Since we recommended recent IPOs Rice Energy (NYSE: RICE) and Jones Energy (NYSE: JONE) on the same day (See Best Days Ahead for These Cost Leaders from Feb. 13), and since both reported strong quarterly results in recent days, it makes sense to update them together.

The bottom line is that both companies delivered on their promise of fast production growth at a low cost, and both stocks got a boost as a result.

Rice investors, of course, must already been quite confident of that outcome given the stock’s 27 percent rise since our recommendation. Jones, on the other hand, is now down just 1 percent from our entry point after an 8 percent pop in response to the numbers.

Let’s sample Rice first. The fast-ramping Marcellus (and soon Utica) producer recorded gas sales of $102 million after increasing production nearly five-fold year-over-year. And this is just the start, with the company bringing on line in the first quarter just 4 of the 33 Marcellus wells it plans to tap this year, and with the first Utica well in the core of that play drilled but not yet tested.

The midpoint of the company’s previously provided 2014 production guidance is 36 percent above the average daily rate in the first quarter, and there’s plenty of upside to that estimate if early Utica wells prove as productive as neighboring ones drilled by rivals.

In the meantime, high winter demand netted Rice $4.84 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) for its Marcellus gas, a 30 percent price hike from a year ago. Cash lifting costs amounted to just $0.79 per Mcf, producing $35 million in operating cash flow. Contributing to those low lifting costs was Rice’s practice of building out its own midstream infrastructure, and the strong results achieved to data helped justify the recent $110 million acquisition of a gathering system overlapping future development acreage.

The stock rose 6 percent on May 13 in response to the reported upside to Wall Street’s consensus earnings estimate. It seems likely to keep marching higher, and we’re raising our price target to permit continued accumulation. Buy RICE below $33.

Jones also reported very strong results, with production exceeding prior guidance by some 5 percent despite weather related disruptions, rising 19 percent sequentially and 35 percent year-over-year. It has been targeting a 32 percent output gain for all of 2014, a goal that now looks a bit low. Better still, much of the growth is coming out of the liquids-rich Cleveland play, where output grew 44 percent sequentially and 73 percent year-over-year, pushing the share of revenue from crude sales above 50 percent.

This in turn produced a 38 percent increase in EBITDAX, helped by the fact that Jones has not seen any pressure on its operating costs. These remain well below other drillers in the Cleveland, aiding the company’s drive to acquire additional acreage and to finance much of this year’s drilling program from cash flow. In addition to developing the Cleveland Jones is also exploring and acquiring leases in the even oilier Tonkawa formation, also in the Anadarko Basin overlapping the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.  The company recently acquired a lot of liquidity by selling $500 million of 8-year-notes at a yield of 6.75 percent. Yet its enterprise value remains at just 5 times this year’s expected EBITDA, this for a company with the acreage, expertise and prospective returns to maintain a high growth rate in 2015 in beyond even if energy prices retreat.