First, is our record free cash flow for the quarter of $669 million.
This includes increasing our dividend by 33% from $0.15 to $0.20 per share with our return on capital employed and increasing to approximately 21%.
Third, is the exciting news that we now have strategic positions in four leading basins across the Lower 48 with a $3.25 billion acquisition of Delaware assets from Pioneer, providing our company and shareholders with material, geologic and geographic diversity.
This is an outstanding asset with 92,000 acres, over 1,000 locations, 50,000 net royalty acres.
The acquisition also comes with about 55,000 BOE per day from PDP and anticipated volumes from wells in progress.
And finally, and possibly most importantly, this Permian transaction is projected to add up to 2% to our return on capital employed annually over the next five years.
During the third quarter, we took additional steps to increase returns to shareholders with our third dividend increase in as many quarters and executing on $65 million in share repurchases.
We expect to exit this year at a quarter annualized net debt-to-EBITDA of about 1.3 and expect to be below 1-0 1.0 by year-end 2022, assuming $60 and strip gas pricing.
We see the potential to generate $2.6 billion of free cash flow this year, which equates to about 14% free cash flow yield at current prices.
We are confident this acquisition will further enhance our free cash flow generation.
In the third quarter, we achieved a 98.9% gas capture rate, up from 98.3% in 2020.
In support of our industry-leading ESG gas capture stewardship, we have deferred approximately $45 million in revenue in 2021.
This transaction increases Continental's operational footprint in the area with our current acreage position across the Permian now approximately 140,000 net acres.
Later on the call, Jack will provide details regarding this expanded Permian footprint, along with the tremendous success our teams have had growing our top-tier corporate portfolio of Lower 48 assets.
Approximately, 75% of the price of this asset is covered by PDP value and wells in progress at current strip prices, leaving significant upside value and undeveloped acreage.
On a pro forma basis and at current strip prices, we expect to generate at least $3 billion of cash flow in 2022.
Our pro forma free cash flow in '22 is projected to be about 17%.
This compares very favorably to our 2021 projected free cash flow yield of about 14%.
This transaction includes a healthy amount of PDP, benefiting our EBITDAX by approximately $900 million per year at current strip prices, enhancing our credit metrics.
Additionally, we are projecting an incremental $500 million of free cash flow from the acquired asset in 2022 at current strip prices based on estimated '22 production and capital spending.
Combined with our legacy assets, we expect 2022 free cash flow of at least $3 billion at strip prices for Continental.
As of September 30, we had approximately $700 million of cash on hand with expectations for strong free cash flow moving forward.
And increased available commitments to $1.7 billion.
Our credit metrics also remained strong with net debt to EBITDAX projected to increase only slightly from 0.9 times in the third quarter to 1.3 times initially with the transaction but is expected to drop below 1 times during 2022 at current strip prices.
Our target is to reduce net debt back to current levels or approximately $4 billion by year-end '22.
We've utilized a combination of swaps and collars with an average swap of $371 and an average foot of $325 at an average collar of $496.
We have remained capital disciplined with a projected reinvestment ratio of approximately 40%.
Reflecting back on our original guidance in February, we were projecting at that time, $1 billion of free cash flow with a reinvestment rate of 58%.
With our free cash flow now up approximately 160% from our original guidance, we have decided to reinvest a modest amount of additional capital this year or just under 10% of that incremental cash flow figure.
We estimate that these assets contain an inventory of over 650 gross wells targeting three primary reservoirs, including the third Bone Spring, the Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp B, and we think there are over 1,000 locations when you consider other known producing reservoirs that underlie this acreage.
On an economic basis, these assets complement our existing inventory very well delivering rates of return from 50% to well over 100% at $60 WTI and $3 NYMEX.
The 92,000 net leasehold acres being acquired are largely contiguous, as you can see on Slide four and highly concentrated.
Continental will operate 98% of this acreage with an average working interest of approximately 93% per well, and over 90% of this acreage is held by production.
The acquisition also includes 50,000 net royalty acres.
Approximately 70% of these royalty acres directly underlie our leasehold, which raises the average net revenue interest for wells drilled on this acreage to around 80%.
The acquisition also includes significant water infrastructure and surface ownership, including 31,000 surface acres, approximately 180 miles of pipeline, water facilities and disposal wells that can be expanded to accommodate growth.
The acquisition also includes approximately 55,000 BOE per day of production, which is inclusive of 10 wells in progress on a pro forma basis, and approximately 70% of this production is oil.
Through Grassroots leasing, trades and strategic acquisitions, we now own or have under contract approximately 140,000 net acres in the Texas portion of the Permian Basin and approximately 215,000 acres -- net acres in the Powder River Basin.
During this time, we also expanded -- or we also added approximately 47,000 net acres in the heart of our springboard assets in Oklahoma.

Summary:
We are confident this acquisition will further enhance our free cash flow generation.
Combined with our legacy assets, we expect 2022 free cash flow of at least $3 billion at strip prices for Continental.