Viper Energy reported second-quarter results on August 3 that showed production and profit climbing sharply from a year earlier, and used the moment to rewrite how it pays shareholders. The Board approved a 32% increase to the base dividend, pushing the annualized rate to $2.00 per Class A share, while dropping the company's prior promise to hand back at least 75% of distributable cash every quarter. Second-quarter production averaged 65,077 barrels of oil per day, or 134,363 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 41,615 bo/d a year earlier, while net income attributable to Viper reached $142 million, or $0.73 per Class A share, adjusted net income climbed to $345 million, or $1.78 per share, and cash available for distribution came in at $262 million, or $1.37 per share. On July 1 the company closed its acquisition of Riverbend Oil & Gas IX, pushing its Permian footprint to roughly 90,212 net royalty acres, and on August 3 its operating subsidiary agreed to buy another 933 net royalty acres from Diamondback Energy in exchange for OpCo units, a deal expected to close late in the third quarter. Management raised full-year 2026 production guidance to a range of 66,000 to 67,250 bo/d and pointed to 1,798 gross wells already in active development plus another 1,589 line-of-sight wells, while net debt fell to $1.6 billion as of June 30 from $2.2 billion at the end of 2025.
Diamondback Energy Inc
Viper Energy Ut