Matador Resources — Oct 22, 2024 release

Matador is using this Adjusted Free Cash Flow primarily to repay outstanding borrowings under our revolving credit facility as well as for payment of our dividend and our brick-by-brick acquisitions. “Operational efficiencies, good wells and strong vendor relationships continue to drive average well costs lower. We currently estimate that full-year 2024 drilling and completion costs will be improved to between $925 and $935 per completed lateral foot, which is an 8% reduction from our original guidance of $1,010 per completed lateral foot estimated at the first of the year for calendar year 2024. “Much of the efficiency savings achieved by Matador during 2024 were driven by embracing certain operational innovations occurring in the Delaware Basin such as U-Turn wells, remote hydraulic fracturing operations and the optimization of simul-frac and trimul-frac completion operations. For an example of our improvement in this regard, we expect to turn-in-line five new U-Turn wells during the fourth quarter of 2024. In doing so, we have 2 successfully reduced drill cycle times on these five U-Turn wells by 30% as compared to the U-Turn wells we turned to sales in 2023. Remote simul-frac was utilized on four of the five 2024 U-Turn wells providing additional cost savings in the completing of these wells. The team estimated $3 million in cost savings per U-Turn well when compared to the alternative of drilling eight one-mile lateral length wells of equal aggregate length. The primary driver of these savings is the elimination of four vertical wellbores. Drilling four U-Turn wells only requires four vertical wellbores to drill and compl