With this Advantage platform, we executed on her Delaware focused operating plan and captured cost synergies that resulted in $600 million of annual cash flow improvements.
This disciplined execution was rewarded by the market, with our share price achieving the highest return of any stock in the entire S&P 500 index during 2021.
With the operational momentum we've established, we have designed a capital program to efficiently sustain production at a ultra-low WTI breakeven funding level of around $30 a barrel.
Combined with the full benefit of merger-related costs synergies and a vastly improved hedge book, we're positioned to deliver free cash flow growth of more than 70% compared to 2021.
As you can see on the graph, the strong outlook translates into a free cash flow yield of 14%, assuming an $85 WTI price.
With this differentiated framework, we've increased Devon's dividend payout for five consecutive quarters, and in aggregate, we paid out $1.3 billion of dividends in 2021, which is a per share increase of roughly two times that of 2020.
As you can see on the bar chart, we're on pace to essentially double our dividend again in the upcoming year, which equates to around 8%.
There's 45% increase in the fixed dividend reflects the confidence we have in our underlying business and financial performance as we head into 2022.
As you can see, Devon's yield of 8% is approximately six times higher than the S&P 500 index, and well in excess of the prevailing interest rate you can get from a 10-year treasury.
On Slide 10, in addition to our market-leading dividend payout, we're also excited to announce that we are increasing our share repurchase authorization by 60% to $1.6 billion.
Given this favorable setup, we put our money where our mouth is by aggressively repurchasing $589 million of shares just in the fourth quarter alone.
The first key point that is there is no change to the upstream capital budget of $1.9 to $2.2 billion as we disclosed last quarter.
You'll notice that our 22 program looks quite a bit like our 21 program.
The relatively steady level of activity in 22 is projected to sustain our production throughout the year, ranging from 570,000 to 600,000 Boe per day.
During 2021, we had great success with our capital program that resulted in production growth rate of 34% compared to our first quarter 21.
Each of these prolific projects eclipse 30-day rates of more than 5,000 Boe per day on a plural basis, exhibiting the world class reservoir potential that resides in the Delaware Basin.
At year-end, our proved reserves in the Delaware increased 18% on a Pro Forma basis, and these reserve additions replaced more than 200% of what we produce during the year.
I find it especially impressive that our team added these reserves and an ultra-low F&D cost of only $5 per Boe.
To execute on this plan, we expect to run 14 rigs in 4 [inaudible] during the year.
Not only with this level of activity continuing to grow Delaware production in 22, but the benefits of our operating scale and best practices from the merger integration, we are well-positioned to continue to improve our execution capabilities.
The operational improvements have also meaningfully reduced our cost over time to about $550 per lateral foot in 2021, which competes very well with anyone out there.
As I look ahead to 22, I expect our operational performance to continue to improve.
Based on today's industry activity and commodity price projections, we've baked in around 15% higher costs than we saw in 2021.
On Slide 17, the next area I want to showcase is the momentum we're building in the Anadarko Basin, where we have a concentrated 300,000 net acre position in the liquids rig window of the play.
With the benefits of our $100 billion Dow JV Kerry, we drilled over 30 wells in 2021 and commenced the first production on 16 of those wells during the year.
With the benefit of state-of-the-art completion designs, and appropriately up spaced developments, per well capital cost of decrease by 25% versus legacy activity and well productivity to date has exceeded the type curve expectations by 35%.
Given the success, we've elected to step up activity in the Anadarko Basin to 3 rigs and 22.
This program will result in around 40 new wells coming online in 2022, allowing us to maintain steady production profile throughout the year and harvest significant amounts of free cash flow.
Collectively, these assets generated more than a billion dollars of free cash flow in 2021, and we're on pace to produce a similar amount of free cash flow in 22.
We do not have finalized figures yet for this past year, but I can tell you our scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions will improve roughly by 20% in 2021 versus our 19 baseline, well ahead of that, stated the stated goals from this past summer.
In 2020, we reduced methane emissions by 47% and we reduce flaring by 33%.
Looking specifically at 22, we have many visible catalysts that will drive important results, such as advancing advancements and leak detection technologies, improved facility design, facility retrofits, wide-scale deployment of air-driven pneumatic controllers, and electrification of select field operations.
Beginning with production, our total volumes in the fourth quarter averaged 611,000 Boe per day, exceeding the midpoint of our guidance by 3%.
In the upcoming quarter, we expect production to approximate 570,000 Boes' per day.
We expect this to be our lowest production quarter of the year due to winter weather downtime that reduced volumes by about 15,000 Boe per day.
Moving to expenses, our lease operating GP&T costs exceeded 2021 at a rate of $7.25 per barrel.
This result represents a 1%t decline compared to where we started the year, but with slightly elevated compared to our forecast.
Overall, our exposure to higher-value production, coupled with the low-cost structure, expanded Devon's field level cash margin to $42.37 per barrel, a 14% increase from last quarter.
In aggregate, G&A and financing costs declined 31% year over year on a pro forma basis due to lower personnel cost and the company's ongoing debt reduction program.
Cutting to the bottom line, Devon's core earnings increase for the sixth quarter in a row to a $1.39 per share.
This level of earnings momentum translated into operating cash flow of $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter.
after funding our disciplined maintenance capital program, we generated $1.1 billion of free cash flow in the quarter.
This represents growth in free cash flow of more than 400% compared to where we started the year after closing the WPX merger.
As Rick covered earlier, in conjunction with our earnings report, we announced a fixed plus variable dividend of $1 per share that is payable in March and includes the benefit of our 45% raise to the fixed dividend.
Since we initiated the program in November, we're off to a great start by repurchasing $14 million shares at a total cost of $589 million.
This equates to an average price of $42 per share, which is around a 25% discount to our current trading levels.
With the board expanding our share repurchase program to $1.6 billion, we now have roughly $1 billion remaining on this authorization, and we expect to continue to opportunistically buy back stock in 2022.
In 2021, we made significant progress strengthening Devon's financial position by retiring more than $1.2 billion of outstanding notes, and we achieved our net debt to EBITDA target ahead of plan, exiting the year at less than a turn of leverage.
In 2021, we achieved a 20% return on capital employed, and we are positioned for this measure to substantially increase in 2022.

Summary:
The relatively steady level of activity in 22 is projected to sustain our production throughout the year, ranging from 570,000 to 600,000 Boe per day.
Beginning with production, our total volumes in the fourth quarter averaged 611,000 Boe per day, exceeding the midpoint of our guidance by 3%.
In the upcoming quarter, we expect production to approximate 570,000 Boes' per day.
We expect this to be our lowest production quarter of the year due to winter weather downtime that reduced volumes by about 15,000 Boe per day.
Cutting to the bottom line, Devon's core earnings increase for the sixth quarter in a row to a $1.39 per share.