EOG Resources at Barclays Conference: Strategic Expansion and Innovation

On Tuesday, 02 September 2025, EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG) shared its strategic vision at the Barclays 39th Annual CEO Energy-Power Conference 2025. Ezra Yacob, CEO, outlined the company’s focus on capital discipline, technological innovation, and strategic acquisitions. While EOG is expanding its asset portfolio, it remains committed to sustainability and operational excellence.

Key Takeaways

• EOG Resources is emphasizing capital discipline and strategic asset investments.
• The Encino acquisition in the Utica shale is expected to yield $150 million in synergies in the first year.
• EOG is leveraging AI for operational integration and production optimization.
• The company is strategically positioning its Dorado asset to meet growing natural gas demand.
• EOG is exploring opportunities in the Middle East, focusing on sustainable practices.

Financial Results

• EOG Resources boasts a total resource potential of 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).
• The company expects a 200% direct after-tax well rate of return at mid-cycle prices.
• EOG spent $5.6 billion on the Encino acquisition, anticipating $150 million in first-year synergies.
• The Dorado asset has a break-even price of $1.40 per MCF and a cash operating cost of $1 per MCF.
• EOG plans to allocate $900 million a day to LNG by 2027.

Operational Updates

• The Encino acquisition significantly expands EOG’s position in the Utica play, adding over a million net acres.
• EOG plans to operate five rigs and three frack fleets in the Utica, delivering approximately 65 wells to sales.
• Integration of Encino is ahead of schedule, utilizing AI for personnel and process integration.
• The new Dorado pipeline is expected to save $0.40 to $0.60 per MCF in gas transportation costs.

Future Outlook

• EOG anticipates growth in the Utica and Delaware Basin, with a focus on balancing investments with global supply and demand.
• Dorado’s growth will depend on additional demand through marketing agreements, particularly in LNG.
• Exploration in Bahrain and the UAE will focus on cost reduction and productivity improvements.

Q&A Highlights

• EOG’s M&A strategy prioritizes returns, first-mover advantages, and undrilled upside.
• The company is not transitioning into a gas company but is growing its premium gas business aggressively.
• EOG emphasizes diversification in pricing indices and markets for its marketing agreements.

For a detailed understanding of EOG Resources’ strategic plans and financial outlook, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Barclays 39th Annual CEO Energy-Power Conference 2025:

Betty, Interviewer: All right. I think we can move on to our next fireside. Ezra, it’s very nice to have you here. It’s good to see you. Ezra, Chairman, CEO of EOG Resources, don’t need introduction. I think it’s been a big year for EOG Resources, transformative deal in the Utica. Maybe to kick off the conversation, to start with a bigger question of EOG Resources getting into the Utica, and you also made an announcement in the Middle East. A lot of investors are worried about the maturation of shale, and they will say, "Hey, EOG Resources is doing these deals because the rest of the portfolio is maturing." What would you say to that? Do you think that’s the case for EOG Resources?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. First of all, thank you for having us here. It looks like a good turnout, great conference. On your question, no, I wouldn’t say that at all. Our deal in the Utica and our exploration efforts abroad in the GCC aren’t really a reflection of our inventory or of shale maturation or anything like that. Really, what this year is us leveraging some of the recent advancements in technology, really the expansion of our subsurface knowledge, and we found opportunities to expand that both domestically and abroad. In the Utica, still an early, kind of an early play. We’ve been calling it an emerging asset.

We’ve basically gotten it to a point where we spoke earlier in the year about trying to get that to be a really foundational play for us, which the easiest way to think of it is a play that can manage not only a consistent drilling rig, but consistent completions activity as well. A play where you can really start to leverage the economies of scale, which ultimately make these unconventional resources so special. The Encino acquisition, which was a $5.6 billion acquisition, is very transformative for the company. It brings our total acreage position in the basin to just over a million net acres, brings the total resource potential we believe in that basin to over 2 billion barrels of equivalent resource. It really does transform that asset and take that asset probably two to three years ahead on the development plan.

It really does turn it into a foundational play and a core asset for EOG Resources. We were still able to do it while much of the industry is not really active there. You mentioned our exploration abroad, our entry into the GCC. This is an area where we think we can really build a business. These are two opportunities, really a bit more organic in nature, as organic as international exploration can be. It’s an area where in Bahrain, we’ve captured an unconventional horizontal type gas sand play that we will be working on later this year. We’ll be investing some capital there. The UAE, similar scenario, but a little bit different. It is a larger-scale oil play. It’s an unconventional asset. It’s a shale play. It’s in an overpressured oil basin.

We’ve captured about 900,000 acres of a concession there that includes not only a bit of a basin, but also an anticline that comes down into the basin as well. We’ll start investigating that play also. Both of these opportunities, like I said, really came about because we continue to look for organic ways to improve and expand the inventory. Ultimately, things that are additive in quality to the inventory can really continue to deliver shareholder value through the cycles. That’s ultimately the value proposition. The four pillars of that value proposition really start on capital discipline. Investing in each of our assets, we are a multi-basin portfolio. Each of those assets at the right pace, at the right time. Capital discipline is the hallmark on that. It’s followed up with operational excellence.

That means collecting data, utilizing data to develop new technologies, and continue to drive down well costs in a sustainable manner, which to us is operational efficiency gains. It’s a commitment to sustainability, both safety and environmental operations. Last but not least, it’s protecting the culture. It’s the culture of the company that continues to drive our organic value proposition of organic operations, organic exploration, and being a first mover in the industry.

Betty, Interviewer: Thank you very much for that overview. Some of the really important topics, which we’ll unpack. I want to follow that up with the question of capital allocation. You mentioned you have the foundational assets you’re already focusing on, and you’ve got the emerging assets, plays, and you have exploration. How are you thinking about allocating capital and balancing the near-term returns with the exploration versus the cash return, which you guys have been very strong in as well?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. Again, it starts, it sounds oversimplified, but it’s looking at, it’s disaggregating the individual assets. It’s looking at where are they at in their own individual life cycle. Obviously, the Delaware Basin is much further along than, say, the Utica or Dorado. The Delaware Basin has a lot more infrastructure. We’ve been drilling there for a number of years. We’ve collected a lot of data. There are still things to learn and unpack in the Delaware Basin, but we’re much farther along there. We’re even farther along in the Eagle Ford. It’s a kind of a single target, single zone. We’ve got a lot of infrastructure there. We’ve drilled some of the highest quality rock there.

We’ve moved into areas that, you know, a decade ago, we weren’t sure how they would compete economically, but between collecting data, learning about the subsurface, investing in infrastructure, and driving down our well costs, we’ve actually made those areas more economic than what were some of the higher quality rock that we were drilling 10 years ago. Now, to your point, we’ve got some of these emerging assets. The Utica, basically on the cusp of turning it into a foundational play, and Dorado is basically right there as well, where Dorado we anticipate being able to continue to invest in and maintain a full-time frack fleet in the coming year. That’s really what we look at is we want to be able to invest in each of these assets where we’re continuing to move the ball forward.

We’re continuing to collect data, learn about the resource, and again, capture the economies of scale. At the same time, we don’t want to outrun our learnings. We don’t want to move so fast that we’re not able to get the data and production from the last well that got turned on and incorporate that into our well model, into our geologic model on the front end, into the very next well that we’re drilling. That’s really the pace. That’s really what dictates when I say capital discipline and investing at the right pace at the right time. In combination with that, we are obviously always watching the macro environment to see what global supply and demand do. We’re not a company that’s driven by expanding margins only through production growth or top-line revenue growth.

We’re much more focused on lowering the cost base of the company, and looking for margin expansion through that manner. That’s, again, why we focus so heavily on capital discipline. Ultimately, for a multi-basin portfolio like us, if you’re generating at the right pace, then it’s a balance not only with returns, but also between generating near-term and long-term free cash flow.

Betty, Interviewer: Yeah. That’s the sustainability of that free cash flow, which ties me into your inventory resources that you have highlighted, 12 billion BOE of resources that’s generating greater than 50% average after-tax return at $45 oil, which is quite high. You guys used to talk about the double premium inventory. That’s not a phrase that we’re using now, but can you talk about the tiering of your resource backlog today? Do you think what you’re drilling this year or in the next few years is sustainable?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. I think in general, we’re blessed to have a pretty deep and high-quality resource, as you pointed out. We think we’ve got over 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent captured, with a 55% average direct wellhead rate of return. That’s half cycle. At bottom cycle prices, that’s $45 and $2.50 is what we’re using today. That turns into over a 200% direct after-tax well rate of return at mid-cycle prices, or $65 and $3.50. The power of that is that we are in multiple basins. The reason I say we’re fortunate is this has been a continuation of a long-term strategy, long-term value proposition started more than 25 years ago at EOG Resources to be focused on organic exploration, collect data, utilize technology to unlock new resources. We’ve been fortunate to be the first mover in multiple basins.

Just about every, I would say, unconventional play in North America we’ve been part of and dominantly been a first mover in those. What we see today is, our program this year is an example, and 2025 is well representative of a program that we could maintain for years to come. The reason that is is because we’re allocating across the whole of our portfolio today. Definitely, the foundational assets take more of the capital commitment. We’re running more rigs in the Eagle Ford and the Delaware Basin than some of our emerging assets. Nevertheless, we’re allocating across our foundational plays, our emerging assets, and our exploration portfolio both domestically and internationally. I think what we’ve captured in this company is something that’s very sustainable. More so than just a static look in time at our current 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent resource, what we’ve developed is a culture.

To your point, that’s really the sustainability of the company, is the culture and commitment to continue to utilize data and technology to unlock new resources.

Betty, Interviewer: Great. Talking about new resources, there is a lot of excitement with Utica with the Encino deal. You guys have called it transformative. I know M&A is a big deal for EOG because historically, you’re not a big proponent of it. Now you made the Encino deal after Yates years ago. Maybe talk about how the integration is going so far. What did you see in that asset that really accelerates your vision for the Utica?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. You know, we’ve heard comparisons to our Yates merger and acquisition, like you said, nearly a decade ago. We think they’re well founded, quite frankly. They’re both privately negotiated. They were both opportunities to really leverage the strength of our balance sheet at the time and opened up the opportunity to us. They both came at times where the plays were well delineated, but still relatively early in the life of the plays, which allowed us to capture large acreage positions with significant upside potential at very attractive pricing. That’s what we see in combination between the two. Both plays also have some industrial logic when you just look at a map. There’s a real hand-in-glove type of fit to the acreage positions. That’s one of the things that lends us to a lot of the upside that we see.

Not only have we talked about it being the acquisition being accretive across just about all financial metrics, we also see synergies coming at about $150 million in the first year, dominantly on well cost reductions and integration across infrastructure, which we’ll be able to share a lot of infrastructure, and not just pipelines and gathering and things like that, but sand, water, the operational infrastructure, the things that really continue to drive down costs. The reason we say it’s a transformative event for the company is, like I said, it takes an emerging asset on the cusp of becoming a foundational play and really pushes it pretty far down the line on that. We’ll have active programs there. We’ve talked about running five rigs for the rest of this year and three frack fleets delivering about 65 wells to sales.

It exposes us to over a million acres in the play. It doubles the acreage footprint in the volatile oil window, which is where we’ve been focused. It takes that acreage footprint to about 500,000 acres, just shy of about 500,000 acres. On top of all of that, it actually exposes us to a gas resource also. Prior to the deal, we did not have any exposure to the gas window within the Utica play. Now we’ve got just over 400,000 acres in a play where Encino did a good job not only negotiating and capturing some long-term transportation to expose the company to some good, premium pricing, but also in a basin that we see continued growth in gas demand in the coming years. We couldn’t be more excited about it. As far as what do we see that kind of unlocked the play for us?

It comes back to what I talked about before and being a multi-basin operator. We have nine basins that we’re active in. When you think about that, those are basically nine laboratories that we’re out there every day collecting data on, drilling data, different rock types, different pressure regimes, looking at production data, different geologic environments. As we build this resource, we use that as the front-end exploration tool. This most recent step into the Utica, which started for us back in 2021, is actually the third time that we’d investigated the basin. It was over a span of about 10 years. What really unlocked it for us was a technique for describing the geomechanical properties of the Utica, so how the rock is actually going to respond to horizontal completions.

That’s a model that we had actually developed in the Anadarko Basin when we were working on a Woodford oil play down there. Those are the types of technologies that we can bring from one basin into another and oftentimes can help unlock kind of overlooked value.

Betty, Interviewer: That’s really interesting. As you mentioned, the benefit of scale and infrastructure and sand, do you think there is more opportunity to grow that industrial logic in that basin where there’s lots of competitive landscape or the M&A landscape in that area?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. I think, you know, not to grow it through M&A for us, quite frankly. I mean, when we go back to what you were just talking about, this is our second large-scale M&A in about a decade. When we think about corporate M&A, or these large-scale private transactions, again, we’re looking at it through the lens of returns. You need to be a first mover, you need to have low cost, and you have to have significant undrilled upside that we can bring forward to help the returns profile of the company. What that means typically is, you know, in an emerging asset, you kind of get one shot to do it because once you do that, the marker has been moved, obviously. We think this is a fantastic position for us because it was such a significant acquisition that we were able to execute on.

Now, as we integrate the asset, and I’ll touch on the integration again, that’s a part of the question I forgot a minute ago. As we integrate this asset, yeah, I think there’s tremendous opportunities now that we’ll be running multiple rigs, more than likely multiple completion spreads, to really start to take this play to the same type of scale and operations that we have in some of our other foundational assets like the Eagle Ford and the Permian. Now, going back again to how integration has been going, it has only been a month since we closed the transaction. We did close earlier than anticipated. For a company that, typically I would say is not known for corporate M&A or doing integration, it’s been going better than expected. One of the reasons is, you know, I think it’s similar to, again, our organic exploration.

We don’t really have a playbook. You say, "Look, when we acquire this company, these are the checkboxes and this is the list and this is a cookie-cutter approach that you take." For us, it’s been a very ground-up approach. We’ve utilized a lot of technology, some internal AI applications that we’ve kind of developed to help integrate not only the people in the field to get up to speed with some of the apps that we use, but also to familiarize our new employees with not only our processes and procedures, but also to familiarize our existing employees with the actual assets that we have out there.

We’ve also pretty quickly been able to roll out and deploy some of the production optimizers that we have, which again is a mix of smart technology and machine learning, a little bit of deep learning tools that we put onto our wells and help not only monitor preventative maintenance, but also help basically run time and enhance our base production profile. We’re pleasantly surprised with how quickly and how well the integration effort has gone over the past four weeks.

Betty, Interviewer: That’s great to hear. You mentioned Utica is going to be a growth asset within the portfolio. What happens to the other foundational plays when you think about the Delaware, the Eagle Ford? Do they make room for Utica within the broader diversified portfolio? Do you see them still contributing to growth?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. I think, you know, each of our assets has the potential to grow, right? Again, it really, you know, I wouldn’t say that we’ve got a goal that the Utica needs to grow. It comes back to investing at the right pace at the right time, not only internal to that asset, but also on what the global supply and demand really needs. With regards to the other two plays, though, our more legacy assets, these other foundational plays that we have, the Delaware certainly can continue to grow. The Delaware is, you know, like the gift that keeps on giving.

In fact, in the past five years, we’ve started developing nine additional landing zones that have been unlocked either through added technologies, the benefit of additional subsurface data and understanding, lower well costs, or additional infrastructure that drives down the well cost of these landing zones and makes them return competitive. The Delaware still has a long way really to go and going to be more blessed with our position there. The Eagle Ford, you know, the Eagle Ford certainly has slowed down from the pre-COVID levels of investment. I think in the past years, we’ve really level-loaded our activity there, and we’ve gotten to a spot where we continue to see growth in margins. As I kind of mentioned earlier, it’s less about growing top-line revenue to satisfy those margins through production growth.

It’s actually more through allocating the resource so that we continue to add lower and lower cost reserves to the basis of that portfolio. What you end up seeing is you’re still ascribing margin expansion to the play, even though it’s not through top-line revenue growth. The Eagle Ford’s gotten to a point where it’s in a real sweet spot for us. I think you’d probably continue to see a level-loaded activity there and the ability to flex activity more in both the Utica and the Delaware Basin and eventually Dorado as well.

Betty, Interviewer: That makes sense. Thanks for teeing up on Dorado. We were actually pretty surprised to hear from 2Q that that asset is on track for $750 million growth by year-end with a $1.40 break-even. It is a very attractive dry gas asset. How do you see balancing dry gas opportunity versus the rest of the oil-weighted investments right now?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. You know, it’s two different scenarios there. You know, oil, we see, obviously, there’s a lot of supply coming online from spare capacity that’s going to come online. You still underneath that continue to see strong growth in demand. That growth in demand, however, is, you know, maybe 1% year-over-year kind of compound annual growth rate on the oil demand side. Right now, we find ourselves in a short window where, at least for the next five, seven years or so, you’re seeing North American gas demand growing more on the verge of 4% to 6% compound annual growth rate. That’s between not only LNG demand, not only the power demand, but also power demand associated with both, you know, data centers and hyperscalers, but also just power demand associated with coal-fired retirements. We also see expansion in industrials and probably some Mexico exports in there as well.

That’s where we see Dorado really fitting in. You know, Dorado, as you highlighted, is a robust asset. It’s very significant wells. From day one, we’ve been developing that asset with the understanding that even though all this gas demand is coming on, gas is still going to remain volatile. That’s just how it goes. The margins on gas are always skinnier than that of oil. What that means is you need to be confident in the fact that you’re adding low-cost gas and you’ve got low-cost gas supply that you can bring forth. Capturing the lowest cost, what we think is the lowest cost gas in the U.S. and certainly the best position along the Gulf Coast has been a strategic priority for us. We’ve done a great job with it. As you mentioned, the break-even today is at about $1.40 per MCF.

We should exit this year right around $750 million a day gross. Really, our cash operating cost, almost more important, is running right around $1, a little bit less than $1 per MCF. We just put in service this year a regional pipeline that gives us control over our gas transportation from the wellhead all the way over to Agua Dulce, which is a regional sales market center. That actually alone, that pipe saves between $0.40 and $0.60 per MCF on transportation. Again, that’s one of those strategic opportunities that we looked at that we could take advantage of to continue to deliver low-cost gas to the market. As far as the capital allocation, we think about it again. We separate it. A lot of people have said, you know, EOG is kind of turning from an oil company into a gas company here.

That’s not how we think about it internally. Over the past few years, we’ve been growing our oil business, about 3% compound annual growth rate year over year. This year, we pulled back a little bit to a midpoint of about 2% growth rate. At the same time, we’ve been investing at the right pace to keep our gas costs low. We’ve been building this premium gas business inside the company, based on Dorado. We’ve been growing that one much more aggressively, double-digit % growth rates. We’re growing into some captured demand there along the Gulf Coast that I’m sure we’ll talk about later with some of our marketing agreements. That’s how we consider it going forward as well. What does the gas supply and demand macro environment look like? What does the fundamental oil supply and demand look like?

Internally, what’s the best way to allocate capital and make sure that we’re generating the highest returns and we’re balancing both free cash flow generation in the near term with free cash flow generation in the long term that will ultimately deliver a lot of value for the shareholders?

Betty, Interviewer: Yeah, that makes sense. Tee-ing me up for the marketing question because I think increasingly now it’s very important to know how you sell your gas, where you sell your gas, and how you put together the connectivity. EOG Resources has been able to demonstrate that with, say, the TLIP, the pipeline connection, the $900 million of marketing agreements that you have already signed. Where do you see the constraints to, is there constraints on growing that marketing portfolio? Where do you see the most opportunity? There’s many channels that you can sign that agreement, whether that’s LNG, whether that’s power. Would love your thoughts on where you think the, what part, what type of agreement is most accretive right now?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. For us, we continue to be opportunistic. We’re not going to sign up for an agreement just to say that we’ve got an agreement. We want to make sure it’s the right agreement and it makes sense for us at the time. When we’ve layered in these LNG agreements, as you’ve talked about, we’ve been able to layer those in, really leveraging, again, what we felt was the lowest cost gas, well positioned, and we could deliver low-cost gas consistently to the LNG terminals. What I mean by that, and that’s an important one when you’re negotiating, is it’s not associated gas. If you’re in an environment where oil may fall off a little bit into the $50s or $40s or something like that, and an operator might want to sit their rigs, that doesn’t work very well for LNG.

It doesn’t work very well for power gen or hyperscalers or anything else like that. They want to know that they’ve got a consistent and dedicated gas source. That’s one of the leverages that we have with Dorado, and we think that we’ve captured now in the upside with some of the Utica gas exposure that we have. When I think about the 900 million a day that we have dedicated to LNG, and that kind of ramps up between today and 2027 when we’ll be at the full 900 million a day, for the last four years, we’ve been selling 140 million a day into that LNG, into one of our existing contracts. We’ve realized a cumulative uplift of over $1 billion in revenue, $1.3 billion across that four-year span on 140 million a day. That number is going to 900 million a day.

The 900 million a day sells on different indices. Some of it sells on Henry Hub. Some of it can be elected on JKM. Some of it can be elected on Brent. I think, Betty, to your point, that’s how we look at it. We don’t want to lock in on a single price. We like having diversification not only in pricing indices, but also markets that we’re getting exposed into. We can fortunately do that because we’ve got low-cost gas that we captured as a first mover, through organic exploration.

Betty, Interviewer: It was really interesting that you talk about for LNG, they don’t want associated gas, but they want dedicated dry gas. Maybe I’ll tie it back to Dorado. For Dorado to get to the next level growth, do you need to see that additional demand pull or clarity of demand from some sort of marketing agreement?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. I would say there are two different opportunities for Dorado. The first is the pipeline I talked about earlier is about a 1 BCF capacity. We’ve got a little bit of investment we can make there and expand that up closer to about a B and a half per day of capacity across that pipeline, which again, we get our gas over to the Gulf Coast. Now, with a consistent supply of low-cost gas like that, we’ve done a couple of different things. As you mentioned, we took out transportation on the Transco line, which is our section of it, is the Texas-Louisiana energy pathway.

That took about 300 million a day and gets it from the Gulf Coast all the way up and around into Louisiana, which services some of the growing demand center over there from the Southeast Power Demand Station 65 pool, and then ultimately just dumps you off in Louisiana and actually exposed to Henry Hub. Developing new markets is one of the key ways to do it. I also think having a consistent gas supply to backfill some of the contracts is where Dorado can really benefit from. There are two different things that go on. The first is when you’ve got low-cost gas and an abundance of it, and you see Henry Hub more than likely growing with the increased demand, you can certainly take advantage of it that way. You’ve got exposure to an increasing price.

The other thing you can do to your point is you can leverage that into the next step. Right now, hyperscalers, it’s kind of the Wild West with the agreements that are being made out there. The one thing that seems to be pretty consistent is they want long-term assurity of supply. While people say that natural gas is a bridge fuel, we think that’s completely false. We think natural gas is part of the long-term energy solution and part of the long-term solution for the upcoming power demand. Being able to confidently step in and deliver low-cost gas for decades is what the hyperscalers are really wanting. We think as that market develops, we should have a role to play in that.

Betty, Interviewer: Look forward to hearing more about it. Switching gear to Middle East, just with the JV, Bahrain JV, and then the UAE venture, how do you think about the long-term objectives? What are the key factors to drive capital allocation for those two areas?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Yeah. The big thing to keep in mind for everyone is that these are exploration plays. If these were in the domestic U.S., we’ve got a number of exploration plays in the domestic U.S. that nobody really knows about. In international, when you have a domestic play, though, or an exploration play, it gets announced and things like that. It’s very early on. Capital allocation over the next few years, like any exploration play, will be allocated kind of based on the incoming data. That’s to say the well that you drill and you turn on will kind of help allocate capital for the very next well. We are optimistic on it. In Bahrain, it’s a tight gas sand, like I mentioned earlier. BAPCO, the national petroleum company, has actually tested gas to surface horizontally already.

What we’re looking for there is our technology on both drilling and completions, what does it look like we can lower our cost to, and what does it look like we can increase the productivity to? In the United Arab Emirates, similar, a little bit different, as I said, it’s an oil play there. ADNOC, the national oil company, has also drilled some horizontal wells there and tested oil to the surface. We’re at about the same stage there in development. What can we leverage on our technology, our data, and our learnings to be able to lower well costs there and ultimately see how is that rock going to respond to our horizontal completions technology? Is it going to provide some uplift? Is that an environment that we can actually scale to capture, again, those economies of scale to drive the cost down?

What I do know we’ve captured is abundant resource in both plays, and we’ve partnered with companies that we have very, very strong stakeholder alignment with.

Betty, Interviewer: Great. I want to end the conversation with exploration. Do you find exploration the key differentiating factor for EOG Resources compared to E&P peers? Is that just an area like that that you will continue to add value for shareholders?

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: I do. I think for, you know, 25 years, like I said, 25 years or more, unconventional exploration being a first mover has been a key hallmark of our strategy. I think we’ve done it successfully. You kind of touched on that earlier with the fact that we’ve captured over 12 billion barrels of potential resource that is high quality, that delivers a 55% direct after-tax rate of return at bottom cycle prices. We’ve been a first mover in just about every North American unconventional play, and now we’re starting to expand that into the international realm. We currently have a very robust domestic exploration program. Part of it, really, all of it really comes back to the culture of the company. That’s something that can’t be taught. It can’t be really replaced.

That’s really the key differentiator of our company, more so than just organic exploration, is the fact that we’re never satisfied with innovation and we’re never satisfied with exploration. We continue to drive both of those forward. Even at times like the Utica, where we’ve tested and we’ve collected data and we’ve looked at it, we’re willing to come back a couple of years later as new technology is really the way to unlock new resources.

Betty, Interviewer: Great. With that, please join me in thanking Ezra for the conversation.

Ezra Yacob, Chairman, CEO, EOG Resources: Thank you, Betty. Appreciate it.

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