We've captured the announced $1 billion of synergies and savings from actions the company took in connection with the transaction, all ahead of schedule.
Underlying margins are expanding, and our trailing 12-month return on capital employed is headed toward an estimated 14% by year-end, reflecting the benefit of more than just stronger commodity prices.
In June, we provided an outlook based on a roughly $50 per barrel price that included a modest ramp in the Lower 48 to reactivate our optimized plateau plans, some incremental base Alaska investment and some longer-cycle low cost of supply investments in Canada, the Montney and in Norway.
Since June, we see some inflation pressures, especially in the Lower 48.
To begin, adjusted earnings were $1.77 per share for the quarter.
You saw in today's release that we lowered full year 2021 DD&A guidance from $7.4 billion to $7.1 billion.
Excluding Libya, production for the quarter was 1,507,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which represents about 2% underlying growth.
Lower 48 production averaged 790,000 barrels a day, including about 445,000 from the Permian, 217,000 from the Eagle Ford, and 95,000 from the Bakken.
At the end of the quarter, we had 15 operated drilling rigs and seven frac crews working in the Lower 48.
This reflects the impact of a decision we're making to convert Concho two stream contracted volumes to a three-stream reporting basis as part of our ongoing efforts to create marketing optionality across the Lower 48.
Reported production is expected to increase by approximately 40,000 barrels a day, and both revenue and operating costs will increase by roughly $70 million.
Cash from operations was $4.1 billion, which was reduced by about $200 million for nonrecurring items, so a bit higher than the average of external estimates on an underlying basis.
Free cash flow was almost $3 billion this quarter, and on a year-to-date basis, this is about $6.5 billion.
Through the first nine months of the year, we've returned $4 billion to shareholders, and we're on track to meet our target of returning nearly $6 billion by the end of 2021.

Summary:
To begin, adjusted earnings were $1.77 per share for the quarter.