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F500-2023-049-ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips, one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies, skyrocketed 28 spots up the rankings in 2023, surfing a rise in crude oil prices driven largely by the war in Ukraine. 
<ul> 
 	<li>ConocoPhillips revenue rose nearly 70%, and its profits increased 131% in 2022 compared with 2021, when energy companies were still recovering from the dip in oil and gas demand resulting from the pandemic’s effect on travel.</li> 
 	<li>Throughout 2022 ConocoPhillips doubled down on liquefied natural gas (LNG), increasing its ownership of LNG operations in Australia, Germany, Qatar, and the U.S. Gulf Coast.</li> 
 	<li>In March 2023 President Biden formally allowed ConocoPhillips to drill for oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the nation’s largest untouched expanse of wilderness, miring the energy giant in a larger controversy over government-sponsored oil and gas drilling projects.</li> 
</ul>

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F500-2022-077-ConocoPhillips

The Houston-based company is one of the world's largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies, operating in 14 countries. ConocoPhillips reported profits of $8.1 billion in 2021, and revenue jumped 151% as energy demand soared; the company leaped 79 spots on the Fortune 500. The company began new exploration projects in Canada, Malaysia, and Alaska over the course of the year. Its Alaska operations posed problems in early 2022, however, as a monthlong natural gas leak at its Alpine Oil Field forced a temporary shutdown of drilling and prompted lawmakers and regulators to criticize ConocoPhillips for its slow response.

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F500-2021-156-ConocoPhillips

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G500-2020-348-ConocoPhillips

The oil and gas company's 29-spot dip in rankings doesn’t tell the full story, given an enduring period of volatility in the crude market. While sales for the year fell 5%, to $36.7 billion, profits shot up 15% year-over-year, as ConocoPhillips tightened its structure and grew daily production volume by 5%. The Houston-based company generated more than $3 billion from the sales of its U.K. and northern Australia businesses, bringing total cash and short-term investments for the year up to $8.4 billion. The refocusing of its portfolio, as well as disciplined spending, allowed ConocoPhillips to reward shareholders with $1.5 billion in dividends and $3.5 billion in share buybacks.

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F500-2020-093-ConocoPhilips

The oil and gas company's seven-spot dip in rankings doesn’t tell the full story, given an enduring period of volatility in the crude market. While sales for the year fell 5%, to $36.7 billion, profits shot up 15% year-over-year, as ConocoPhillips tightened its structure and grew daily production volume by 5%. The Houston-based company generated more than $3 billion from the sales of its U.K. and northern Australia businesses, bringing total cash and short-term investments for the year up to $8.4 billion. The refocusing of its portfolio, as well as disciplined spending, allowed ConocoPhillips to reward shareholders with $1.5 billion in dividends and $3.5 billion in share buybacks.

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Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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The corporate history of ConocoPhillips traces back to 1875, when early precursors of today’s energy giant transported kerosene by rail to pioneers in the Mountain West. The firm’s current name comes from a 2002 merger between Phillips Petroleum and Conoco. Headquartered in Houston, ConocoPhillips extracts, processes, and transports a variety of fuels, including petroleum, natural gas, and bitumen. The company has operations in more than a dozen countries, with the bulk of its production in the United States, particularly Alaska. Other sites of production include Canada, Norway, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

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ConocoPhillips (COP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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ConocoPhillips

conocophillips

Welcome to the Third Quarter 2026 ConocoPhillips Earnings Conference Call. My name is Liz, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. During the question-and-answer session, if you have a question, please press star one one on your touchtone phone. I will now turn the call over to Guy Baber, Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Liz, and welcome everyone to our third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On the call today are several members of the ConocoPhillips leadership team, including Andy O'Brien, President and CEO, Konnie Haynes-Welsh, CFO and Senior Vice President of Digital and Transformation, Nick Olds, Executive Vice President of Lower 48 and Global HSE, and Kirk Johnson, Executive Vice President of Global Operations and Technical Functions. Andy and Konnie will kick off the call today with opening remarks, after which the team will be available for your questions. For the Q&A, we will be taking one question per caller, consistent with our normal practice. A few quick reminders. First, along with today's release, we published supplemental financial materials and a slide presentation, which you can find on the Investor Relations website. Second, during this call, we will make forward-looking statements based on current expectations.

Actual results may differ due to factors noted in today's release and in our periodic SEC filings. Finally, we will make reference to some non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure can be found in today's release and on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andy.

Thank you, Guy, and thank you to everyone for joining our third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. For today's prepared remarks, I want to put our strong third quarter results in perspective and describe how we're uniquely positioned to create long-term value. Konnie will then recap a few third quarter highlights, cover fourth quarter and full year guidance items, and provide some early directional color on 2027. As you all know, we're in the midst of a compelling inflection. The way we demonstrate progress towards this inflection is by delivering results quarter-after-quarter, which serve as proof points for the trajectory that we're on. Our third quarter results were just that, another strong proof point, both financially and operationally. Financially, we again exceeded expectations on both earnings and cash flows. We returned $3.4 billion to shareholders, and today we announced an 11% increase in our quarterly dividend.

Operationally, the Lower 48 continues to deliver, and we continue to capture meaningful improvements across our best-in-class position, including record Permian completion efficiency. At Willow, we are progressing critical path items and remain on track for an early 2029 startup. In Canada, we brought another pad online at Surmont, ahead of schedule and under budget. Finally, in our commercial LNG portfolio, we expanded our offtake to 13 million tons per annum. In addition to this being a strong quarter, these results reflect our continued commitment to ConocoPhillips' value proposition and the priorities that are foundational to our company. Since becoming CEO, I have been clear that our value proposition and our priorities aren't changing. I believe in them and helped shape them over the last decade. They are clear, consistent, and durable, and they have served us well. I have been equally clear, consistency must not be confused with complacency.

Our focus is on raising the bar on our execution. We have the most talented employees and the highest quality portfolio in the industry. These are the foundations upon which we expect to deliver even stronger performance, and we are already seeing the proof points with clear delivery against each of our five capital allocation priorities. Priority one and two are to pay and grow the dividend at a rate competitive with the top quartile of the S&P 500. Our 11% dividend increase this quarter continues to demonstrate our commitment. Priority three is to maintain an A-rated balance sheet. We ended the quarter with over $10 billion of cash and short-term investments, as well as over $1 billion of liquid long-term investments. Priority four is to return a significant percentage of our CFO to shareholders.

We returned $3.4 billion this quarter, including $2.4 billion of buybacks, and we remain on track to return 45% this year. You should expect buybacks to trend higher in the fourth quarter as we deliver on this annual objective. Priority five is to enhance underlying returns through rigorous portfolio management and investing in our advantage portfolio. We recently completed our $5 billion divestment program, including $1.6 billion of proceeds this quarter. Of course, we will remain guided by our low cost of supply framework as we invest with discipline to improve returns. Our focus this year and beyond is to stay true to our priorities and raise the bar on execution as we deliver on our compelling returns-focused value proposition. That value proposition for ConocoPhillips features three distinct pillars.

First, as I mentioned a moment ago, we are well underway towards a peer-leading free cash flow inflection of $7 billion by 2029. That would approximately double our 2025 free cash flow at a $70 a barrel WTI price. Between now and then, we retain significant upside from higher prices and wider LNG spreads, given the unhedged oil and LNG torque in our portfolio. 2029 isn't the final destination. The depth, diversity, and quality of our portfolio supports continued CFO and free cash flow growth well beyond 2029, doing so at a structurally lower reinvestment rate. That is the second pillar of our value proposition, differentiated capital-efficient free cash flow growth well into the next decade.

The third pillar is that our CFO and free cash flow growth translates directly to sustainable growth in our shareholder distributions via our percentage of CFO returns of capital framework, which has averaged 45% over the last decade. This pillar ensures investors participate in the upside through a combination of top-quartile S&P 500 dividend growth and through-the-cycle share buybacks. Bottom line on what's ahead, a peer-leading free cash flow inflection with differentiated long-term growth thereafter, and sustainably higher distributions. That adds up to a truly distinct value proposition, and one that is not easily replicated because it's underpinned by the deepest, most durable upstream portfolio in the sector, with over 20 years of low-cost supply inventory in the Lower 48, complemented by our deep, diverse, and high-quality Alaska and international portfolio.

With that, I'd like to welcome Konnie to the call to cover some third-quarter highlights, cover fourth-quarter and full-year guidance items, and provide some early directional color on 2027.

Thank you, Andy. I will begin with highlights from our third-quarter performance. We produced 2,302,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. We reported $3.27 per share in adjusted earnings and $7.2 billion of cash from operations. After $3.1 billion of capital expenditures, that translated to approximately $4 billion of free cash flow generation. Share repurchases stepped up again this quarter to $2.4 billion. With $1 billion of ordinary dividends, that brought our total third-quarter shareholder distributions to $3.4 billion. We ended the quarter with $10.4 billion of cash and an additional $1.1 billion of liquid long-term investments. Our net debt-to-CFO ratio improved to 0.5x, underscoring the strength of our A-rated balance sheet. In short, we delivered on every front, proof that we are raising the bar on execution. Turning to our outlook, our key full-year guidance items remain unchanged.

For the fourth quarter, we expect production to average between 2,320,000 and 2,360,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. That would put our full-year production right around 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. We expect another quarter of sequential growth in our Lower 48 production. Impacts from turnarounds are expected to be flat versus the third quarter, and our guidance accounts for a range of potential outcomes in Qatar, where production remains dependent on conditions in that region. For capital, we expect modestly higher sequential investment in the fourth quarter. This reflects the spending profile we previously outlined for the Lower 48 and our typical ramp in Alaska ahead of our winter construction season and exploration campaign.

Across the company, structural cost reductions continue to drive improvements in our adjusted operating costs, and we see the benefit of those reductions as they are fully offsetting the impacts from inflation in a higher commodity price environment. Finally, we remain on track to return 45% of our CFO to shareholders this year, with buybacks expected to trend higher in the fourth quarter. Let me turn now to our preliminary 2027 outlook. While it is still too early for detailed guidance, our high-level framework is fully aligned with the priorities Andy just laid out. We anticipate capital spending to be modestly lower year on year, consistent with the multi-year decline we outlined. Importantly, that lower capital delivers growth. We expect to see another year of low single-digit underlying production growth driven by the Lower 48.

Per-unit operating costs will trend lower again as our sustainable cost reductions and ongoing efficiency improvements continue to offset inflation. Again, our objective will be to return 45% of CFO to shareholders, extending our long-term track record. This 2027 outlook is another step forward as we continue to deliver on our value proposition, a peer-leading free cash flow inflection, differentiated long-term free cash flow growth beyond the inflection, and sustainably higher shareholder distributions, all of which is underpinned by our deep, durable, and diverse portfolio. That concludes our prepared remarks. I will now turn it back to the operator to begin the Q&A.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you have a question, please press star one one on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star one one again. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one one on your touch-tone phone. Our first question comes from Betty Jiang from Barclays. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Andy, your comment earlier about the free cash flow outlook through the end of decade really stood out. In the last few years, we have heard a lot about the $7 billion inflection by 2029, but the visibility of the portfolio gives you a much longer duration beyond that. Can you just walk us through what that looks like, how you think about that durability and visibility of that growth, and what part of the portfolio is really driving it?

Good morning, Betty, and thanks for the question. I thought it was important today to put a bit more meat on the bone of what does come after 2029. As I said in our prepared remarks, I think it's well understood the first pillar in terms of our inflection of $7 billion to 2029. What I wanted to truly lay out with that second pillar is probably the question that I've been asked the most since becoming CEO. What happens after the inflection? I wanted to make sure was very clear to everybody is that our free cash flow growth doesn't stop at that inflection. The longer-term opportunities in our portfolio really give us a, I think, a really unique value proposition.

That was the second pillar I was trying to describe, that differentiated CFO and free cash flow growth, you know, through the next decade. I can't emphasize this enough, at a structurally lower reinvestment rate than where we are today. You ask what's driving that. It really is underpinned by, you know, the unique strength of our portfolio. It does all start with our Lower 48 position, where we are clearly the U.S. unconventional inventory leader. We've got over two decades of high-quality tier one inventory across our Lower 48 portfolio. That's headlined by over 20 years of low-cost supply Permian inventory. We have core positions of scale across the four liquids-rich unconventional basins. Again, we think that's a power that nobody else has. When we combine that together with our deep, diverse, high-quality Alaskan international positions, it really complements that.

I use Alaska as one of my examples. If you just fast-forward to 2030, we'll have Willow online, we'll have built a new hub, and then we'll be in a position where we'll be looking to tie satellites back into Willow. That's the whole point. When you have a hub, we can bring more back into it. Those tie-ins back to Willow will be some of the most capital-efficient and low-cost supply opportunities in our portfolio. That's one example. Another example would be Surmont in Canada. We have a tremendous resource base there that's only going to increase in value over time. It's already one of the more capital-efficient assets we have with Surmont. With some of the new fiscals up in Canada, you know, some incremental investment there may start to look more attractive.

With the Middle East and Libya, that's another good example of high-quality, long-duration opportunities that we have with, again, a low-cost supply. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list, Betty, but it highlights the diverse set of opportunities we already have captured in our portfolio. I thought it was really important to emphasize to everybody that those opportunities can support growth through the next decade, and again, it's at a structurally lower reinvestment rate.

Our next question comes from Devin McDermott from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Great. Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to shift over to, Andy, some of your comments on shareholder return, that it's great to see the large dividend increase, and I wanted to think through how you're looking at the outlook given the free cash flow inflection and also your comments just now on the durability of the portfolio. I guess specifically, when you think about your point and commitment to sustainably higher distributions, does that include keeping returns well above the 30% CFO baseline? That's question one.

Question two is, how do you think about the mix between dividends and buybacks evolving over time? It would seem like you have plenty of runway to continue to push that dividend payout higher, especially as your break-even and reinvestment rate falls. So, how are you thinking about the mix there over time?

Yeah. Good morning, Devin. That really is kind of a perfect segue from where I was just chatting with Betty on the Really, the third pillar I was trying to outline is that differentiated return of capital framework. It's really important to us that our framework is a percentage of CFO. So, as we grow our CFO, our distributions grow. Specifically, I described how we can do that. The fact that we're going to be at a lower reinvestment rate, so we'll have a lower reinvestment rate, our balance sheet is in a great position, so we've already got a really strong balance sheet. We're going to grow our CFO, and then that gives us all the flexibility to, as you say, think about our dividend and the growth in our dividend. You saw the evidence of that again this quarter with the 11% increase.

We're a firm believer in a track record of top quartile S&P 500 growth that has credibility, and that's the key word. It has to have credibility behind it that people see as being affordable, and we think that the cash flow generation of our company demonstrates just how affordable that is. As we go forward, apologize for the cliché here, but it's about making the pie bigger. As you make the CFO pie bigger, there's more for distributions, and especially if we're at a low reinvestment rate. As I said in my prepared remarks, we've averaged now a 45% distribution over the last decade, and I see no reason why we wouldn't be looking for the similar kind of thing going forward, particularly as our reinvestment rate comes down.

Our next question comes from Scott Hanold from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Thanks. I appreciate the early context around 2027 and the capital. I was wondering, with the understanding that you all will get more fulsome updates next year, can you give us a sense of how you are able to offset, and what do you think about inflation right now in the next year? If you could give any kind of high-level view on how to think about the changes in major capital spending next year and maybe into 2028?

Scott, I will touch on most of your question here, and good morning. Then I will ask Kirk maybe to jump in specifically on the inflation side of it. But, you know, I think how we do this is really important, you know. As we laid out in our prepared remarks, we are giving sort of some high-level framework for you that is pretty consistent with the framework we have been outlining as part of our free cash flow inflection. I do not want to just get lost in what we are saying here. We are saying lower capital, low single-digit underlying production growth, lower unit costs, and about a 45% CFO return to shareholders. I think what is really important is, how can we do that? Again, a lot of it comes back to our position in the Lower 48.

Our track record shows year in, year out that as we drive steady state activity, we are able to show production growth with less capital, and we expect the exact same thing in 2027. The way we do that is because we are working with our tier one inventory, and we are combining that with the continued D&C efficiencies we are seeing. I think that is a huge advantage that we have over some others. Then when you add with that, you look at things that I described in my prepared remarks, like Surmont. We just bought another pad on at Surmont. That should basically continue to drive growth for us next year in Canada. Again, very, very efficiently, that pad is just coming on. We will start to see LNG coming from NFE next year. We will also see LNG coming from Port Arthur.

Now, that one won't count towards production, obviously, but it certainly counts towards the cash flows. They're the kind of things when you combine our Lower 48 and then the things that we have in our Alaskan international portfolio that allows us to drive that production growth, but off of lower capital, all consistent with the inflection we've been talking about. I do want to take a moment as well to also just highlight on our operating costs. We fully expect another year of lower unit operating costs next year, and that's even with some of the inflation that we're seeing from higher commodity prices. The way we're doing that is we're remaining focused on capturing additional efficiencies, and we're driving structural cost changes.

Now, to your specifics around sort of, can I give a bit more color around sort of breakdowns of where it is, I think that's probably a conversation for a later date when we give the actual guidance out. Today, I wanted to just sort of shape for you sort of how we can deliver sort of that production growth off of a lower capital. Then to the other part of your question on inflation, maybe Kirk can just touch on that one for us.

Yeah. Good morning, Scott. Certainly, as we've been all watching, the ongoing Middle East conflict continues to disrupt energy as well as the better part of the global trade flows, and that's continued to drive inflation across what we describe as many of the flow-through consumables into our business. The obvious are fuel, logistics, and chemicals. While inflation in these categories is pretty noteworthy, it's been double digits in some cases, it's been a small component of our total cost structure. As a result, in aggregate, we're seeing pretty modest read into that low single-digit inflation. But again, I think it's really important that I point out it's being more than offset by the amount of efficiencies that we're realizing in the development, the drilling, and completions, as well as operationally within that entire space.

Clearly, Andy was addressing that and how we're able to accomplish much of this. In the Lower 48, naturally, we're seeing increased activity. Much of that's concentrated in some of the smaller operators, and that is, in fact, tightening capacity, especially across the oil field services space. Super spec rigs as well as frac equipment utilizations have been really quite high, better than 90% or 75% respectively across those two. But again, hear from us here, bottom line, we're watching inflationary trends here pretty closely, but we've been really pleased with the fact that across our portfolio, we've been able to offset that through improvements in the company.

Our next question comes from Neil Mehta from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Good morning, Andy. Good morning, Konnie, and congratulations to you both on your first calls in these new capacities. I was wondering, Andy, if you can really dig into Willow. This is such an important year for the project, particularly with the vessels in Corpus. So, how are we tracking on both scope and on cost? And maybe you can give us the mark-to-market on how it's going?

Yeah. Morning, Neil, and yeah, thank you. I should have done welcoming Konnie to her first call, too.

I appreciate you doing that, Neil. Maybe I will ask Kirk to get us started on Willow, and I can maybe add a bit after Kirk has just stepped through the details.

Yeah. Hi, Neil. Certainly, we continue to be pleased with the progress that we are seeing on the Willow project. We are, as you know, past the halfway point in the overall aggregate of the project, and we remain steadfast in our confidence here on first oil in early part of 2029. Also, as you heard from me in the last quarterly call, we were able to successfully wrap up all of the critical infrastructure, civil scope specifically, there on the North Slope here in this last winter season. So, of course, naturally now we are turning our focus to the next set of milestones in front of us. If I stay on the North Slope, what we are looking at is continued progress and ultimately completion on the infrastructure that is critical for us to begin drilling operations as early as next year.

In this upcoming winter construction season, we will also be progressing the production-necessary pipeline construction, again, on a pretty rapidly approaching winter season here for us. Of high importance to us, though, is our process module fabrication. Of course, that is occurring on the Gulf Coast. We have just exceeded the 75% completion mark, and that is an important one for us as we are looking down a pathway here to wrap up that fabrication in the second quarter. That is important because in the summer months, we will be sea lifting those modules from Gulf Coast to Alaska. Then, of course, we have got to make sure we are ready to receive those in Alaska in the summer and the fall.

Again, I will close by acknowledging, in fact, we do start drilling next year, and that is important to build a production-ready inventory so that we can have a strong ramp-up in the early part of 2029 and across that full year. Again, confident in what we have described in the past as far as capital and our schedule looks. Really quite pleased with how that project continues to progress.

Yeah. Thanks, Kirk. I would just emphasize, Neil, everything is on track for early 2029 first production.

Our next question comes from Phillip Jungwirth with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Morning, and thanks for taking the question. You closed some incremental divestitures in the quarter and completed the $5 billion. I know you're never done, so how are you thinking about portfolio management going forward beyond just the Norway reports? On the growth side, are most of the organic opportunities you're assessing kind of focused in the MENA region, like what you've done with Iraq, better Libya fiscals, and Syria? How do you assess overall risk profile when entering a new country, given that Conoco's portfolio is more OECD-weighted than peers who have a global footprint?

Okay. Yes. Thanks for the question, Phillip. Let me sort of just try to take a step back here and sort of describe. First of all, I want to be clear, everything we talked about in terms of the pillar two and the opportunities to grow our free cash flow, that's already captured in our portfolio. It's not reliant on any additional things coming into our portfolio. So, I think that's a very important point just to clarify. As we look at additional opportunities, and we have been looking at a fair bit in the Middle East recently, I'll just put that in context. There's a number of Middle East governments that are actively seeking capable partners, and we really are one of the very few U.S. companies that have the technical capabilities and the operational experience to consider those opportunities.

But I want to be clear that any new opportunity that we may pursue must fit within that framework I described. It must offer attractive fiscals. It must give us competitive risk-adjusted cost of supply. To your point around we've got a portfolio that's a heavy weighting to the OECD, that's absolutely true, and we really like that. But what that does when we're managing a portfolio, it does give us the opportunity to basically look at putting a bit more Middle East into the portfolio, as we are so weighted OECD. But again, we're only going to do that in a way where it's basically complementing what we have with our Lower 48 unconventional portfolio, what we already have in Alaska and international. It's got to, I'll be really clear on this, it's got to be consistent with the framework that we have.

We've got to do this in a way where we're still delivering the consistent long-term CFO growth, and anything we're doing is basically still working within that framework of a lower reinvestment rate. So, I look at these as things that, if the opportunities are right, it's a way of adding some very, very good long-life resources to the portfolio if we can get the right fiscals. We're a company that's in the position to look at doing that. It's really, so it's not about making our company bigger, it's about making our company better, and these are the kind of things that I think will make our company better if we construct them the right way within our framework. It's just really just part of our active portfolio management.

Our next question comes from Chris Baker with Evercore ISI.

Yeah, thanks. I wanted to circle back on the capital efficiency discussion. A lot of great comments earlier. But specifically, last quarter, you all talked about a significant uplift from surfactant-treated Permian wells. I guess now that you have more time with those wells, how's the uplift holding up? I guess, how are you approaching the decision around a potential broader rollout? Could that be a further tailwind to 2027 capital efficiency?

All right, Chris. Good morning. This is Nick. Chris, I am going to step back a little bit on capital efficiency and then dive into the surfactants and some other technologies that we are deploying within Lower 48. As a reminder, we are a leader in capital efficiency in each of our Lower 48 basins, and that is measured by total well CapEx per barrel of oil in EUR basins. You can see that in the public data. It all starts with the quality of rocks. As Andy mentioned, we are advantaged with core acreages in each of those basins. If you look at the well productivity trends, we have been the stronger and more consistent than pretty much any operator in the basins we operate in.

That is, again, a testament of the quality of rock, and it is a testament of the team's relentless focus on driving that capital efficiency and minimizing our operational costs. A couple of key drivers for 2026 is we continue to extend lateral lengths across the portfolio, 15% improvement compared to 2026, and we are doubling the number of three-mile laterals or greater across the Lower 48. Secondly, we expect to continuously drive improvement in D&C efficiencies following the 15% improvement we achieved in 2025. That is coming roughly from continuous pumping and simul-frac. That leads me to what Andy mentioned in his prepared remarks, is that we delivered record completion performance in the third quarter across our crews, as pump hours were up 15% from where we were in 2025.

One of our crews pumped 23 hours per day in August, and that was a record for us as well as the vendor. That was achieved by completing more wells simultaneously across the Permian using simul-frac, and that was combined with longer laterals. With that increased pump hours, this also delivered a record-setting 20% improvement in stimulated footage per day, and we continue to see that in Q4. We continue to test the real-time frac optimization using advanced subsurface diagnostics, like using fiber optics, and that will allow us to make sure we are not over-capitalizing our completions, but also ensuring that the fracs are placed in most effective areas. Now, switching gears to the technology, and I will come up on the surfactant here, we are testing a range of technologies, looking at how do we improve recovery, but also how do we improve capital efficiency out there.

First, I want to talk a little bit about application of far-field diverters, which keeps the frac energy in the targeted wellbore in Eagle Ford. That technology has greatly mitigated frac hits with child wells, which immediately improves the capital efficiency. We are scaling that technology into Eagle Ford over the entire program and ramping that deployment in Bakken and seeing really encouraging results. Chris, to your point, surfactants, we have shown a 20% uplift in oil productivity for treated wells. We have about a year and a half of data on several groups of wells, and we are testing that both in new and existing wells, and we are seeing a range of outcomes. We are also applying new surfactants on untested reservoir benches, and I guess the bottom line, that opportunity has got a lot of space.

To your question, we will be seeing additional applications of treatments across the portfolio in 2027, but don't think that is a large capital increase out there. It's going to be a very measured pace application. I'll end on, we've got a large non-operated program, so we roughly see one out of every six wells drilled in those basins. So we have real-time visibility that's what's happening in the industry, which is a great opportunity to leverage that information. I'll just end on, the biggest driver for productivity, talked a lot about it, but it's really back to the rock, and that's where we're most differentiated in our Lower 48 portfolio with the two decades of inventory.

Our next question comes from Doug Leggate with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Thank you for taking my question. Andy, you've laid out a pretty compelling long-term, I guess, dividend growth story. My question is about the growth beyond 2029 and the capital that goes along with that. I don't know how much detail you can go into at this point, but 2023 was a few years ago now, and you had a 10-year plan laid out then. I guess my question is, the sustaining capital and the growth capital are two elements of that. How do you see the spending level as it relates to supporting that growth you've suggested today, free cash flow growth that will go beyond 2029? Thanks.

Morning, Doug. Maybe I'll start this one off, and then I think Konnie can sort of help fill in a bit of details on sort of how it comes together with our break-evens. Probably, obviously, I'm not going to get into sort of which asset dollars specifically go to in the 2030s. But I will put a bit of color on it for you to try to sort of make this sort of come together. As you know, we're successfully moving now through our pre-productive CapEx, where we're at a point where our underlying CFO is growing, our costs are coming down, projects are coming online, and capital is starting to decline. I've said the term a couple of times now, that's going to result in us having a structurally lower reinvestment rate. So, what do I mean by structurally lower reinvestment rate?

That's probably getting to the heart of your question. Now, obviously, in the commodity prices today, it's easy to say we have our reinvestment rate is down in the low 40s right now, but that's the wrong way, I think, to look at it. The way we look at it is, if you look at what our reinvestment rate would have been over the last couple of years, say at a $70 price deck, we would have been running a reinvestment rate with a pre-productive CapEx, probably something close to 60%.

If you just fast-forward as we get into the next decade, all of the things I described when, I think it was the first question that Betty asked in terms of all of the things organically in our portfolio that allow us to keep growing, I can't emphasize enough that when I say a structurally lower reinvestment rate, what I specifically mean is that we'll be able to invest in all of the things, the exact order of which one in which year, that's what we have to work out and plans in the 2030s. But the depth of the inventory we have, we'll be investing at a reinvestment rate in the future that is basically well below 50%. We're in the low 60% now, and we'd be well below 50% reinvestment rate when we get into the 2030s.

When you combine that with the inventory running room we have, the balance sheet strength we have, a lower reinvestment rate, growing CFO, to me, that's sort of one of the most compelling things about our value proposition, is how we'll be able to grow that CFO and then grow the distributions of that. Probably the last proof point that I'll let Konnie cover for us is that, yes, it's a reinvestment rate comes down, but our break-even comes down too. Maybe just touch on the break-even for us, Konnie.

Yeah, absolutely. Good morning, Doug. Good to have you on the call. Just to give a couple of proof points on our break-even. Right now, our pre-dividend free cash flow break-even is in the mid-40%, WTI. Over this period of time, as we approach 2029 and beyond, that will improve to the low 30%. That is really a main component of what lets us continue to grow the dividend and at a top quartile rate for the long term. But as Andy has mentioned before, the dividend has to work in all areas of the cycle. What I want to do is also take this to kind of our return of capital framework and how we think about buybacks. Buybacks are also how we flex with price to deliver on that annual commitment that is so important to us.

Right now, buybacks also, we retire about 4%-5% of our shares each year. So, that is another way that over the long term, our dividend growth is supported on a per share basis.

Our next question comes from Arun Jayaram with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Good morning, good afternoon, Andy and team. Andy, I wanted to delve a little bit deeper in priority five in portfolio management, and I was wondering if you could maybe elaborate on your approach to portfolio management. Should we expect a more muscular approach to the portfolio under your regime? And perhaps I wanted to get maybe in detail how you think about more mature parts of the portfolio, places like Norway, versus your more, call it, advantage assets in parts of the Lower 48, LNG, Surmont, et cetera.

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I am not sure muscular would be the word I would pick to describe it, but the way we think about portfolio management has been very consistent at ConocoPhillips for a long time. We have always said that we basically have a rigorous process to evaluate our assets. We should never think of anything as being static. Assets do mature over time. So, I will start with that.

Then, so we are always looking to what competes in our portfolio, and as assets basically become a little less competitive in the portfolio, we have conversations with our teams about what the options are to make them more competitive. But ultimately, I think the term I have used in the past is, we need to make sure that we do not sort of just get enamored with the asset and not sell it at the right point.

But specifically to Norway, I want to address this one head-on. As I previously communicated, we received an unsolicited offer for Norway. We typically wouldn't be public about an asset this early in something like an unsolicited offer, but the way the rules work in Norway, we needed to go public with that and be very transparent, and we wanted to be very transparent with our employees that we'd received an offer, and we're now looking at offers for the asset. Just to be clear, we've made no decisions on Norway. We have a very long history in Norway. It is a great asset. It's a great cash engine for the company. Just to be clear, if we don't receive an offer that exceeds our expectations, we're happy to keep the asset.

I would say, you know, it's a bit more public than I would ideally like. We're not normally talking about them this early in the cycle, but this is how the process works. We identify assets, or we get approached about assets, we evaluate them, and we decide what the best long-term value option is. That's exactly what's happening with Norway. Out of respect to our employees and all of our stakeholders, we'll quietly work that, and when we have something to say and announce, we'll do that. I wouldn't describe Norway as being more muscular in what we're doing. I think it's just the timing of when something's happened. I think we'll continue to look at our portfolio this way. I think it's healthy.

I had the question earlier about assets coming into the portfolio and things we might be looking at in the Middle East. It's just part of the cycle. It's part of what we do to maintain our portfolio and to make sure our portfolio is, in my view, the most competitive out there. I think you a bit of a broken record here, but I think you can expect more of the same from ConocoPhillips in how we evaluate assets and how we add things and subtract things from the portfolio.

Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann from William Blair. Your line is now open.

Morning. Thanks for the time. My question is likely for Nick. Nick, on the Permian, could you speak to how you're looking and thinking about the Permian development plan next year, specifically maybe on targeting various formations? It seems like zones like the Woodford and Barnett have gotten a lot of attention recently, and I'm sure you've got a lot of prospectivity there, so we'd just love how you're sort of thinking about the overall development plan?

Yeah, sure, Neal. Well, stepping back, as a reminder, we have the deepest tier one inventory in the Permian. So, if you look at our proven and our primary zones, that remains the vast majority of our ongoing development program this year and for many years to come. As the secondary zones that you just mentioned, like the Woodford and the Barnett, we look at that as really as upside on top of that inventory depth, and really not a replacement for it. So, I can give you a little insight related to the results so far with those benches. So, for example, in the Delaware Woodford, we brought that a number of lines online this year. They're performing at or above expectations, and they're probably low, you know, $30 or $40 cost of supply.

Now, we expect to further drive improvement with those opportunities as we move to longer three-mile development and optimize completion designs. Now, in the Midland Barnett, it's still early days, Neal, and delineating that play will take some time. So, we're seeing some pretty early encouraging results with the Barnett, and those opportunities are in line with core Midland Basin wells. But just to reiterate, as a reminder, the deep tier one inventory is going to be our main primary focus for years to come. And as we continue, we'll delineate these further as we drive the learning curve down over time.

Yeah, I would just add, as Nick said, tier one primary zones is where, you know, most of our focus is. Of course, we're staying abreast and aware of sort of some of the secondary zones, and we have all of that acreage too. But when we've got such a deep tier one, as Nick said, that's where you'll see the vast majority of our dollars being spent. We also benefit, as Nick said in a previous answer, that we see a lot of the wells as a non-op that are drilled across the basin. So, we'll continue to learn about the primary zones and sort of which ones are more attractive, also the secondary zones, which ones become more attractive. But it won't distract us from our tier one inventory that we have years and years of primary zones to get after.

Our next question comes from Sam Margolin from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you for taking the question. Maybe we could pay a visit to Qatar for an update. You mentioned NFE contributing next year in a base case, but obviously there's a lot of variables and different scenarios. I guess the question is, we know that the security considerations to ship LNG out of the Strait of Hormuz are different than oil, and we can see that in flows today. In a base case, in a ceasefire scenario, what do you think has to happen for NFE to ramp towards full rates and for the remainder of the Qatar footprint to be at 100% sort of unencumbered?

Yeah. Morning, Sam. This is Kirk. Yeah, certainly appreciate the question in context of certainly what we're all seeing and feeling there in the Middle East right now, especially with our own teams and operations there in Doha. As you saw, maybe I'll just start with operationally, because I think that's a bit of a good lead-in here to your question specifically on NFE. You saw from our earnings materials that the Qatar production has actually increased here in third quarter over second quarter. But again, it does, in fact, as you're pointing to, it remains below pre-conflict levels. Of course, we can imagine, as I'm sure many do, quite a range of outcomes that could be possible here in fourth quarter.

Anything from a continuation of what we're seeing in third quarter to potentially a ramp-up to a full utilization of the trains that we have there on N3 that have been operating at a constrained level. Our fourth quarter guidance does in fact include and takes into account that uncertainty that could exist in Qatar. If you project that forward then, and certainly what we've been realizing there as a contributor to the projects of NFE, and ultimately NFS as well, is the fact that they have, despite utilization constraints in total production with some challenges just with overall flow through the strait, we've continued to see some pretty strong, if not quite strong, construction progress there by the Qatar team. As published and stated by QE, we are expecting NFE to come online in the first half of 2027.

Our own expectations, obviously, are consistent with what we are seeing as being published by QatarEnergy. Then, of course, NFS follows that. While we have seen reduced utilizations, project progress continues, and so we expect NFE and ultimately NFS to continue to contribute to this free cash flow inflection that we have promised for the next couple years.

Our next question comes from Josh Silverstein from UBS. Your line is now open.

Thanks, guys. Just wanted to follow up on Canada. With the more supportive policy environment up there, it seems like, you know, Canada investment opportunity has certainly moved up your pecking order here. So, just curious about the opportunity you see there for increased investment. Is it both Surmont and Montney, one versus the other, and then maybe just some views as to where the underlying cash flow improves under the new tax legislation? Thanks.

Hi, Josh. This is Kirk. Yes, certainly, as you saw from our released materials, we did bring on Pad 104W-B ahead of schedule and under budget. I think that is really quite indicative of the strong performance that we have been seeing from that business over the last couple years, strong base production, and then strong development production as we have been bringing on a new pad roughly every 12 to 18 months. We have been seeing strong performance coming out of those wells and those pads as well. Pad 104A, its production has been exceeding our own expectations, and so naturally, I am expecting really good things, strong production from 104B. As you are pointing to here, Josh, there is a number of things going on here in Canada right now, whether it is pointed at Montney or especially pointed at Surmont on the trilateral MOU.

I think this continues to point to the underpinnings of, certainly in our published materials and Andy's opening comments, the fact that we have a strong organic existing position here in the company in our international portfolio to continue to expand CFO and free cash flow. It is coming from assets and businesses like Surmont. Again, this is a differentiated asset. It is unique in the fact that it is low decline and it is very long life with a low cost of supply set of investments in front of us, and it demands a pretty low capital intensity when we compare that to other assets in our portfolio. It does contain a future growth option.

Certainly, as you have been seeing in the press, as a member of the Oil Sands Alliance, we have been in negotiation with the two governments, the federal and the provincial government there in Canada, along with the other Oil Sands Alliance members. While we have yet to formalize the agreements coming out of the trilateral MOU, we are really quite positive on the fiscal incentives that have been premised in the MOU, and we continue to negotiate, as well as the policy and the regulatory proposals that are coming about to incentivize growth. Those incentives range from accelerated depreciation to support on both capital and cost.

Again, when I back up, I think about assets like Surmont as being a great demonstration of the value and the inventory that we have in the company to not just continue to modestly grow production in places like Surmont into existing capacity, but we also have the capacity and the capability to expand total production through some really modest capital investments. Even inclusive of an expansion project or a Pathways project, this asset, Surmont specifically, is in a place of having a very advantaged low reinvestment rate, and it is part of this contribution to our ability to continue to expand CFO and free cash flow well into the next decade.

Our next question comes from James West from Melius Research. Your line is now open.

Hey. Good morning. Good morning, guys. I had a question around Alaska and Willow. I know we've talked a little bit about it already and where the project is heading, but you've had some exploration success. You'll likely have more, and curious how you think about how much duration that would add to Willow once you ramp it and it gets to a plateau?

Yeah. Good morning, Kirk. Yes, certainly, as you're pointing to, and Andy spoke to this earlier a number of times, but I'll reinforce a couple components here just to start with, which is this last winter season, we drilled roughly four exploration wells and saw enough to be rather explicit about the fact that we're positive about our ability to continue to bring in more resource into Willow. Naturally then, of course, as described, we're preparing for this next winter season, and we have plans to drill roughly the same number of wells, another four wells, do a bit more seismic. All of this is in an effort to mature our understanding of the opportunities that exist for us beyond Willow.

As we ready for this, inclusive of the fact that we just received federal permits to begin drilling and begin executing that program there up on the slope this winter, all of this is in an effort to lay the groundwork to use Willow's infrastructure in the same way that we've been using the infrastructure that has existed for decades, which is the Western North Slope, or sometimes I call it the Alpine infrastructure, as well as our Kuparuk infrastructure. This creates the potential for satellite pads that can be developed in a really capital-advantaged way. We can put pads out there at a really low ratable capital spend and bring more resource into Willow in the years following first oil, in which we've come off of plateau there at Willow. We continue to use these infrastructure to our advantage, low cost of supply.

Even with all of that included, you can continue to expect capital to come down in Willow, inclusive of all the efforts that we're doing to explore, appraise, and develop these new satellites. All of this, again, certainly as Andy pointed out earlier, is another great example of our ability to continue to bring capital down and expand CFO and free cash flow well into the next decade.

Our next question comes from Kevin MacCurdy from Pickering Energy Partners. Your line is now open.

Hey, great. Thanks for taking my question. My question's on the LNG portfolio and the cash flow contributions. You've suddenly added offtake up to 13 MTPA now. Can you remind us how much of that you will see in 2027 and how that ramps? Any broad thoughts on where margins are currently and into next year?

Yeah. Good morning. This is Andy. In terms of the, you're right, we've been increasing offtake, and we're now at 13 million tons. The new capacity we're adding doesn't come on until later in this decade and into earlier in the next decade. Specifically, the volumes that we have that will be coming online first will be our Port Arthur phase one volumes and a small amount of volume at ECA. That's kind of the key driver to the volumes coming on. I'll remind you on Port Arthur phase one, we're also an equity owner in that. As a 30% owner, we'll also be capturing our share of the commissioning cargoes that come off of that project.

In terms of the margins, I'm not going to get into the specifics, but it's when we've given you our free cash flow inflection, we've been very clear that we based that off of a $10 TTF and a $4 Henry Hub. I think last time I looked, TTF was closer to $30. We'll see where those margins are next year as they're coming on, but we're trading significantly above the $10 assumption that we had, and Henry Hub is trading below the $4 that we had, and the costs in between effectively are locked in for us. As I look at our commercial team, it's we can't get these volumes on fast enough. Port Arthur phase one is the key element of the volumes coming on for us next year.

Our next question comes from Gabe Daoud with Truist Securities. Your line is now open.

Thanks, operator. Hey, Andy and team, good afternoon or good morning. Actually, good afternoon for everyone now. Maybe, Andy, I was hoping we can maybe any kind of update on path to monetizing the Venezuela claims, and then maybe additionally just any kind of update on resource there and legal and fiscal terms and whether or not there would be any kind of appetite to re-enter the country?

Yeah. For Venezuela, you know, the way I would describe it for us is that we continue to engage to better understand opportunities there. But for us to invest capital, we need to see a real pathway to meaningful recovery on the $12 billion we're owed. It's also critical, let's not lose sight of the investments also got to compete with the rest of the portfolio. I think we've gone through that in great length today and just how deep our portfolio already is. So, even if we can sort of work through a pathway of meaningful recovery, you see improved security, you see improved fiscals, it's still got to compete within our portfolio. We'll always remain open-minded. We'll always want to look, we want to talk, want to understand, but it's got to compete within the portfolio.

That's probably sort of nothing really sort of much new to say on that at this point. I think the other question in terms of sort of the claims that we have, again, there's not really much new to say there either. I think the one that most people point to is the Citgo sale. As you know, the Delaware courts approved a bid for Citgo, but that remains subject to appeals and OFAC approvals, and we're just not going to speculate on specific outcomes or timing there. So, it's a space we keep watching. We know what we're owed, and we'd like to see if there's a win-win solution, but it starts with basically understanding sort of a pathway to recovering what we're owed.

ConocoPhillips (COP) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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