HOUSTON, Oct 01 — Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE: MGY) announced today an interim financial and operational update following the recent completion of its acquisition of WildFire Energy.
“We are very pleased to have closed the acquisition of WildFire Energy and are well on our way with integrating these attractive assets to begin realizing the substantial benefits of this highly complementary transaction,” stated Magnolia’s Chairman, President and CEO Chris Stavros. “The acquisition is an important new chapter for Magnolia in creating the premier Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk operator while enhancing our concentration of scale, adding high-quality durable resource opportunity, and providing operational efficiencies across a large, contiguous South Texas asset base. The resulting expected improvement in free cash flow further reinforces Magnolia’s differentiated business model by improving our financial returns and expanding our capacity for the return of capital to our shareholders.
“Thanks to the strong efforts, continued dedication and close alignment of our teams, the integration of the assets and operations is executing smoothly and proceeding on track. As we noted when announcing the acquisition, we anticipate the combined business would generate mid-single digit organic annual growth of 4 to 5 percent for both oil volumes and total production, which is above our peer company average growth, and with a D&C capital reinvestment rate of well below 55 percent of adjusted EBITDAX. We plan to consistently return a substantial portion of our free cash flow to shareholders through our safe, sustainable and growing dividend and through the execution of share repurchases of at least 1 percent of outstanding shares per quarter. Ample excess free cash flow will go toward reducing debt to our target of 0.5x net debt to EBITDA or below, and we have already made meaningful progress on this goal. Highlighted below are several key milestones we have already achieved in the short period since announcing the WildFire acquisition in late July.”
Key Milestones Achieved
- Sold non-core assets for total consideration of $47.5 million plus received 616 net acres in Gonzales County increasing our working interest in a contiguous block of undeveloped acreage acquired earlier this year
- Ended the third quarter 2026 with approximately $1.9 billion of net debt, which is below 1.0x net debt to 2027E EBITDA at current strip prices, and more than a full year ahead of our original plan
- Implemented additional hedges at attractive pricing using costless collars with more than half our oil production hedged through second quarter 2027. These instruments protect the execution of our business model, allowing us to continue to reduce debt while retaining exposure to higher prices
- Expect to realize at least one-third of estimated >$100 million annual run-rate synergies by year-end 2026
