort of naturally kind of help you build value more or less regardless of kind of what the public markets are saying?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. I think there's a public and a private view, but I think we recognize our job is to make sure that that value is recognized, right? That is part of our job. That's one of the hardest things to do, to be candid, Noel. Slide four in our earnings deck, one of the comments we got was people wanted more visibility, and we're happy to provide it. We really show a basin by basin look at the company. What I'd tell you about that is when we acquired the Uinta assets, we had spent a significant sum of time, a year plus prior evaluating and reviewing the Uinta. We understood that this was a basin that had economics that could compete or even exceed the Permian.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

When we evaluated Canada, which we've been doing for several years, and we found the light oil part of the Duvernay, we were incredibly encouraged by both the length of inventory on it. I mean, you're talking about a 20+ a year asset, as well as the incredible margins it generates. Slide four really underscores that. When I say those things, I sometimes get blank stares. When your margin in Uinta is $20 higher than in the Permian, people ask you about differentials, you can sit there and say, I don't care. The proof is in the pudding. In the case of the Duvernay, similar, which is that we talked about it when we acquired it, which is it had very unique properties. We are truly seeking the best assets, and we'll allocate our capital accordingly.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

We're not someone who just does one thing and does it well, and I think sometimes that does have value in a public market that wants surety and clarity, but I think we're trying to provide that here, and people should recognize it. I don't know, Adam or Chad, if you'd want to add to that.

[Noel Parks, Analyst at Tuohy Brothers]

Okay. Great. Thanks. I was just wondering thinking about the gas side of the equation. The move towards some of the larger players towards sort of an integrated gas model, bringing back in-house infrastructure or acquiring infrastructure that they had at one time spun out. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are. Does it have an effect on your model, or is it compatible, that trend sort of with your own model? I guess it just makes me think about those sorts of players as opposed to for gas exposure, the Permian, for example, there is a ton of associated gas, so you have plenty there. I just wondered what that sort of change in the landscape is telling you.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. We own significant infrastructure in the Uinta, in the Permian, and in both the Duvernay and the Uinta. Sorry, the Utica, excuse me. What I would say about that is that obviously the most notable thing is that when we acquired the Utica, it implies a higher upfront multiple. You're talking about something that with the fully integrated model drops your break-even costs $1.20 versus the prior operator. You make a more resilient asset. Importantly as well, you also have control. Control is really important, which is look no further than the Permian where the bulk of it is through third-party gathering and processing systems. You run through periods of time in which, quite frankly, you just can't get your gas out. Right? Some of that stuff is not stuff that E&Ps would own, like long-haul pipes.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

At the end of the day, controlling the infrastructure is really critical. It also builds a moat in which once that system is built, the acreage and the surrounding acreage becomes by de facto really only valuable to you. That being said, people are knocking on our door every day trying to buy that infrastructure at significant values. It's always an option. I would tell you that there's extreme value to having that infrastructure and being integrated. I think you've seen one of our top operators is EQT. You've seen them do that in Appalachia. It's a great success. I think at first when people saw it, they might not have fully understood it, but a couple of years later, it proves its value.

[Operator]

Our last question comes from Paul Diamond from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Paul Diamond, Analyst at Citi]

Good morning.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Good morning, Paul.

[Paul Diamond, Analyst at Citi]

Thanks for taking the call. Morning. Just a quick one for you. Last quarter, we obviously saw some Permian curtailments and reactivity to invasive pricing. You guys diversification. As you see the winter approaching or any other operational efficiencies, do you see that occurring anywhere else across your basins, or is it any warning lights for you?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Not at the moment. I think one of the interesting things about the gas market right now is there's been a lot of discussion and research around potential Super El Niño, the strip really reflects that. My experience over time has been most people are wrong about the weather all the time. I think that the fact that's sort of baked into the gas market today is pretty interesting to me, right? Usually they bake in a normal winter, or they think it's going to be a cold winter, then things wind up disappointing. I think frankly, the situation today is probably the opposite. Several years ago, as you remember, we had some significant storms in both the South and around the country, it caused huge disruptions in areas because of extreme weather.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Over that time, you've seen a lot of investment in infrastructure to make it more resilient. I expect operational disruptions, similarly you saw in the Gulf of Mexico years ago where there were huge disruptions from Katrina and Rita, then people built the system stronger as it came back. I see the same scenario here. Quite frankly, as it pertains to winter and gas, we generally become a huge beneficiary should something happen. I think in general, even if it lasts as much as a month and a half or whatever. Using last winter as an example, that incredible strength happened right after we acquired our Ohio assets, we were able to actually take really advantage hedges, which are on the book today, take advantage of that scenario. I would hope we see similarly.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Volatility can be bad, it can also be very good.

[Paul Diamond, Analyst at Citi]

Got it. Makes perfect sense. One more, I guess larger strategic one quickly. You guys have worked pretty strongly to diversify across basins, splitting about 30, 30 across Williston, Permian, Appalachia, the Anadarko, Uinta, and Duvernay. I guess how do you see that on a long-term basis? Is the idea to be like split evenly amongst those five, or do you see any, I guess, more opportunity sets in one versus the other? I guess how should we think about those knobs turning over time?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. I think it's hard to say in some cases and easier in others. I think the Williston is very mature, and I think episodically we may see opportunities come up in the Williston, but in general, it is a very, very mature basin. The Permian comes and goes. Obviously several years ago there were enormous numbers of assets coming to market. We took advantage of that. The last year or so, it's probably been less exciting to us, but that can invert on itself over time. I think what I would tell you is we are a management company at the end of the day, and we're really focused on economics. The diversity is certainly part of the business model, but it's also going where the opportunities are, and those can change and are very dynamic over time.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

I don't think there's a desire to be more diversified or less diversified. Similarly, when assets are sought after, it could be a scenario in which we take advantage of that and monetize a portion of it over time. I think everything's for sale every day. Everything is both for us to buy and for us to sell, and I think we'll do whatever makes the most economic sense. I don't know if you want to add to that.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

Yeah, I think that's the competitive advantage of the business model, right? We can expand in basins in a relatively cost-efficient way. You saw that with the entry into Canada. We've been looking at Canada for the last two years, both in the Montney as well as the Duvernay. This quarter we're fortunate to find an asset that checks the box. Even looking at our ground game, we had activity in every single basin, and the competition ebbs and flows depending on what you're looking at in what period of time. Our ability to move quickly and leverage the proprietary information that we have with the evergreen models That we have enables us to make those decisions on a real-time basis. We'll continue to look at the opportunities that are within the basins and in our own backyard and sandbox now.

[Adam Dirlam, President at NOG]

That's not to say that we're not looking at a number of other different basins at any given moment in time. I think we've got 15 different large asset transactions that we're looking at right now. A lot of the stuff that was in market was formal auctions. A lot of the stuff that we're having conversations around in the third quarter has really been bilateral conversations. We'll continue to stay dynamic in terms of how we're sourcing and looking at opportunities.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Yeah. I use the example, obviously, we've grown our Utica position probably in excess of what we would have thought the opportunity was when we entered the basin. We've made a significant investment in acreage, and our phone is ringing off the hook now of things to do with it, right? From operators all over the map. I do think it's a really important distinction about our business model versus, say, an operator, right? I think the market spoke long ago, which is that too much diversity as an operator can be challenging. There are some specific reasons for that, which is one, do one thing, do it well. Can you be really good at lots of different things?

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Secondly, allocation of capital for operators in which they have to maintain a team and rig activity and all these things can get a little bit squirrely. For a non-operator, it's very, very different, right? Which is that for us, it's truly just capital allocation. It's just dollars in and dollars out. The diversity, while it might be a little bit harder to model and annoying for you at times, at the end of the day, it doesn't have the same inherent challenges that it can be when you're trying to maintain multiple business lines for an operated business.

[Paul Diamond, Analyst at Citi]

Got it. Appreciate all the detail and clarity. I'll leave it there.

[Operator]

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back to Nick O'Grady for closing remarks.

[Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG]

Thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. We'd like to remind investors to view our new earnings presentation slide supplement, which contains new enhanced disclosures, which highlights our asset value and the incredible investment opportunity. As always, reach out to investor relations with questions, and we look forward to continuing the mission. Thanks again.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Chad Allen, CFO
• Adam Dirlam, President

Analysts

• Evelyn Infurna, VP of Investor Relations at NOG
• Nick O'Grady, CEO at NOG
• Neal Dingmann, Analyst at William Blair
• Charles Meade, Analyst at Johnson Rice
• Jim Evans, Chief Technical Officer at NOG
• Phillips Johnston, Analyst at Capital One
• Noel Parks, Analyst at Tuohy Brothers
• Paul Diamond, Analyst at Citi