“The first quarter was absolutely an outstanding one for a new Devon.” Dave Hager, President and CEO.
The first quarter results for Oklahoma City’s Devon Energy obviously impressed President and CEO Dave Hager.
Speaking to investors and analysts on Wednesday, he made it clear what he thought of the earnings report.
“The first quarter was absolutely an outstanding one for a new Devon,” said Hager. “As we revealed last year, transforming Devon to U.S. oil growth economy, allowing us to focus on our world-class oil assets in the Delaware Basin, STACK, Eagle Ford and Powder River basin.”
He went on to state that with the U.S. oil portfolio, Devon now has a multi-decade inventory to drive sustainable, high-margin growth for the foreseeable future.
“While our U.S. oil assets have many advantaged characteristics, we are not finished improving our business, and we are acting with a sense of urgency to materially improve our entire cost structure,” continued Hager. “This focus on operational excellence positions new Devon to generate substantial amounts of free cash flow in today’s pricing and allows us to future deliver value to our shareholders with increasing amounts of cash returns.”
He called the first quarter as “one of outperformance from the new Devon.” Hager said the light-oil production exceeded guidance by a wide margin so the company raises its outlook for oil production growth to 17 percent in 2019.
” This represents a 200 basis-point improvement compared to our original budget expectations heading into the year. And if well productivity from our development program continues to outperform our expectations, there is certainly additional upside to our growth rates in 2019.”