Lee Tillman
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Marathon Oil
Thank you, Mike. Hopefully, you have all had a chance to review our dedicated Eagle Ford acquisition press release and associated slide deck. I am especially excited to talk to you today about the strategic rationale for this transaction, as this satisfies each and every element of the exacting acquisition criteria, as you have heard me and the rest of the team talk about on these earning calls.
While we have assessed each and every opportunity that has come to market in recent years in our core basins, we truly believe this asset offers a superior risk adjusted return profile, especially given our experience and knowledge in the Eagle Ford, while striking the right balance between immediate free cash flow accretion and future high quality development opportunity. This is a truly unique asset.
Going back to our M&A framework, this transaction checks all the boxes, immediate financial accretion, return of capital accretion, accretion to inventory life and quality, and industrial logic with enhanced scale, all while maintaining our financial strength, conservative balance sheet and shareholder return commitments. I will personally walk through each of these key points. First, this deal is immediately and significantly accretive, expected to drive double-digit accretion to all key financial metrics. More specifically, we are modeling an approximate 17% increase to our 2023 operating cash flow and a 15% increase to our 2023 free cash flow.
Accretion is even stronger on a per share basis and will only improve as the additional cash flow generation will support a higher level of share repurchases, further reducing our share count and driving incremental per share growth. It's also accretive on a debt adjusted per share basis. The cash consideration paid for the asset is attractive at just 3.4 times 2023 EBITDA with a 17% 2023 free cash flow yield, highly accretive relative to Marathon Oil's standalone metrics at the same price stack.
Second, this transaction is accretive to our return of capital profile, as the additional cash flow generation will go straight to our shareholders, consistent with our unique and transparent operating cash flow driven framework. Simply put, we remain committed to returning at least 40% of our CFO to shareholders in 2023 and beyond at prices above $60 WTI. But we will now be delivering this return of cash from a higher base of CFO. Therefore, the 17% cash-flow accretion I just discussed will translate to an increase in our shareholder distribution capacity by an equivalent 17%.
Additionally, we plan to raise our quarterly base dividend by another 11% post-transaction close to $0.10 per share, taking full advantage of the cash flow accretive nature of the deal. Third, this transaction offers compelling industrial logic and is accretive to our inventory life with locations that immediately compete for capital, enhancing our cash flow sustainability. We are adding 130,000 high working interest, operated net acres adjacent to our legacy position, fully leveraging our knowledge, experience and operating streams, and a high confidence capital-efficient basin, where we have a demonstrated track record of execution excellence.
We are acquiring more than 600 undrilled locations, representing an inventory life greater than 15 years, with locations that immediately compete for capital in the Marathon Oil portfolio, not an easy bar to clear by any means. Finally, we are executing this deal while maintaining our investment grade balance sheet with our net debt-to-EBITDA are expected to remain below one and our financial strength firmly intact. Importantly our valuation was based on a nominal one rig maintenance program, no assumed synergy credits and no redevelopment refrac upside.
With that overview of the strategic rationale, I will turn it over to Pat to discuss the inventory depth and quality of this asset, which we believe is an especially critical and differentiating element of this deal.