Crescent Energy Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
Crescent Energy (NYSE:CRGY) reported third-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Access the full call at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/360772191
Summary
Crescent Energy reported a strong third quarter with production of approximately 328,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, generating $786 million in adjusted EBITDA and $367 million in levered free cash flow.
The company emphasized its strategic transformation and operational efficiencies, highlighting significant synergies from the Permian acquisition and the pending acquisition of Devon Energy’s Eagle Ford assets.
Crescent Energy maintained a focus on deleveraging, with a clear capital allocation framework prioritizing free cash flow generation, debt reduction, and shareholder returns, supported by a solid hedge position.
Operational improvements have lowered well costs and expanded economic inventory, with notable cost savings in the Permian, Eagle Ford, and Uinta regions.
Management expressed confidence in achieving and potentially exceeding synergy targets from the Devon acquisition, with significant opportunities identified in gas marketing and operational optimization.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star-one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star-one again. I will now hand the conference over to Reed Gallagher, Investor Relations. Reed, please go ahead.
Reed Gallagher (Investor Relations)
Good morning and thank you for joining Crescent Energy’s third quarter 2026 conference call. Today’s prepared remarks will come from our CEO David Rockecharlie and our CFO Brandi Kendall. Our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Investments will also be available during Q&A. Today’s call may contain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties including commodity price volatility, global geopolitical conflict, our business strategies, the pending acquisition of Devon Energy’s Eagle Ford assets, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in these statements. In our other disclosures, we have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after today’s call.
In addition, today’s discussion may include disclosure regarding non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please reference our 10-Q and earnings release available in the Investor section of our website. With that, I’ll hand it over to David.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Good morning and thank you to everyone for joining us. Crescent Energy delivered another strong quarter and I want to begin by thanking everyone on Team Crescent Energy for the consistent focus and execution behind our performance. We are proud of the business we’ve built and excited about where Crescent Energy stands today. We’ve assembled high-quality assets, deep inventory and a talented team with a proven track record of consistently improving the assets we own.
Our business generates substantial free cash flow today and we will continue to deliver. We have significant opportunity across our portfolio to create significant incremental value from here. With that, let me highlight three key takeaways for today’s call. First, Crescent Energy has undergone a significant portfolio transformation and is a fundamentally better business than it was five years ago at IPO. With a proven track record of investing and operating execution, we have improved asset quality, built scale in our core basins, deepened our inventory and strengthened our financial profile. Today we are a top-10 independent with a world-class Eagle Ford position.
Second, our market-leading operational execution continues to drive strong results and differentiated value creation. We delivered higher production, lower capital, and higher free cash flow than market expectations this quarter across our portfolio. Structurally lower well costs are expanding our economic inventory and our lower operating costs are increasing both margins and free cash flow. Our Permian transformation has demonstrated the repeatability of our model with approximately $295 million of annualized synergies captured versus our original target of $90 to $100 million.
And finally, we have significant embedded upside across the business, all within our control. With continued operational improvement, our growing Crescent Royalties platform, the recently announced Devon Eagle Ford acquisition and our clear path to rapid deleveraging, we see multiple compelling opportunities to compound value creation. Before discussing the quarter in more detail, I would like to put our progress in perspective. Since our IPO, we’ve transformed Crescent Energy. We’ve assembled a much larger and higher-quality asset base while meaningfully improving the underlying cash flow capacity of the business. Pro forma for the announced Eagle Ford acquisition, Crescent Energy produces approximately 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, has 15-plus years of inventory, and is positioned to generate more than $7.5 billion of levered free cash flow over the next five years, assuming an oil price of $70 per barrel.
We built this business through consistent investing and operating execution and our third quarter results demonstrate the consistency and strength of our model. The transformation in the Permian is a particularly compelling example of our operating playbook in action, where results continue to exceed our original expectations. Since our second quarter update we’ve captured $105 million of incremental annual synergies, bringing the total to approximately $295 million, nearly three times the high end of our original target and representing more than $1 billion of value on a five-year PV-10 basis. The result is an asset base that looks materially different than it did at announcement.
Our total synergy target is now more than $300 million, and that value creation is coming from strong execution, lower costs and better commercial outcomes. Our Permian success is just a single example of our consistent execution in each of our core basins. Efficiency gains, longer laterals and increased simul-frac utilization are translating into structurally lower well costs, with 25% savings in the Eagle Ford since 2023 and approximately 20% savings year over year in the Uinta, in addition to the 20% to 25% savings in the Permian since taking over operations late last year.
Illustratively, $1 million of savings per well can reduce oil breakevens by approximately five to ten dollars per barrel, so those savings represent a dramatic step change in inventory quality and significantly extend our runway of economic locations. With our realized savings to date, we have doubled sub-$50 breakeven inventory and increased sub-$60 breakeven inventory by nearly 50%. In addition to our inventory expansion, we have driven a similar transformation of the financial profile of our business. Our operating costs, margins and free cash flow per share have all improved at market-leading rates. That rate of change reflects our ability to consistently improve the assets we own and create substantial incremental value. Our track record of investing and operating execution is why we see significant opportunity in the Eagle Ford acquisition.
This is a rare opportunity to add scale and Tier 1 inventory in our backyard where we have differentiated knowledge and a proven ability to create value. The assets add more than 600 net locations on a 10,000-foot basis and will make Crescent Energy the second-largest operator in the Eagle Ford. The $140 million of identified annual synergies are grounded in our track record, supported by the same operational and commercial improvements we’ve executed repeatedly across Crescent Energy.
The acquisition also transforms our market-leading royalties platform, bringing the pro forma business to approximately $250 million of annualized EBITDA. Just as important, approximately 40% of pro forma EBITDA will come from Crescent Energy-operated assets, up from approximately 10% today, giving us significantly greater visibility into future development and cash flow. This combination of scale, development visibility and exposure to cost-free organic growth is a differentiated source of cash flow and value within Crescent Energy.
Taken together, our third quarter results and the announced acquisition are a clear example of the Crescent Energy model. We love our current asset portfolio that we have built over the last five years. Through successful and consistent execution we have a substantial opportunity to create additional value through the assets we own and the announced Eagle Ford acquisition. Our near-term focus is to continue to execute on our high-quality asset base, generate free cash flow, reduce debt and deliver value to our shareholders.
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Brandi.
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks, David. Crescent Energy delivered another quarter of strong results. We produced approximately 328,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the quarter, including approximately 134,000 barrels of oil per day. It generated approximately $786 million of adjusted EBITDA and $367 million of levered free cash flow. Production came in above expectations. Capital of approximately $326 million was 9% better than expectations, and levered free cash flow was 23% above expectations.
We ended the quarter with approximately $2 million of liquidity and net leverage of approximately 1.5 times. Our fixed quarterly dividend remains $0.12 per share, and our capital allocation framework continues to prioritize long-term per-share value creation. As we discussed last month, the recently announced Eagle Ford acquisition is consistent with that framework. The transaction adds significant Tier 1 inventory and we have structured the financing to support rapid deleveraging and to preserve balance sheet strength. We expect approximately $1 billion of pro forma liquidity at closing, providing meaningful flexibility as we execute against our deleveraging plan. We successfully executed approximately $1.15 billion of equity financing and secured efficient low-cost debt financing at approximately a 6% cost of capital.
The strong investor support and constructive rating agency response further reinforce the quality of the transaction and our financing strategy. Our hedge position is an important part of our deleveraging plan. Alongside the Eagle Ford acquisition, we fully executed our planned incremental 2027 oil hedges and have begun layering on 2028 hedges at attractive pricing. Pro forma for the acquisition, approximately 60% of our oil production is hedged in the first half of 2027, approximately 50% in the second half, and approximately 20% in the first half of 2028, enhancing near-term cash flow visibility during the initial debt reduction period.
Our near-term capital allocation priorities remain clear. First, the fixed dividend, which remains an important component of our shareholder return framework. Second, following the recent Eagle Ford acquisition, debt reduction will be our primary use of free cash flow. After the fixed dividend, we are targeting approximately 1.5 times consolidated leverage at year-end 2027 and approximately 1 times at year-end 2028, pro forma for the acquisition.
Importantly, commodity prices have increased since we announced the acquisition, providing an opportunity to delever faster than the initial targets we outlined. And third, preserve financial flexibility for additional shareholder returns and attractive investments over time, with any such decisions consistent with our deleveraging objectives. The combination of strong free cash flow generation, substantial pro forma liquidity at closing, no near-term maturities and a clear path to lower leverage puts Crescent Energy in a strong financial position and supports our continued progress toward an investment-grade credit rating. With that, I’ll turn the call back to David.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Brandi. This quarter’s performance and the transformation we’ve made since our IPO demonstrate the strength of the Crescent Energy model. With market-leading execution, we have built a fundamentally better business, expanded our economic inventory, improved our operating cost structure and significantly increased our free cash flow capacity. We have assembled an exceptional asset base anchored by a world-class Eagle Ford position alongside significant opportunities across Permian, Uinta and Crescent Royalties.
Importantly, the next phase of Crescent Energy’s value creation is within our control. We see substantial opportunity for further value embedded in our asset base. Our focus is on execution, continuing to improve well economics, integrating Eagle Ford assets, capturing synergies and generating free cash flow. With this differentiated upside, we believe Crescent Energy has never been better positioned to create long-term value for shareholders. With that, we’ll open it up for Q&A, operator.
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one. Again, we ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality if you are muted locally. Please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Neil Dingman with William Blair.
Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Neil Dingman (Analyst at William Blair)
My first question is on capital allocation. Specifically, could you speak to how this may or may not change post the Devon Eagle Ford close, especially given how much larger operations are now than a year ago.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, hey, Neil, it’s David. Great question. I’ll just start by saying we love the assets that we have and we’re currently actively developing oil across the whole portfolio. And so we don’t expect that to change. To your point, the Devon Eagle Ford acquisition, it’s an asset in our own backyard and it slots right in to what we’re doing. So importantly, we see more development opportunity across every asset that we own and we’ll continue to allocate based on returns.
And then fundamentally, as you know, we like to make sure we’re running basically a maintenance to a low, low growth program. So I don’t think fundamental change in capital spending or reinvestment rates, but just a lot more opportunity.
Neil Dingman (Analyst at William Blair)
Perfect. And then just my second, just on the strategic plan going forward, just wondering now with a larger size, David, would you say the strategic growth plan has changed at all? Thank you.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
No, no change to strategy or growth plan. But I think probably worth reiterating some of the key points we just made. Number one objective is focus on operational execution. It’s working for us. We’re generating more value across the business, more cash flow, more profit across every asset. And the other thing we’ve been able to do over a number of years is scale the portfolio but also focus it. So I think it should be pretty clear, you know, really where we see the opportunity in our existing asset base and, you know, call it offset assets down the road.
But importantly, I’d also highlight, we think opportunistic stock buybacks are an excellent way to buy more of what we already know and love.
Neil Dingman (Analyst at William Blair)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of John Freeman with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
John Freeman (Analyst at Raymond James)
Thank you. When we sort of look back on the fact that y’all been able to triple or more than triple the initial synergy target on the Vital deal. I’m not trying to, you know, set up too high of a bar before the Devon deal even closes, but if you’re just sort of looking back over the last 12 months and you’re like, okay, I had this original target on Vital, you end up doing 3x that and you sort of apply it to Devon like where you see potential opportunities above and beyond, you know, this initial target.
Not saying they occur, but if we were going to look back in 12 months and you were going to end up beating this target, what are some likely areas where that could occur?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, hey John, it’s David. I’ll start. Two things again just to know about us and about the Permian acquisition itself. As you’ll recall, we’ve been executing and a number of the slides we put forward this quarter demonstrate what I’ll call multi-year market-leading execution on the cost side both on D&C and regular way operations. So we think that is the core skill set of the company. We took that into the Permian, but it was a basin entry for us.
And so as you’ll remember, we had very limited operational synergies that we put forward at that time, you know, really out of just respect for the opportunity that we saw out there and the timeline we thought it would take. So long story short, resounding success. Playbook transferred really well from the core Eagle Ford out into the Permian. But what we would say is two things about the Permian: one, still have more to do, so we’re excited about that. The other thing is a lot of what we’ve captured is just starting to roll in the financial statements. So we think we’re going to see more performance improvement from things we’ve already accomplished but are just starting to show up contractually and financially.
And then secondly, we’ll do more with those assets is our view over time. And then coming back now to the original question on the Eagle Ford, this is our backyard. We’ve executed here for a long time. We absolutely believe we’re going to achieve the synergies we put forward and more. But we are putting forward operational synergies up front. So I think Devon was an outstanding example of what we can do when we built a scale position. And the Permian obviously offered some incremental upside just because, you know, we were a little bit, I’ll call it cautious stepping in there.
But we feel great about it now.
John Freeman (Analyst at Raymond James)
That’s great. And then moving to the new sort of marketing slide that y’all have got, slide 11 in the deck, trying to understand sort of what are the future opportunities versus what y’all have already achieved. And then obviously that slide focuses on gas. But post the Devon deal closing, are there also opportunities to improve NGL realizations as well?
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
Hey John, it’s Brandi. So what we highlighted as part of the incremental synergy capture this quarter on the Permian assets was $40 million of effectively just successful recontracting across oil, gas, water contracts. So those are all contracts that are across the line that should start flowing through the financial statements starting in January of next year. I think there is incremental upside, especially as you think about us now having access on a portion of our volume to take it out of a more constrained Waha market into the Gulf Coast.
So I think that’s incremental upside to what we laid out. So a couple things. Expect structurally lower GP&T costs, but then also stronger gas and NGL realization over time.
John Freeman (Analyst at Raymond James)
That’s great. Thank you both.
OPERATOR
The next question comes from the line of Charles Mead with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Charles Mead (Analyst at Johnson Rice)
Good morning, David and Brandy, and to the rest of the Crescent team there as well. David, on the Crescent royalties, I know it was a couple quarters ago that you introduced this as kind of a standalone and you’ve taken a step here towards a potential IPO. And I wonder, when I look at it, I think it can do, you know, two things—at least two things, more than two things—but two of the things it could do for you are it could accelerate your deleveraging.
The other thing it could do is it could give you a public mark on that piece of your business that could help your overall CRGY share price. But I wonder if you could talk about, from your perspective, what are the potential benefits from taking this step and what the relative priority is for you—whether you’re more focused on getting a good mark or more focused on accelerating the deleveraging, or perhaps something else.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. Hey Charles, thanks. It’s a great question. I’ll just start by saying this is obviously consistent with the strategy we outlined in the first quarter. And really earlier this year what we discussed was finding the best outcome for shareholders over a 12 to 18 month period. And then I later talked about accelerating that timeline. So hopefully this is just seen as, number one, we’re hard at work focused on best outcome. To your point, our view is that best outcome will achieve all of those things, which is making the business opportunity more clear, making the value opportunity more clear.
And certainly anything we do around this highly cash generative business should be credit accretive as well. So the priority is just best outcome for us and we’re going to find the best way to do that.
Charles Mead (Analyst at Johnson Rice)
Okay, that’s helpful. And then looking at 4Q, you guys had a really strong 3Q operations-wise, and you noted that in your performance pair of comments. You know, I understand the reasons why, with the pending acquisition close, you’re not going to, you know, update any 4Q guide, but maybe you could, perhaps you could offer kind of a characterization that the strength we saw in 3Q, was that due to some one-off factors or maybe at the other end of the spectrum is that some kind of durable, you know, operational improvement that we should expect to show up again in 4Q.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Answer is no one-offs; making durable change to the business. And as you heard from Brandy, a lot of the things we’re doing are going to start showing up sequentially quarter over quarter over quarter.
Charles Mead (Analyst at Johnson Rice)
That’s great detail. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Noah Hungness with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Noah Hungness (Analyst at Wells Fargo)
Morning. I guess for my first question here, on your asset detail slides it looks like well costs have been more or less flat to down this year. How are you thinking about well costs next year on the standalone Crescent Energy assets, and are there any inflationary pressures that may be working their way through the system?
J. D. “Joey” Hall (Chief Operating Officer)
Good morning, Noah. It’s Joey. Thanks for the question. We would expect to continue to see well costs go down in 2027. But to your point, we do expect inflationary pressures, no question about it. And I would also just characterize that, you know, particularly when you’re talking about on the Vital side of things, you know, we’ve really taken the big chunks out, so we’ll just be looking at more operational efficiencies. But we have huge opportunity on the Devon assets.
So we expect for those costs to go down. You know, on the inflation part, inflation is very real. I would say as an industry we’re looking at like 5 to 7%—steel and diesel, very big drivers. But whenever you’re talking about Crescent, you know, we’re just a different company now. We’re bigger and we’re developing different than we have in the past. And it’s hard for inflation to erode significant gains in capital efficiency, which is what we’re experiencing. So we’re going to keep executing our playbook.
We’re going to continue drilling longer laterals. In particular, in the Permian, we still have opportunity to use more simul-frac. We have some electrification opportunities. So inflation can make a dent in these things, but it’s not going to curb us from continuing to make continual improvements in well costs. Also still working on the supply chain side. You know, in a lot of instances, we were allowing service providers to provide things like fuel and sand and chemicals and things like that. We’re looking at taking those on ourselves, which of course, you know, that would have a pretty significant markup. So that’s another opportunity. So I just feel like inflation is real, but the opportunities are more so. I would expect us to continue to drive down well cost.
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
And maybe what I’ll add there is that alongside the Eagle Ford transaction announcement from a couple weeks ago, we laid out a capital framework of $1.8 billion going forward. That framework still holds and reflects the current service cost environment that we’re in.
Noah Hungness (Analyst at Wells Fargo)
And just a clarification question then: the $1.8 billion, does that include kind of the operational improvements that we’ve seen, like the updated synergy number that you threw out here at 3Q?
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
That’s right. Includes the efficiencies that we’re capturing on the legacy Crescent business, but also the $100 million of expected D&C synergies related to the Devon Eagle Ford assets. No, it’s Brandi. So we’re there and we’ve executed everything we wanted to execute as it relates to the ’27 oil program. As you saw in the materials, we’ve hedged roughly 20% of the first half of 2028 at a kind of $75-plus range. I think we’ll look to continue to opportunistically add a bit more there, but in totality feel really great about the deleveraging pathway and the hedges that we’ve executed to protect that.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ferrell with Pickering Energy Partners. Please go ahead.
Michael Ferrell (Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners)
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions, just kind of following up on John’s question. Look, I think it’s safe to say at this point the Vital deal has just been a knockout transaction, given the rapid synergy realizations. To your point, David, look, we understand that there may have been more to do in the Permian assets than with the Devon assets, but, you know, I’d imagine the process of really scrutinizing another operator’s methods forces you to look internally at your own operations, but maybe through a new perspective.
So is there anything that the company has identified through that process of realizing synergies that you’re looking to apply to the legacy Crescent assets just in general?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, David, and I’ll let Joey follow on as needed. I think it’s a great opportunity, to your point. So, long story short, we came in knowing what we could do and in particular, you know, just the scale and opportunity we’ve had to build a business across a million now gross acres, you know, versus this, which is a great position, but much smaller. We certainly are bringing a lot of tools to the party. But all that said, you know, we think the existing business was certainly run well and we learn something every time. So we do believe we’re going to be able to slot this into our existing operations and get incremental benefits of scale. But we do always, always learn things. And Joey, you might just talk about how we’re thinking about integration and moving forward next year.
J. D. “Joey” Hall (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah, Michael, I’ll give you some specific examples. One of the things we’re really trying to get up the curve on to improve our operating costs is, you know, the automation SCADA part of the business, and both Vital and in particular Devon, have done a tremendous job over their lifetime of getting automation in the place where we want it to be. And in particular, Devon, we’re looking forward to learning from them and using the systems that they put in place to help us operate our field better.
But to say that I know we talk about synergies all the time, I would say from Vital, there were several things that we took on from them in regards to supply chain and inventory management and things like that that we’ve taken on board and allowed us to improve our own operations because we’re on our own learning curve as well. When you look at the history of the company and the conglomeration of multiple acquisitions, we’re just now starting the journey, particularly on the LOE side, of improving our operations.
So, yeah, both of those organizations have helped us tremendously.
Michael Ferrell (Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners)
Great. Appreciate the response, just a quick follow up on the Uinta. Like that asset’s been on a slight growth trajectory this year. I think spending has been a little under $100 million, reflects pretty strong capital efficiency. So I believe the expectation is to continue with the one-rig program next year. But would you expect to see continued slight growth in 2027?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. Hey, it’s David. As you know, one of the key things we did up there was much like we did in the Permian, we slowed down, took assessment of what others have been doing and have now, as you noted, been executing a very good program. And long story short, there’s just so much resource potential up there. One, it’s well known across our acreage, but it’s also being actively developed by offset operators. So we’d expect to have continued activity and also continued inventory expansion and depth being created over time.
So yes, we’re very excited about that.
Michael Ferrell (Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners)
Thanks for your time.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of AJ Bakshani with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
AJ Bakshani (Analyst at BMO Capital Markets)
Good morning and thanks for taking our question. Your presentation shows roughly six years of inventory below $50 a barrel and 10 years below $60 at current well costs. And I was just wondering how do those economic buckets map the low-risk and total locations disclosed by basin? Are the sub-$60 wells primarily low risk or do they include inventory that still needs delineation? And how large is that next tranche at $60 to $70 break even that could move below $60 with further cost reductions?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, this is David. The short answer is we’ve, I’ll call it, conformed to industry disclosure rather than really, you know, changing what we’re doing. We view our inventory as things that deliver two times our money or better. We have a really long runway of that. And long story short, this is just a rebucketing into that sub-$50 and sub-$60 kind of vocabulary. So one, we expect to continue to grow both of those categories through both operational execution, which we still see significant upside there on the cost side, but also as we’ve expanded our acreage footprint over many years and gotten more concentrated in the portfolio, we’re seeing obviously incremental zones that we can develop, but also incremental lateral feet that we can bring into a program as we piece together acreage in meaningful ways now that we’ve got a really scaled position across all three of these basins.
So I think it’s just more of everything: more sub-$50, more sub-$60, and also just more overall as we continue to execute.
AJ Bakshani (Analyst at BMO Capital Markets)
Great, thanks. And for my follow up, how are you thinking about capital allocation across DeWitt and Karnes counties after you close the Eagle Ford transaction? Do you see one area as more advantaged than the other on returns and inventory and is there any weighting between the two in terms of synergies?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think too early to say. Again, we look at the Eagle Ford as an entire position. But as you note, those are both two great opportunities within our Eagle Ford portfolio. So, you know, we have not closed on that acquisition yet. But again, I think we’ll see huge opportunity both in those areas and also across the rest of the company. And we’ll continue to provide more detail on that as we get the assets closed and integrated. But excited definitely about what we’re bringing in, but also equally about what we’ve already got.
AJ Bakshani (Analyst at BMO Capital Markets)
Awesome, thanks.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Gabe Dowd with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Gabe Dowd (Analyst at Truist Securities)
Thanks, operator. Hey everyone, thanks for taking my questions. Was hoping, David, maybe we could just start with bigger picture. You have the minerals strategic lever that you could potentially pull, but was just curious about the upstream portfolio as it stands today. How do you think about the portfolio moving forward? Is there anything that maybe stands out from a divestiture candidate standpoint?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, great question. The short answer, as we said earlier, we love the portfolio we’ve got. We think every part of the portfolio has upside in it and it’s our job to go execute and capture that for the benefit of shareholders. So the short answer is the divestiture program that we announced last year is done and we’re really focused on getting the most out of the assets we own today.
Gabe Dowd (Analyst at Truist Securities)
Okay, got it. Thanks. That makes sense. And then just as a follow up maybe for Joey, I think there were maybe a few pads where Crescent had kind of drilled and completed start to finish on the Permian asset. Was just curious if you can maybe remind us some of the differences maybe on the completion or spacing side and even the drilling side versus the prior operator and maybe any kind of commentary around expected productivity uplift, if any, from some of these changes.
J. D. “Joey” Hall (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah, Gabe, thanks for the question. Just as a reminder, a lot of the program we inherited from Vital we executed in the early part of the year, including quite a few DUCs. I can’t remember how many DUCs there were, but there was a pretty significant number of DUCs. And I would say that the Crescent influence really started to thread into latter part of Q3 and into Q4. At this point in time, we have made some completion changes on volumes both for capital efficiency, in some instances reduced and some cases increased. And on the spacing side, there’s a couple of pads where we actually added a well that would not have been a part of the Vital drilling program. So just a complete development plan change. And then of course, the most significant opportunity we’ve deployed is increasing lateral lengths. Our land team did a tremendous job right out of the gate getting some trades done so we could increase lateral length.
So I would say the biggest improvement you could expect is just on a capital efficiency perspective. Whenever we’re talking about productivity changes and such, I wouldn’t expect to see some of that take effect until we get into 2027, whenever we fully bake this as a Crescent plan.
Gabe Dowd (Analyst at Truist Securities)
Got it? Got it. Understood. Okay, thanks Joey. Thanks everyone.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of John Abbott with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
John Abbott (Analyst at Wolfe Research)
Good morning. I think this question will go to Brandy. So when the Devon Eagle Ford assets are acquired, it’s going to benefit the minerals business. My question is how do we think about the pro forma capital structure for Crescent Minerals? Right. Does Crescent sell the minerals to Crescent Minerals? How does that kind of work there, Brandy?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, hey John, it’s David. I’ll start. The short answer is everything is part of Crescent today. So we look at the business on a holistic basis. As you know, we have split out the minerals, but the way we think about leverage across the company, the way we think about managing the business, all the same, no fundamental changes there. So to your point, depending on the direction we take with the minerals business, we’ll certainly have to continue to think about the two pieces of the puzzle here.
But long story short, we run the business fundamentally the same and don’t intend to change that.
John Abbott (Analyst at Wolfe Research)
Appreciate it. Okay, then the follow-up question here is there was a lot of discussion last quarter about input organically. We talked about the Austin Chalk, of course, when we were doing delineation, and also at the same time you are further getting a grasp around. First part of the question is how do we think about the disclosure on the inventory? And then in your deck you have $1 million well cost reduction, improving the oil break even by either $5 or $10 per barrel.
How do we think about that distribution — is more of the opportunity towards $10 per barrel or towards $5 a barrel, or is it split in the middle, like it’s seven and a half dollars per barrel?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. The easy thing, I think you split it in the middle, we’ll start there. More broadly, though, hopefully what you’re seeing and, you know, call it in public data and also hearing from us is we see significant opportunity in each of the areas where we operate to continue to expand inventory. And that’s both moving, you know, existing what I’ll call formations where we’re actively developing down the cost curve and into that sub 50 range. And also, as you know, we’ve got incremental zones in the Uinta, in the Midland and in Delaware and in the Eagle Ford.
And the most notable of those in terms of active development from us today is the Austin Chalk. It’s about 40% of our South Texas program. So I think long story short is we will continue to provide updates on how that is all going. And in particular, I think you were asking it this way. Would you expect us to be talking about that in 1H27? The short answer is yes.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Huang with TPH Research. Please go ahead.
Oliver Huang (Analyst at TPH Research)
Good morning, David and Brandy, and thanks for taking our questions. Maybe just a quick follow-up to the prior question on the Chalk. It’s certainly been a big part of the development program over the last few quarters, particularly on the western side of your position. Could you speak to views around the horizon as we look to your legacy central Eagle Ford position where development there has been more lower, Eagle Ford-centric and even maybe further east out into Karnes and DeWitt?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, this is David. The short answer is we see Chalk opportunity across the whole position that we built across the Eagle Ford. We would also highlight that it does, I’ll call it, require different approaches depending on where you are. No surprise. So in some areas we see multiple opportunities and landing zones within the Chalk, and in other places, you know, there may only be one zone that we see is currently productive. So long story short is we are actively and economically developing Chalk across the entire Eagle Ford position we have, and we expect that to continue to be a big part of our program.
And we would expect, if anything, there to be more development going forward and more opportunity than we’ve quantified, not less.
Oliver Huang (Analyst at TPH Research)
Gotcha. That makes sense. And maybe for my second question, just on gas marketing, I know you all talk about some of the capture out on the Permian side of your portfolio, but just any thoughts around gas marketing looking ahead out of the Eagle Ford Agua Dulce area. Just given the impacts of Traverse coming online, Rio Grande starting to ramp. Just thinking between this and your low nitrogen gas, just how we should be thinking about the magnitude of the opportunity set to drive gas realizations higher as we kind of look ahead over the next couple of years.
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
Hey Oliver, it’s Brandy. So we talked specifically about the opportunity around our Permian molecules of getting that out of the Waha Basin and into the Gulf Coast, and whether that’s into AD or to the Katy markets. I think there’s going to be a lot for us to do over time to help meet the structural demand increases that we’re seeing from an LNG standpoint and a power perspective. So can’t necessarily quantify it today, but as you mentioned we’re one of the largest gas producers.
We also produce a lot of low nitrogen gas, which I think will continue to trade at a premium over time as that fills LNG demand. So expect us to continue to kind of update you guys as we’re making more progress there, but really happy with some of the gas marketing benefits that we’ve captured thus far.
Oliver Huang (Analyst at TPH Research)
Makes sense. Thanks for the time.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Scialla with Stephens. Please go ahead.
Michael Scialla (Analyst at Stephens)
Good morning. In answer to an earlier question you said there was nothing unusual about third quarter. Wanted to follow up on that specifically on Capex, which came in a little bit below what we were thinking. As we look into fourth quarter, if we just ignore the timing of the Devon close, is it fair to assume that Capex should be kind of flattish with that 326 million you spent in third quarter? Or did the timing of completions push that one way or the other?
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, Mike, as you mentioned, the business is performing really. While you heard Joey talk about continued capital efficiencies, which is showing up in Q3, on a full-year basis we would expect to end up below the midpoint of the full-year capital guidance.
Michael Scialla (Analyst at Stephens)
Okay, thanks for that. And then you’ve talked a lot about improving the break-even of the undeveloped inventory. Is there anything worth noting on things you’re working on to optimize the pre-developed producing assets? Anything to lower the decline rate?
J. D. “Joey” Hall (Chief Operating Officer)
Hey Michael, thanks for that question. Yes, we have a very intense effort on improving what we refer to as the base production. You know, we’ve evaluated, we have over 4,700 wells in the Eagle Ford and over 4,000 wells in the Permian, which to me represents 8,700 opportunities to get that denominator up. Our teams are working very diligently in both areas focused on particularly artificial lift and right-sizing artificial lift, optimizing artificial lift.
Supply chain. Again, this is one of the opportunities we have to significantly impact the business due to our scale and supply chain. Working on things such as chemicals, generators, I mean, the list just goes on and on. But yes, we’re equally as focused on improving the margins on the base production as we are on improving well costs. Lots of opportunity there. We know that in the Permian that we’re below the P50 in both the Midland and the Delaware.
So huge opportunity there. And we know we’re about a pipeline and the Eagle Ford as well. So significant opportunity to improve costs there. So yes, we have an intense effort, improvements in those areas as well.
Michael Scialla (Analyst at Stephens)
Appreciate that, Joey, thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Arun Jayaram with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Arun Jayaram (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Yeah, good morning, David. I was wondering if you could give us some insights on how you’re thinking about 2027. Obviously, post the close of the Devon Eagle Ford transaction you guys had outlined, call it a maintenance program of 1.8 billion of capital for 170,000 barrels a day or so of oil. Can you give us maybe a little bit of color on how you’re thinking about capital allocation between the different basins, as you see on a go-forward basis?
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, hey, great question. As you know, the sort of simple starting point is our number one focus is on operational execution, and around the acquisition, you know, it’s get closed, get integrated and get stabilized. So the simple starting point is we’ve got the majority of the company’s rigs running today on our existing Eagle Ford assets. We would plan to bring the Devon assets in just at the current pace where there’s a couple of rigs. But then if you said once I feel, you know, comfortable that everything’s been integrated and stabilized, where should capital allocation go?
Well, obviously to the best performing areas, but also to areas where we think we can improve efficiency. And so in that context, the new Eagle Ford, the Permian and the Uinta would, call it, be under-capitalized relative to the overall allocation today, just given we’ve been on a stabilization path in the Permian, delineation path in Uinta and an integration path for the new Eagle Ford. So long story short, we’d expect steady state as a planning case.
But you could see some incremental capital come out of the existing Eagle Ford and go to all three of those other places just depending on how, you know, the market and execution looks.
Arun Jayaram (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Appreciate that. And my follow-up, David, I know the company reiterated its pro forma EBITDA guide for minerals at 250 million. There was some quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in production from 13 to 11 in the quarter. Could you just talk a little bit about that? And again I know it’s, there’s always going to be some, you know, volatility on the quarterly numbers but maybe just comment on the sequential trends and expectations, I guess, for 4Q.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, just a high-performing business and I’ll call it just ordinary, you know, quarter-to-quarter movement. No change to outlook or expectation.
Arun Jayaram (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Okay, great. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Peyton Dorn with UBS. Please go ahead.
Peyton Dorn (Analyst at UBS)
Hey, good morning everybody. Thanks for having me on. Just a quick one, but in the Permian I know you’ve been right-sizing the capital intensity and the pace of TIL slowed a bit in 3Q, so I wonder if you could just provide a bit more color on where you see the maintenance production kind of shaping up into year-end and how you’re thinking about activity in the Permian kind of as we look out to 2027. Thank you.
Brandi Kendall (Chief Financial Officer)
Hey Peyton. I’m happy to start. As we talked about previously, we expect to exit the year on a status quo Crescent standpoint at a 130 MBO a day on oil. So that still holds and that aligns with the pro forma 170 maintenance on a pro forma business standpoint. So again we expect to kind of hit that level not just in totality of the business but also in the Permian as we’re exiting this year.
Peyton Dorn (Analyst at UBS)
Okay, that’s helpful. Thank you.
OPERATOR
We have reached the end of the Q and A session. I will now turn the call back to David Rockecharlie, CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
David Rockecharlie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great. Thank you all again. Particular thank you to all of my colleagues here at Crescent that are executing every day. You know, we’re delivering quarter over quarter and multi-year market-leading performance. So we’re very excited about the opportunity ahead and we thank all of you for the support and we’ll continue to keep you updated.
OPERATOR
This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
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