National Fuel had a great fourth quarter with operating results of $0.95 per share, up 138% over last year.
Combined, these projects represent incremental pipeline revenues of more than $75 million and provide much needed capacity out of the basin.
Total project costs are expected to come in nearly 15% under budget.
In particular, we committed to reduce methane intensity at our major operating segments by 30% to 50% from 2020 levels by 2030.
In addition, we pledged to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 25% again by 2030.
As you can see from page 7 of our current IR deck, at $4.50 natural gas prices, we project free cash flow of approximately $320 million in fiscal '22.
Our first priority for that free cash flow will be our dividend, which we paid for the last 119 years and grown for the last 51.
Production came in at 79.6 Bcfe nearly a 20% increase from the prior year's fourth quarter.
For the full year, production increased 36%, which along with significant realized synergies from our acquisition helped to drive a 7% reduction in cash operating unit costs.
We've also updated our reserve estimates with proved reserves increasing nearly 400 Bcfe to 3.9 Tcfe up 11% from last year.
We remain conservative in our approach to reserve bookings with 84% of our reserves being proved developed.
Our ability to ship activity across our three major operating areas is supported by our diverse marketing portfolio including the incremental 330,000 per day of new Leidy South capacity expected to come online in December.
Since last quarter, we've converted a significant portion of our existing Leidy South firm sales from a Transco Zone 6 index sale to a NYMEX based sale, providing basis certainty on those volumes.
We have another 17% with basis protection that is not hedged, which leaves less than 10% of expected production exposed to in basin pricing.
From there production should ramp up in Q2 and Q3, then level out around 1 Bcf a day net toward the end of the fiscal year.
In California, our team has done a great job managing through the last 18 months and we are forecasting relatively flat oil production from fiscal '22 to fiscal '20, excuse me, for fiscal '21 to fiscal '22.
We also announced our plans to seek a responsible natural gas certification for 100% of our Appalachian production through Ekahau [Phonetic] origin.
Additionally, we are working with project canary toward the responsibly sourced gas designation for approximately 300 million a day of our production utilizing their trust well process.
National Fuel closed out its fiscal year on a strong note with earnings coming in at $0.95 per share.
For the full year after adjusting for several items impacting comparability, operating results were $4.29 per share.
Turning to fiscal '22, we now expect earnings to be in the range of $5.05 to $5.45 per share, an increase of $0.65 per share or 14% at the midpoint from our preliminary guidance.
We're now forecasting NYMEX natural gas prices of $5.50 per MMBtu for the first half of our fiscal year and $3.75 from April through September.
We've also increased our NYMEX crude oil price assumption to $75 per barrel.
While we're well hedged for the year approximately 25% of forecasted production remains unhedged.
For reference, a $0.25 change in our natural gas price assumption is now expected to impact earnings by $0.12 per share.
On the oil side, our sensitivities remain unchanged with a $5 change oil impacting earnings by $0.03 per share.
We've increased our range of $0.01 [Phonetic] now projecting $0.83 to $0.86 per Mcfe for the year.
We expect us to increase margin at the utility by approximately $4 million for the year.
By reducing our OPEB collections from approximately $10 million to zero, we expect to see an equivalent reduction in utility EBITDA.
Fiscal '21 came in at $770 million for the year, which was toward the lower end of our guidance range.
For fiscal '22, our guidance was $640 million to $760 million remains unchanged.
In fiscal '21, funds from operations exceeded cash capital expenditures by approximately $120 million for the year.
Adding to that, the proceeds from the sale of our timber assets which closed in December, we generated free cash flow in excess of our $165 million dividend payment for the year.
As we look to fiscal '22, we would expect our funds from operations to exceed capital spending by $300 million to $350 million.
At this level, our free cash flow, we are projecting more than $150 million of excess cash after funding our dividend for the year.
Given the recent run up in prices, we recorded $600 million mark to market liability associated with our hedge portfolio.
Well, this is a rather large liability, our investment grade balance sheet minimize collateral requirements such that we were limited to approximately $90 million posted with counterparties at the end of September.
Today, the collateral amount has been further reduced now sitting closer to $25 million.

Summary:
National Fuel had a great fourth quarter with operating results of $0.95 per share, up 138% over last year.
National Fuel closed out its fiscal year on a strong note with earnings coming in at $0.95 per share.
Turning to fiscal '22, we now expect earnings to be in the range of $5.05 to $5.45 per share, an increase of $0.65 per share or 14% at the midpoint from our preliminary guidance.