Expand Energy EXE Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Wednesday, April 29, 2026 astatine 9 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Executive Chairman — Michael Wichterich

• Executive Vice President and CFO — Marcel Teunissen

• Chief Operating Officer — Josh Viets

• Executive Vice President, Marketing & Commercial — Daniel Turco

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Full Conference Call Transcript

Michael Wichterich: Thanks, Brittany. Good morning, and convey you for joining our call. The squad delivered different coagulated quarter. Honestly, they marque large execution look easy. Over the past 2.5 months, I've had the accidental to enactment with our squad and walk clip with our customers, talk to imaginable home and planetary counterparties. I got to archer you, I'm much optimistic contiguous astir our manufacture and institution than ever. There is nary disputing our manufacture is successful the midst of a large request growth. The large 3 drivers of demand, AI power, the reshoring of dense manufacture and planetary LNG maturation are converging to marque the aboriginal agleam for earthy gas.

All of this was happening adjacent earlier the caller events of the Middle East. So present successful summation to structural request growth, vigor information has pushed the U.S. earthy state to the forefront. Expand is uniquely positioned to instrumentality vantage of these events. Simply put, we person positioned ourselves to beryllium successful the close spot astatine the close time. For example, our Gulf Coast assets beryllium astatine the epicenter of LNG. In fact, our largest customers contiguous are LNG facilities, and determination is an expanding designation of the spot and competitory vantage of our Haynesville position.

According to third-party reports, today, we ain 72% of the lowest breakeven inventory successful the basin, allowing america to present certified earthy state straight to LNG facilities with minimal hazard of ground bloods. Fundamentally, we spot LNG arsenic a earthy hold of our business. Demand successful the portion is not conscionable LNG, AI-driven powerfulness and concern request is rapidly increasing successful the region. When you harvester structural request maturation successful vigor security, we judge the Gulf Coast is good positioned to go a premium terms market. Our Appalachia assets beryllium astatine the halfway of AI powerfulness demand. We judge the Northeast volition soon spot request maturation of 4 to 6 Bcf per day. In-basin request maturation volition unlock pipeline-constrained production.

We're besides seeing a renewed optimism to physique infrastructure to service much Americans successful the Northeast and Southeast markets. In-basin request growth, combined with caller infrastructure, volition unleash our low-cost inventory and make important worth for some Expand and our shareholders. Now let's crook our attraction to the archetypal quarter. Financially, we did well. We generated $1.7 cardinal of escaped currency travel inclusive of moving superior inflows. True to our word, our beardown currency flows were utilized to trim gross indebtedness by $1.3 cardinal and returned implicit $290 cardinal to our shareholders done basal dividends and buybacks. Operationally, similar our peers, we kept Appalachia assets moving with an awesome 98% uptime during Winter Storm Fern.