Antero Resources Announces Second Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results

DENVER, July 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Antero Resources Corporation (NYSE: AR) ("Antero Resources," "Antero," or the "Company") today announced its second quarter 2025 financial and operating results. The relevant consolidated financial statements are included in Antero Resources' Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. 

Highlights:

• Net production averaged 3.4 Bcfe/d
  • Natural gas production averaged 2.2 Bcf/d
  • Liquids production averaged 200 MBbl/d
• Realized a pre-hedge natural gas equivalent price of $3.85 per Mcfe, which is a $0.41 per Mcfe premium to NYMEX
• Realized a pre-hedge C3+ NGL price of $37.92 per barrel
• Net income was $157 million and Adjusted Net Income was $110 million (Non-GAAP)
• Adjusted EBITDAX was $379 million (Non-GAAP) and net cash provided by operating activities was $492 million, increases of 151% and 243% compared to the prior year period, respectively
• Free Cash Flow was $262 million (Non-GAAP)
• Net Debt during the quarter was reduced by $187 million, to $1.1 billion (Non-GAAP)
• Purchased 3.6 million shares for approximately $126 million from April 1^st through July 30^th
• Published Antero's Annual ESG Report highlighting emissions reduction progress and significant local economic impacts

2025 Full-Year Guidance Highlights:

• Increasing production guidance to 3.4 to 3.45 Bcfe/d, driven by strong well performance
• Decreasing drilling and completion capital guidance to $650 to $675 million, due to continuing capital efficiency gains

Paul Rady, Chairman, CEO and President of Antero Resources commented, "For the second consecutive year we increased production guidance, while also reducing our drilling and completion capital budget. This reflects continued strong well performance combined with improving on our peer leading capital efficiency."

Mr. Rady continued, "Looking ahead, natural gas demand is expected to grow by more than 25% by 2030 driven by LNG export growth and increasing power demand fueled by AI Data Centers. With firm transportation capacity to the Gulf Coast LNG corridor and over 20 years of premium drilling inventory, Antero is uniquely positioned to benefit from both the significant new LNG capacity and the strong regional power demand growth that is anticipated by the end of the decade."

Michael Kennedy, CFO of Antero Resources said, "Our best-in-class low maintenance capital requirements allows us to generate substantial Free Cash Flow in 2025. During the second quarter, we used this Free Cash Flow to pay down nearly $200 million of debt and purchase $85 million of stock. Year-to-date through July 30^th, we purchased 4.4 million shares, or $152 million of stock. In addition, we have paid down approximately $400 million or 30% of our total debt in the first two quarters of the year. Going forward, we plan to actively manage our return of capital strategy, continuing to use buybacks opportunistically, while maintaining our focus on further debt reduction."

For a discussion of the non-GAAP financial measures including Adjusted Net Income, Adjusted EBITDAX, Free Cash Flow and Net Debt please see "Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

2025 Guidance Update 

Antero is increasing its full year 2025 production guidance to 3.4 to 3.45 Bcfe/d. The higher than expected volumes are driven by stronger well performance. Antero is decreasing its full year 2025 drilling and completion capital budget to $650 to $675 million. The lower expected spend is a result of continued capital efficiency gains.

Antero is updating its full year C3+ NGL realized price guidance to a premium of $1.00 to $2.00 per barrel to reflect second quarter 2025 actuals. Antero still expects the company's C3+ NGL pricing premium to average $1.50 to $2.50 per barrel during the second half of 2025.  

Free Cash Flow

During the second quarter of 2025, Free Cash Flow was $262 million.

Share Purchase Program

From April 1, 2025 to July 30, 2025 Antero purchased 3.6 million shares at an average weighted price of $34.49 per share, or an aggregate $126 million. Antero's share purchases were at an 8% discount to the volume weighted average price per share of $37.29 per share during that same period. This illustrates the opportunistic strategy around the share buyback program. Antero has approximately $900 million of capacity remaining on its current share purchase program.

Debt Reduction

As of June 30, 2025 Antero's total debt was $1.1 billion. Net Debt to trailing twelve month Adjusted EBITDAX was 0.8x. During the quarter, Antero reduced total debt by $187 million. Year-to-date, as of the end of the second quarter, Antero reduced debt by approximately $400 million, or 30% of total debt.

Natural Gas Hedge Program

Antero added new natural gas costless collars for 2026. These wide collars lock in attractive rates of returns with a floor price of $3.14 per MMBtu and a ceiling price of $6.31 per MMBtu. Antero did not enter into any new natural gas hedges for 2025. For more detail please see the presentation titled "Hedges and Guidance Presentation" on Antero's website. 

Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results

Net daily natural gas equivalent production in the second quarter averaged 3.4 Bcfe/d, including 200 MBbl/d of liquids. Antero's average realized natural gas price before hedges was $3.39 per Mcf, a $0.05 per Mcf discount to the benchmark index price. Antero's realized natural gas price during the quarter was negatively impacted by maintenance in June on a Gulf Coast directed pipeline. This resulted in increased sales at a regional hub that is priced at a discount to the benchmark. Antero's average realized C3+ NGL price before hedges was $37.92 per barrel.

The following table details average net production and average realized prices for the three months ended June 30, 2025:

All-in cash expense, which includes lease operating, gathering, compression, processing and transportation and production and ad valorem taxes was $2.48 per Mcfe in the second quarter, as compared to $2.36 per Mcfe during the second quarter of 2024. The increase was due primarily to higher gathering, compression, processing and transportation costs related to increased fuel costs as a result of higher natural gas prices. Net marketing expense was $0.06 per Mcfe during the second quarter of 2025, compared to $0.07 per Mcfe during the second quarter of 2024.

Second Quarter 2025 Operating Results

Antero placed 18 horizontal Marcellus wells to sales during the second quarter with an average lateral length of 13,500 feet. Eleven of these wells have been on line for approximately 60 days with an average rate per well of 24 MMcfe/d, including 1,200 Bbl/d of liquids per well assuming 25% ethane recovery.

Second Quarter 2025 Capital Investment

Antero's drilling and completion capital expenditures for the three months ended June 30, 2025 were $171 million. In addition to capital invested in drilling and completion activities, the Company leased $26 million in land during the second quarter. Through this leasing, Antero added approximately 5,000 net acres, representing 20 incremental drilling locations, replenishing the 18 wells brought on line during the second quarter at an average cost of approximately $820,000 per location. In addition to the incremental locations, Antero also acquired minerals in its Marcellus area of development to increase its net revenue interest in future drilling locations.

2024 ESG Report Highlights

Antero published its 2024 ESG Report, marking the Company's 8th year reporting on its environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. This year's report highlights the Company's emissions reduction progress, significant local economic impacts, increased water recycling rate and continued commitment to safety across our operations. The report can be found at www.anteroresources.com/esg.

• Decreased absolute methane emissions (metric tons) by 77% and methane intensity by 79% since 2019
• Reduced overall Scope 1 emissions and Scope 1 GHG intensity by 63% since 2019
• Recycled 89% of the wastewater during the year
• On track to achieve its 2025 Net Zero Scope 1 GHG emission goal due to the reduction in overall emissions and supplemented by the LPG stove initiative in Ghana that creates premium certified carbon offsets

Conference Call

A conference call is scheduled on Thursday, July 31, 2025 at 9:00 am MT to discuss the financial and operational results. A brief Q&A session for security analysts will immediately follow the discussion of the results. To participate in the call, dial in at 877-407-9079 (U.S.), or 201-493-6746 (International) and reference "Antero Resources." A telephone replay of the call will be available until Thursday, August 7, 2025 at 9:00 am MT at 877-660-6853 (U.S.) or 201-612-7415 (International) using the conference ID: 13750396. To access the live webcast and view the related earnings conference call presentation, visit Antero's website at www.anteroresources.com.  The webcast will be archived for replay until Thursday, August 7, 2025 at 9:00 am MT.

Presentation

An updated presentation will be posted to the Company's website before the conference call. The presentation can be found at www.anteroresources.com on the homepage. Information on the Company's website does not constitute a portion of, and is not incorporated by reference into this press release.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted Net Income

Adjusted Net Income as set forth in this release represents net income, adjusted for certain items. Antero believes that Adjusted Net Income is useful to investors in evaluating operational trends of the Company and its performance relative to other oil and gas producing companies. Adjusted Net Income is not a measure of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for net income as an indicator of financial performance. The GAAP measure most directly comparable to Adjusted Net Income is net income. The following table reconciles net income to Adjusted Net Income (in thousands):

Net Debt

Net Debt is calculated as total long-term debt less cash and cash equivalents. Management uses Net Debt to evaluate the Company's financial position, including its ability to service its debt obligations.

The following table reconciles consolidated total long-term debt to Net Debt as used in this release (in thousands):

Free Cash Flow

Free Cash Flow is a measure of financial performance not calculated under GAAP and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for cash flow from operating, investing, or financing activities, as an indicator of cash flow or as a measure of liquidity. The Company defines Free Cash Flow as net cash provided by operating activities, less capital expenditures, which includes additions to unproved properties, drilling and completion costs and additions to other property and equipment, less distributions to non-controlling interests in Martica.

The Company has not provided projected net cash provided by operating activities or a reconciliation of Free Cash Flow to projected net cash provided by operating activities, the most comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP. The Company is unable to project net cash provided by operating activities for any future period because this metric includes the impact of changes in operating assets and liabilities related to the timing of cash receipts and disbursements that may not relate to the period in which the operating activities occurred. The Company is unable to project these timing differences with any reasonable degree of accuracy without unreasonable efforts.

Free Cash Flow is a useful indicator of the Company's ability to internally fund its activities, service or incur additional debt and estimate our ability to return capital to shareholders. There are significant limitations to using Free Cash Flow as a measure of performance, including the inability to analyze the effect of certain recurring and non-recurring items that materially affect the Company's net income, the lack of comparability of results of operations of different companies and the different methods of calculating Free Cash Flow reported by different companies. Free Cash Flow does not represent funds available for discretionary use because those funds may be required for debt service, land acquisitions and lease renewals, other capital expenditures, working capital, income taxes, exploration expenses, and other commitments and obligations.

Adjusted EBITDAX

Adjusted EBITDAX is a non-GAAP financial measure that we define as net income, adjusted for certain items detailed below. 

Adjusted EBITDAX as used and defined by us, may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies and is not a measure of performance calculated in accordance with GAAP. Adjusted EBITDAX should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for operating income or loss, net income or loss, cash flows provided by operating, investing, and financing activities, or other income or cash flow statement data prepared in accordance with GAAP. Adjusted EBITDAX provides no information regarding our capital structure, borrowings, interest costs, capital expenditures, working capital movement, or tax position. Adjusted EBITDAX does not represent funds available for discretionary use because those funds may be required for debt service, capital expenditures, working capital, income taxes, exploration expenses, and other commitments and obligations. However, our management team believes Adjusted EBITDAX is useful to an investor in evaluating our financial performance because this measure:

• is widely used by investors in the oil and natural gas industry to measure operating performance without regard to items excluded from the calculation of such term, which may vary substantially from company to company depending upon accounting methods and the book value of assets, capital structure and the method by which assets were acquired, among other factors;
• helps investors to more meaningfully evaluate and compare the results of our operations from period to period by removing the effect of our capital and legal structure from our operating structure;
• is used by our management team for various purposes, including as a measure of our operating performance, in presentations to our Board of Directors, and as a basis for strategic planning and forecasting: and
• is used by our Board of Directors as a performance measure in determining executive compensation.

There are significant limitations to using Adjusted EBITDAX as a measure of performance, including the inability to analyze the effects of certain recurring and non-recurring items that materially affect our net income or loss, the lack of comparability of results of operations of different companies, and the different methods of calculating Adjusted EBITDAX reported by different companies.

The GAAP measures most directly comparable to Adjusted EBITDAX are net income and net cash provided by operating activities. The following table represents a reconciliation of Antero's net income, including noncontrolling interest, to Adjusted EBITDAX and a reconciliation of Antero's Adjusted EBITDAX to net cash provided by operating activities per our condensed consolidated statements of cash flows, in each case, for the three months ended June 30, 2024 and 2025 (in thousands). Adjusted EBITDAX also excludes the noncontrolling interests in Martica, and these adjustments are disclosed in the table below as Martica related adjustments.

Drilling and Completion Capital Expenditures

For a reconciliation between cash paid for drilling and completion capital expenditures and drilling and completion accrued capital expenditures during the period, please see the capital expenditures section below (in thousands):

Notwithstanding their use for comparative purposes, the Company's non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies.

This release includes "forward-looking statements." Words such as "may," "assume," "forecast," "position," "predict," "strategy," "expect," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "project," "budget," "potential," or "continue," "goal," "target," and similar expressions are used to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such identifying words. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are not under Antero Resources' control. All statements, except for statements of historical fact, made in this release regarding activities, events or developments Antero Resources expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, such as those regarding our financial strategy, future operating results, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, estimated realized natural gas, NGL and oil prices, prospects, plans and objectives of management,  return of capital program, expected results, impacts of geopolitical, including the conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East, and world health events, future commodity prices, future production targets, including those related to certain levels of production, future earnings, leverage targets and debt repayment, future capital spending plans, improved and/or increasing capital efficiency, expected drilling and development plans, projected well costs and cost savings initiatives, operations of Antero Midstream, future financial position, the participation level of our drilling partner and the financial and production results to be achieved as a result of that drilling partnership, the other key assumptions underlying our projections, the impact of recently enacted legislation, and future marketing opportunities, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs, based on currently available information, as to the outcome and timing of future events. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. Although Antero Resources believes that the plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by the forward-looking statements are reasonable, there is no assurance that these plans, intentions or expectations will be achieved. Therefore, actual outcomes and results could materially differ from what is expressed, implied or forecast in such statements. Except as required by law, Antero Resources expressly disclaims any obligation to and does not intend to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Antero Resources cautions you that these forward-looking statements are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties, incidental to our business, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Antero Resources' control. These risks include, but are not limited to, commodity price volatility, inflation, supply chain or other disruption, availability and cost of drilling, completion and production equipment and services, environmental risks, drilling and completion and other operating risks, marketing and transportation risks, regulatory changes or changes in law, changes in emission calculation methods, the uncertainty inherent in estimating natural gas, NGLs and oil reserves and in projecting future rates of production, cash flows and access to capital, the timing of development expenditures, conflicts of interest among our stockholders, impacts of geopolitical, including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and world health events, cybersecurity risks, the state of markets for, and availability of, verified quality carbon offsets and the other risks described under the heading " Risk Factors" in Antero Resources' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 and the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2025.

The following table sets forth selected financial data for the three months ended June 30, 2024 and 2025 (in thousands):