Scott D. Sheffield
Chief Executive Officer at Pioneer Natural Resources
Thank you, Neal, and good morning.
Starting on Slide 3, Pioneer delivered strong results generating over $1.7 billion in free cash flow during the third quarter, contributing to the return of $1.9 billion back to the shareholders. The majority of this capital is being return through our base-plus-variable dividend of $5.71 per share, which will be paid in December. Additionally, we continue to execute on opportunistic share repurchases. With 500 million shares retired in the third quarter at an average price of $218, representing approximately 2.3 million shares. This strong return of capital through both dividends and share repurchases represents approximately a 108% of our third quarter free cash flow. When including all repurchase to-date and dividends to be paid in 2022, we will return approximately $7.5 billion to shareholders this year. This robust return clearly demonstrates our commitment to our investment framework that is supported by our significant free cash flow generation.
We are also pleased to announce that we're participating in a 140-megawatt wind generation project with NextEra. This project utilizes Pioneer's own surface acreage to generate renewable energy that we will utilize in our operation.
Going to Slide 4 on our third quarter results. Pioneer's strong execution continued during the third quarter with both oil and total production in the upper half of our guidance range, driving substantial free cash flow generation of greater than $1.7 billion. Our leverage profile remains top-tier, which we forecast to be less than 0.3 net debt to EBITDA at year-end.
Going to Slide 5. Supplementing our best-in-class dividend payout, we continue repurchase our shares opportunistically, and have executed a $1.5 billion since the fourth quarter of 2021, an average share price of $219. This represents a reduction of total shares outstanding by approximately 3% at a strong discount to our current share price. Of the $500 million repurchased during the third quarter at an average price of $218 per share, $250 million of stock was repurchased in the month of July at an average share price of $213 through our 10b5 program. To-date, we've utilized $1.25 billion of our current $4 billion authorization, leaving nearly $3 billion remaining under the program.
Going to Slide number 6. Our core investment thesis remains unchanged, underpinned by low leverage, strong corporate returns in a low reinvestment rate. This delivers moderate oil production growth would generate significant free cash flow. Majority of this free cash flow was returned to shareholders through our strong and growing base dividend and our peer-leading variable dividend, which represents up to 75% of post base dividend free cash flow. We strengthened this quarter's total return by leveraging our strong balance sheet to aggressively repurchase shares. In total, this resulted in returning $1.9 billion to shareholders, which equates to an annualized yield of greater than 12%.
Going to Slide number 7. Pioneer's high-quality assets, low breakeven and moderate oil growth provides the ability to pay significant dividends from our peer-leading free cash flow through cycle. As seen on the graph, we're able to deliver a compelling base-plus-variable dividend with a yield far exceeding the S&P average at oil prices of $60. Conversely, shareholders have significant upside to sustain higher oil prices as well with a greater than a 10% dividend yield at oil prices higher than $100 WTI.
Going to Slide number 8. Total dividends to be paid in 2022, resulted in a yield in excess of 10% at today's share price. This yield exceeds all peers and majors and the average yield of the S&P 500.
Going to Slide number 9. When looking beyond our peer group to the broader market, Pioneer's dividend yield exceeds every S&P 500 sector. Our double-digit dividend yield demonstrates the cash flow generative power and underlying quality of Pioneer's assets and the strength of our peer-leading return of capital strategy.
I'll now turn it over to Rich.