Tag Archives: Eagle Ford Shale

Forest Oil Details Accelerated Eagle Ford Shale Drilling Program

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Forest Oil Details Accelerated Eagle Ford Shale Drilling Program

Accelerated Development Program to Hold an Aggregate of 55,000 Gross (27,500 Net) Acres

Incorporate Four Drilling Rigs by the Third Quarter of 2013 and Drill 60 Gross (30 Net) Wells in 2013 and 80 Gross (40 Net) Wells in 2014

Eagle Ford Shale Average Net Sales Volumes Expected to Reach 6,500 Boe/d in 2014 from 1,600 Boe/d in 2012

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Forest Oil Corporation (NYS: FST) (Forest or the Company) today provided an update on its Eagle Ford Shale drilling program for 2013 and 2014 and announced a teleconference call scheduled for April 12, 2013 at 7:00 AM Mountain Time to discuss the release.

Forest recently announced the signing of a definitive agreement with an industry partner for the future development of the Company’s Eagle Ford Shale acreage position. Under the terms of the agreement, the industry partner will pay a $90 million drilling carry in the form of future drilling and completion services and related development capital in order to earn a 50% working interest in Forest’s Eagle Ford Shale acreage position. In conjunction with the agreement, Forest plans to accelerate development by increasing drilling activity to four rigs, from one to two rigs currently, by the end of the third quarter of 2013. Forest projects that the capital carry amount combined with the accelerated pace of development will bring forward approximately $250 million in PV10 economics.

Forest anticipates that the accelerated development program will hold an aggregate of 55,000 gross (27,500 net) acres in Gonzales County, compared to 40,000 gross (40,000 net) acres based on the current development program. The increased acreage position has 688 gross (344 net) locations identified based on 80-acre spacing, and Forest anticipates being able to drill 80 gross (40 net) wells per year beginning in 2014. Based on Forest’s current estimated ultimate recovery of 300 Mboe per location, the Eagle Ford acreage contains a potential gross unrisked resource of over 200 MMboe (100 MMboe net).

Forest estimates that its share of capital expenditures in the accelerated development plan for 2013 and 2014 will total approximately $125 million and $220 million, respectively. The accelerated development plan will result in ten and

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/12/forest-oil-details-accelerated-eagle-ford-shale-dr/

3 Regions Where Natural Gas Production Is Growing

By Matt DiLallo, The Motley Fool

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If you haven’t noticed yet, natural gas prices have started to head higher. A combination of factors, including a surprisingly cold March, have led to resilient demand. As prices have inched up, two top Wall Street banks have seen enough momentum to raise their 2013 price target for natural gas. Morgan Stanley‘s price forecast was bumped up by 7% to $3.93 per million British thermal units, or MMBtu, while Goldman Sachs raised its forecast from $3.75 per MMBtu all the way to $4.40 per MMBtu.

That’s good news for those companies in regions where natural gas production is actually growing. Overall since the end of 2011, North American dry shale gas production has risen by 9.95% to 27.2 billion cubic feet of production per day as of the beginning of this past February. This rise has been driven primarily by production growth at three big plays. Let’s take a look.

Eagle Ford
While not known for natural gas, the Eagle Ford Shale has actually seen a 43.12% pop in natural gas production according to data from the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, over the past year. Most of this gas is associated with oil and liquids, as fewer companies are drilling in the dry gas window at the moment.

For example, Chesapeake Energy‘s core acreage is in the sweet spot of the oil window. Despite that, 19% of the company’s fourth-quarter production was natural gas. As Chesapeake increases its overall production, natural gas production increases as a byproduct of its liquids-focused drilling. Further, as the nation’s No. 2 gas producer, Chesapeake is one of the biggest beneficiaries of higher gas prices.

Marcellus
According to the EIA, natural gas production out of the Marcellus jumped 55.28% over the past year. Top producer, Range Resources , produced a total of 146 Bcf of natural gas last year. That production easily exceeded that of number two producer EQT‘s 103 Bcf of natural gas production last year.

These two companies hold one thing in common: Both are among the lowest-cost producers of natural gas in the country, which gives them a competitive advantage to make money when most of their competitors cannot. Investors in these low-cost producers have been served well as both have returned around 40% over the past year. 

Bakken
While the Bakken is known for its oil, natural gas production skyrocketed by 94.38% according to data from the EIA. Part of the reason more gas is being produced is because less of it is being flared — instead, it’s being put into pipelines. Most of this infrastructure simply didn’t exist until recently and now that companies have a way to get gas to market, they’re able to sell instead of flare.

The impact of this reduced flaring is clearly evident at Kodiak Oil & Gas . In 2011 the company produced 1,329 MMcf of gas, but flared 807 MMcf. That’s 61% of the gas! Last year the

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Magnum Hunter Cashes Out of the Eagle Ford

By Matt DiLallo, The Motley Fool

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Magnum Hunter Resources took advantage of its position in the hot Eagle Ford Shale to unload most of its acreage at a premium price. In a deal with Penn Virginia , Magnum Hunter is selling approximately 19,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford Shale for $401 million. Included in the deal are 49 producing wells with another 11 wells in various stages of completion.

This is a big deal for both companies, both in terms of size and what it means for each company’s respective future. The deal represents a big chunk of capital for Penn Virginia when you consider that its market capitalization is just $200 million. To pay for the deal, the company is planning to tack on another $400 million in debt through a senior notes offering. Pro forma, the company will have over a billion dollars in debt on its balance sheet. However, these assets are mostly adjacent to its current Eagle Ford position which yields both synergy and scale. It’s really a transformational deal for the company, but given that the acres are in the oil window it appears to be worth the risk. 

For Magnum Hunter, this deal is about cashing in on a high-value asset so it can reinvest into what it believes will become higher-value assets. The company is getting a good price and locking in a solid overall return. It entered the Eagle Ford in 2009 when it spent $2.35 million to acquire a small operator, after investing another $263 million in capital to develop the play, it has already yielded $80 million in cash flow. When you add it all up, that’s a three-year internal rate of return over 80%. Given that the Eagle Ford represented its smallest acreage position, it makes sense to cash out and move on.

Initially, Magnum Hunter plans to use the funds to reduce its debt. However, the company had just $115 million of liquidity against a $300 million planned capital budget so one way or the other these funds will be plowed back into its business. That capital budget is split pretty evenly between its Williston Basin and Appalachian assets with a focus on growing its liquids rich production.

It reminds me of the blueprint that Chesapeake Energy  has famously followed. The company is constantly cashing in on its acreage to fund the development elsewhere in its portfolio. In fact, Chesapeake currently has some of its own Eagle Ford acreage up for sale and the price Magnum Hunter received bodes well for Chesapeake’s fortunes. 

The bottom line here is that this deal gives Magnum Hunter a little more financial flexibility to fund the opportunities it sees in both the Bakken and the Uitca. The company remains an interesting growth story, with production expected to leap this year from just over 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to a range of 18,500-20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Even better, an increasing mix …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

The Newest Texas Sweet Spot

By Aimee Duffy and Tyler Crowe, The Motley Fool

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The Eagle Ford Shale play is one of the most important oil-producing regions in the U.S. right now. Located predominantly in South Texas, the northeast corner of this play is called the Eaglebine, and it’s starting to get attention from exploration and production companies. In this video, Fool.com contributor Aimee Duffy talks to Tyler Crowe about which companies are active in the Eaglebine, and what investors can expect from the region in 2013.

Enterprise Products Partners is the midstream outfit with arguably the best asset base in the Eagle Ford Shale. To help investors decide whether Enterprise Products Partners is a buy or a sell today, click here now to check out The Motley Fool’s brand-new premium research report on the company.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

These 3 Energy Stocks Trounced the Market Today

By Dan Dzombak, The Motley Fool

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Markets and energy prices were on the move today as fear rose over the economy after a weaker-than-expected private-sector jobs report. At 5:00 pm ET on Wednesday, the VIX was up 11.19%, Brent crude was down 3.04% to $107.32, and WTI crude was down 2.71% to $94.53. U.S. natural gas was up 1.61% to $3.90.

Today’s energy-stock leaders
Among U.S. companies with market caps greater than $500 million, today’s energy-stocks leader was Magnum Hunter Resources , up 3.15% to $3.93. Magnum was up more than 10% this morning, after the company announced an asset sale of its Eagle Ford Shale assets to Penn Virginia for $401 million. The assets include 19,000 net acres with 49 producing wells, seven wells drilled, and four currently being drilled. For March, the average daily production was 3,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Magnum plans on using the cash from the sale to pay down debt, which as of Sept. 30 stood at $680 million. The company is late in reporting its annual result for the year ended Dec. 31, after it identified material weaknesses in its internal controls. Investors should be wary of investing in a company that’s late in filing.

Second among energy stocks today was Arch Coal up 2.42% to $5.08, while in third was Peabody Energy , up 1.15% to $20.15. Coal stocks been crushed as environmental regulations pushed up the price of running coal plants and cheap natural gas provided an easy and cheaper alternative for power producers. Natural gas has taken significant market share in the U.S. power markets, and coal demand and prices have fallen as a result.

Weaker companies haven’t survived, with Patriot Coal, for one, going into bankruptcy. The company was spun off from Peabody Energy in 2007 and has been weighed down by $1.6 billion in retiree health benefits. As part of the spinoff, Peabody agreed to cover certain health-care costs for former Peabody employees. Patriot is suing Peabody to make sure that Peabody “does not attempt to use Patriot’s bankruptcy to escape Peabody’s own health care obligations to certain retirees.” Peabody argues that if Patriot’s obligations are lessened; then its own obligations are also lessened. Yesterday, Patriot asked the bankruptcy court to cap life insurance benefits and health-care coverage for its retirees. The company has 4,000 employees and 8,100 retirees.

Foolish bottom line
The coal industry in the United States has been in a state of flux since the arrival of a cheaper alternative for energy production: natural gas. Exports are becoming a much bigger part of the domestic coal landscape, and Peabody Energy has deals in place to get its cheaper coal from the Powder River and Illinois basins to India, China, and the EU. For investors looking to capitalize on a rebound in the U.S. coal market, The Motley Fool has authored a special new premium report detailing exactly why Peabody Energy is perhaps …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Why Magnum Hunter Resources' Shares Jumped

By Travis Hoium, The Motley Fool

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Although we don’t believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes — just in case they’re material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Magnum Hunter Resources jumped as much as 12% in early trading after the company announced an asset sale.

So what: The company is selling 19,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford Shale play to Penn Virginia Corp. for $401 million, at least 90% of which will be in cash. The deal includes 49 producing wells, seven drilled wells, and four wells in process.  

Now what: The stock popped early, but later in the trading day the stock was only up about 4%. Management said it would use the cash to reduce debt, which grew by about $400 million over the past year. I see this as an incremental positive for Magnum, but with losses mounting and productive assets now leaving the company, I think investors should use caution buying until the company can swing a profit.

Interested in more info on Magnum Hunter Resources? Add it to your watchlist by clicking here.

The article Why Magnum Hunter Resources’ Shares Jumped originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Penn Virginia Corporation Announces Proposed Private Placement of $400 Million of Senior Notes Due 2

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Penn Virginia Corporation Announces Proposed Private Placement of $400 Million of Senior Notes Due 2020

RADNOR, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Penn Virginia Corporation (NYS: PVA) (“PVA“) announced today that it intends to offer, subject to market and other conditions, $400 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2020 in a private placement to eligible purchasers (the “Offering”). PVA intends to use substantially all of the net proceeds from the Offering to finance a portion of the purchase price for its separately announced pending Eagle Ford Shale acquisition.

The notes will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act“), or the securities laws of any state and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements under the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or blue sky laws and foreign securities laws.

The notes and the related guarantees will be offered only to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A under the Securities Act and to persons outside the United States under Regulation S under the Securities Act.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state. Any offers of the notes and the related guarantees will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum.

Penn Virginia Corporation (NYS: PVA) is an independent oil and gas company engaged primarily in the development, exploration and production of oil and natural gas in various domestic onshore regions including Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit our website at www.pennvirginia.com .

Penn Virginia Corporation
James W. Dean
Vice President, Corporate Development
Ph: 610-687-7531
Fax: 610-687-3688
invest@pennvirginia.com

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  Pennsylvania

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:

The article Penn Virginia Corporation Announces Proposed Private Placement of $400 Million of Senior Notes Due 2020 originally appeared on Fool.com.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Penn Virginia Corporation Announces Acquisition of Eagle Ford Shale Assets

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Penn Virginia Corporation Announces Acquisition of Eagle Ford Shale Assets

Strategic to Existing Asset Position in Gonzales and Lavaca Counties, Texas

Approximately 19,000 Net Acres, Bringing Total Eagle Ford Shale Net Acreage to Approximately 54,000 Net Acres

Estimated Proved Reserves of 12.0 Million Barrels of Oil Equivalent (MMBOE)

Production of Approximately 3,200 Barrels of Oil Equivalent Per Day (BOEPD)

43 Producing Wells and Approximately 345 Potential Drilling Locations

RADNOR, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Penn Virginia Corporation (NYS: PVA) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation (NYS: MHR) to acquire producing properties and undeveloped leasehold interests in the Eagle Ford Shale play for approximately $400 million. We expect the transaction to close in early to mid-May 2013, subject to customary post-closing adjustments.

Transaction Highlights

  • We will acquire approximately 40,600 (19,000 net) mineral acres located in Gonzales and Lavaca Counties, Texas, in areas adjacent to our current position in both counties. As a result, we will have approximately 83,000 gross (54,000 net) contiguous acres in the volatile oil window of the Eagle Ford Shale, and we will increase our drilling inventory by 345 (169 net) locations from 295 (251 net) drilling locations to 640 (420 net) drilling locations.
  • The assets include working interests in 46 (22.1 net) producing wells, bringing our combined producing Eagle Ford Shale well count to 117 (82.0 net) wells. Seven wells are in the process of being completed or awaiting completion and four wells are being drilled on the acreage being acquired.
  • Estimated net oil and gas production for the acquired assets was approximately 3,200 BOEPD during February 2013, which would have brought our total February 2013 production to approximately 19,500 BOEPD and our Eagle Ford Shale …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

3 Opportunities in Booming South Texas

By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool

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Earlier this week, the Texas Railroad Commission announced that its preliminary numbers for oil production in the Eagle Ford Shale are outstanding. Production climbed 50% from 2011 to 2012, averaging 373,303 barrels per day. That growth is significant, and provides investors with some pretty compelling opportunities, so let’s take a closer look at what’s going on in southeastern Texas.

Eagle eye
The Eagle Ford shale seems to have come out of nowhere. In 2008, oil production in the region was a scant 358 barrels per day — but take a look at what’s happened since then:

Source: Texas Railroad Commission

You can see that the biggest production increase in the short four year history of the play came last year. Keep in mind that the slight uptick at the end of the graph is a mere month’s worth of production — and even that increased by more than 12,000 bpd.

What’s the story here?
The Eagle Ford Shale is a geologic wonder that stretches from the southern border of Texas up through to around Austin.

Source: Energy Information Association

The shale’s pay zone is thicker than most U.S. plays, with a higher percentage of carbonate material. On top of that, the distinct banding pattern of the Eagle Ford allows producers to target specific commodities for production. In the picture above, the green band is the oil region, the yellow band is for natural gas liquids, and the pink band is for dry gas.

Three winners
This sort of production growth is hard to ignore. The companies behind these staggering numbers are making a killing … so who are they?

The top producer in the play is EOG Resources . In fact, EOG cranks so much oil out of the Eagle Ford — 109,776 barrels per day in 2012 — that it’s actually the second largest oil producer in all of Texas.

Another winner here is ConocoPhillips . The company drills the cheapest wells in the industry, and is the second-biggest producer in the shale.

Finally, we have Kinder Morgan Energy Partners . All of the oil and NGLs produced in the Eagle Ford are worthless without transportation and processing infrastructure. Kinder Morgan had the pipeline asset base in the Eagle Ford, and its buyout of Copano Energy will give it a processing footprint, as well, when the deal closes in the third quarter of this year.

More to come?
Producers are increasingly targeting the region, which includes both the Eagle Ford and the Woodbine sandstone formations. This area, cleverly titled “Eaglebine,” is northeast of where the bulk of the oil activity is in the Eagle Ford right now. Halcon Resources is one company that plans to make the most of the new sweet spot. The company has nine wells there, and plans to spend $490 million on drilling and completing many more this year.

All this oil still needs a way to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Kinder Morgan Secures Additional Throughput Commitment for Condensate Processing Facility Expansion

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Kinder Morgan Secures Additional Throughput Commitment for Condensate Processing Facility Expansion


Company to invest approximately $170 million to expand facility for second phase

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (NYS: KMP) today announced it has entered into a long-term, fee-based agreement with BP North America to underwrite an additional 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of throughput capacity at the petroleum condensate processing facility Kinder Morgan is constructing near its Galena Park terminal on the Houston Ship Channel. With the new agreement, Kinder Morgan will invest an additional $170 million to add a second unit to its previously announced $200 million condensate processing facility and increase the facility’s total capacity to 100,000 bpd. The investment also includes the company building an additional 700,000 barrels of storage capacity for product being split at the facility.

“We are pleased to secure long-term contracts for all of the throughput capacity at our facility, and provide BP with the processing needed for Eagle Ford Shale production and other condensates,” said KMP Products Pipelines President Ron McClain. “Combined with our recently completed Kinder Morgan Crude Condensate (KMCC) pipeline, we are able to provide unparalleled connectivity to crude oil and clean products markets on the Texas Gulf Coast.” The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to cash distributable to KMP unitholders upon the project’s completion in the second quarter of 2015.

Kinder Morgan‘s processing facility will split condensate into its various components, such as light and heavy naphtha, kerosene, diesel and gas oil, and can be further expanded pending additional market interest. Kinder Morgan previously announced the first phase of its processing facility when it secured the initial commitment of 25,000 bpd of capacity. The company expects to place the first unit in service in the first quarter of 2014.

Paul Reed, Chief Executive of BP‘s integrated supply and trading business, said, “BP is proud to build upon our strategic partnership with Kinder Morgan through an increased footprint in Galena Park. We believe that by accessing this additional throughput capacity we will be better placed to provide U.S. producers a full suite of services including access to the best homes for their crude and condensates. It will also enable BP to service our customers better and more efficiently manage their feedstock and product needs. BP …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

The Biggest Oil Winners in Texas

By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool

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At the end of 2012, oil production in the state of Texas had reached a level not seen since the late 1990s. The state was cranking out more than 2.2 million barrels per day in December, accounting for roughly 31% of all U.S. oil production. This resurgence can present an opportunity for investors, and with that in mind today we will take a look at the five top producers in the great state of Texas.

The list
The most important thing about the 2012 list is that it did not look the same in 2011. The emergence of the Eagle Ford Shale in East Texas, and the application of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in certain segments of the Permian Basin has caused some changes:

Company

Avg. Daily
Production

Annual
Production

% State

Occidental Petroleum

116,911

42.7 M

8.0%

EOG Resources

109,776

40.1 M

7.5%

Pioneer Natural
Resources

62,507

22.8 M

4.3%

Apache

57,876

21.1 M

4.0%

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners

51,705

18.9 M

3.5%

Source: Texas Railroad Commission 

In 2011, all of these companies were on the list, but in a different order. Kinder Morgan ranked second then, but almost failed to rank this year, and no one outside of Occidental was posting production numbers over 52,000 barrels per day, let alone 100,000. Things will continue to change, no doubt, so let’s take a closer look at what these companies are up to.

The players
Occidental Petroleum is the top producer in the Permian Basin. The company has mastered the art of using carbon dioxide in tertiary recovery to increase well production by 15%-25% in certain fields. Kinder Morgan, aside from using CO2 to produce oil and natural gas liquids, sources and distributes the gas to other producers in the play. If you’re looking for a diversified operator in the Permian, that’s the company for you.

Apache is another Permian player with the potential to rise up on this list next year. The chart above reflects an annual average number for daily production, but by the end of 2012 Apache was producing 134,123 barrels per day in the Permian. While some of that production was outside of Texas on the New Mexico side, the company has really ramped up its growth in the Texas shale portion of the Permian. 

Pioneer Natural Resources is double dipping, exploiting both the Permian and the Eagle Ford for its benefit. The company is really doing it all right now, as far as drilling goes. It is focused on vertical wells in the Spraberry section of the Permian, horizontal wells in the Wolfcamp region of the same play, and of course horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford. If you include the state’s Barnett Shale, the company plans to spend about $2.4 billion drilling in Texas …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Pervasive Software Deepens, Extends Document Exchange Managed Services for Marathon Oil Corporation

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Pervasive Software Deepens, Extends Document Exchange Managed Services for Marathon Oil Corporation

Windows Azure-Based Pervasive Business Xchange Strengthens Trading Partner Efficiency, Relationships

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Pervasive Software® Inc. (Nasdaq: PVSW), a global leaderin cloud-based and on-premises data innovation, is enhancing its 10-year business relationship with Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE: MRO) with a new initiative to onboard hundreds of additional Marathon Oil suppliers. The initiative will almost quadruple the number of suppliers with which Marathon Oil exchanges e-invoices, remittances and other electronic business documents using Pervasive Business Xchange™ managed services. This service enables Marathon Oil to reach hundreds of additional vendors to efficiently process business documents according to accepted industry standards.

With increasing activity in the Eagle Ford Shale, Marathon Oil has seen rapid growth in the number of suppliers that help it conduct efficient production operations. Powered by Windows Azure, Pervasive Business Xchange leverages the platform’s scalability and economics to make it cost-effective to electronically onboard the additional Marathon Oil suppliers.

Pervasive Business Xchange, which is hosted on the Windows Azure platform-as-a-service, provides customers like Marathon Oil with the advantages of a scalable, economic cloud-based architecture.

“With our services on the Windows Azure elastic cloud, we can rapidly scale to accommodate hundreds of additional suppliers, as we are now doing for Marathon Oil,” noted Markus Bockle, senior director for Pervasive Business Xchange. “We also have the flexibility to deliver innovative subscription- and usage-based pricing that makes automated trading relationships affordable for Marathon Oil and their suppliers, enabling the company to cost-effectively extend B2B exchange services access to the long tail of their suppliers.”

Pervasive Business Xchange exemplifies the kind of innovative businesses that successfully embrace the Microsoft Windows Azure platform,” said Tom Matthews, Azure Sales Manager, Central Region at Microsoft. “Our platform’s robustness, scalability and economics enable Pervasive Business Xchange to provide a seamless and affordable experience to users, from onboarding to document exchange and monitoring.”

Pervasive Business Xchange, a member of the Petroleum Industry Document Exchange (PIDX) International standards group, provides electronic exchange of procurement and supply chain-related documents and transactions to many of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, as well as their operators and suppliers. Its managed services accept electronic documents for translation into a trading partner’s required format and enables users to track the documents’ progress throughout the process.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

2 Surprising Takeways From the Chesapeake-Sinopec Deal

By Arjun Sreekumar, The Motley Fool

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Last month, Chesapeake Energy agreed to sell half of its undivided interest in a substantial portion of its acreage in the Mississippi Lime formation to Chinese oil giant Sinopec .

The transaction is the latest in a series of asset sales that the struggling natural gas producer has conducted since last year. With its precarious debt situation exacerbated by depressed prices for natural gas, the company continues to face a daunting funding gap for the year.

Though the Sinopec joint venture will bring in $1.02 billion in cash, of which the majority will be received upon closing, many analysts have pointed to the deal’s disappointing metrics. One of the biggest letdowns was the fact that Chesapeake received a little less than $2,400 per acre for its Mississippian acreage – a fraction of the value the company said the land was worth in a presentation last year.

But beyond the much lower than expected price, there are two other aspects of the deal that are both interesting and revealing. Let’s take a look at both and then conclude with ways to invest around the latter theme.

No drilling carry
As Morningstar analyst Mark Hanson points out, the Chesapeake-Sinopec deal marks the first joint venture transaction that Chesapeake has ever done without a drilling carry. The term “drilling carry” refers to an accounting arrangement often used in oil and gas joint ventures, whereby one company acquires a working interest in another company’s oil and gas property and agrees to fund drilling and other expenses related to that property for a predetermined length of time.

Consider Chesapeake‘s transaction with another major Chinese oil company a few years ago. In that deal, which involved the use of a drilling carry, China‘s largest energy producer, CNOOC , purchased a one-third undivided interest in a portion of Chesapeake’s net leasehold acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale

Under the terms of the deal, Chesapeake remained the operator of the project and was responsible for all leasing, drilling, completion, operations, and marketing activities related to the project. However, subject to Chesapeake paying CNOOC an agreed upon $1.08 billion in cash at closing, CNOOC agreed to finance 75% of Chesapeake’s share of drilling and completion expenses.

Not only is the absence of a drilling carry a departure from typical operating procedure for Chesapeake, but also for Sinopec. In previous transactions, the Chinese state-owned oil giant has often made an initial, upfront cash payment and opted to pay the remainder in the form of a drilling carry.

For instance, last year Sinopec acquired a third of Devon Energy‘s equity in shale gas properties located in the Niobrara, Utica, and Tuscaloosa Marine shales, as well as assets located in the Mississippian and the Michigan basin. The acquisition, which cost Sinopec almost $2.5 billion, made use of a drilling carry, allowing Sinopec to fund Devon’s drilling expenses over a defined period of time.

Sinopec’s motives
The Chesapeake-Sinopec transaction was also revealing in highlighting …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

CAPScall of the Week: Sanchez Energy

By Sean Williams, The Motley Fool

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For years, satirical late-night TV host Stephen Colbert has been running a series on his show called “Better Know a District,” which highlights one of the 435 U.S. congressional districts and its representative. While I am no Stephen Colbert, I am brutally inquisitive when it comes to the 5,000-plus listed companies on the U.S. stock exchanges.

That’s why I’ve made it a weekly tradition to examine one seldom-followed company within the Motley Fool CAPS database, and make a CAPScall of outperform or underperform on that company.

For this week’s round of “Better Know a Stock,” I’m going to take a closer look at Sanchez Energy .

What Sanchez Energy does
Sanchez Energy is an oil and gas exploration and production company. Its primary assets are liquid fuels (e.g., oil and liquid natural gas) in the Eagle Ford Shale region, where it holds approximately 95,000 acres. Sanchez also has undeveloped acreage interests in the Bakken Shale and Haynesville Shale. Sanchez currently has 34 wells in operation with an additional 17 in various stages of drilling or completion.

For 2012, Sanchez Energy reported 468.8 million barrels of oil equivalent production, or MBOE, which was a 170% improvement over its production in 2011. Although production volume surged, average production per well dipped as demand dropped and the company spent heavily in bringing 19 new wells online. Revenue for the year grew 197% to $43.2 million despite a dramatic drop in natural gas prices, although the company produced a loss of $0.56 for the year. 

Whom it competes against
As you might imagine, competition is at a premium for acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale. Although natural gas drilling has abated with prices down in the doldrums, NGL and oil drilling remains as profitable as ever. EOG Resources is the king of the Eagle Ford region, having produced in excess of 29.5 million barrels of oil through the first 11 months of 2012. By comparison, Burlington Resources was a distant second at 16.1 million barrels of oil produced. Sanchez is a relative newcomer, so obtaining additional acreage has been difficult.

Unlike its Eagle Ford Shale acreage, which it nearly owns outright, many of its undeveloped acreage is shared interest. Sanchez has 1,500 net acres in the Haynesville Shale region of Louisiana, which it listed in its S-1 prospectus as operated by Chesapeake Energy and EnCana . Neither of these two natural gas behemoths have been looking to splurge recently with natural gas prices down, so this 1,500 acres, while small, could be a troublesome asset to sell if Sanchez has no plans to utilize it.

In the Palmetto region, which is located in the Eagle Ford Shale, it does share a 50/50 working interest with Marathon Oil . With the Palmetto area more rich in volatile oils, it’s not devastating for a company like Sanchez to share its working interests here. The key is that its Maverick region is ripe with black oil, and it …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

The Blessing That is the Eagle Ford Shale

By David Blackmon, Contributor

If you have wondered why the Texas economy has out-performed the rest of the country in recent years, you need look no further than that familiar check mark-shaped portion of South Texas that delineates the boundaries of the Eagle Ford Shale.  It is a blessing for Texas that the first successful Eagle Ford well was drilled in 2008, at about the same time the US economy was falling into a deep recession. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

3 Pipeline Deals to Watch

By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool

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Energy Fools who haven’t been able to tear themselves away from the “will we, won’t we?” Keystone XL drama have missed a fair bit of pipeline news already this week. Though the micro story is limited to the companies involved, the details can point to a bigger picture that can affect all energy investors. Let’s look at some of this week’s action.

Natural gas exports
Kinder Morgan petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for authorization to increase its shipments of natural gas from Texas to Mexico. The company’s Mier-Monterrey pipeline currently ships 425 million cubic feet of gas per day to the Mexican border, where it connects with a Pemex-owned system. Kinder Morgan wants to boost that amount to 700 mmcf per day. The company hopes to have a decision in hand by June 1.

Mexico will be happy to have the gas. Despite the existence of extensive natural gas reserves — the Eagle Ford Shale doesn’t stop at the border, after all — the country doesn’t have the means to produce the commodity for less than it would cost to buy it from the United States. Until Pemex opens its doors to foreign exploration and production investment, the country will have to be content buying gas from across the border.

NGLs on the go
Boardwalk Pipeline Partners is tag-teaming with Williams to build a natural gas liquids pipeline system from the Utica and Marcellus shales down to the Gulf Coast. The Bluegrass Pipeline would connect Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio to the petrochemical and refining hubs in Louisiana and Texas. The system would be part new construction and part conversion of an existing natural gas line, with an initial capacity of 200,000 barrels per day.

The fact that part of the planned route already exists enables the joint venture partners to target a completion date sometime in the second half of 2015. Alan Armstrong, the CEO of Williams, anticipates that liquids production in the two shale plays will overwhelm existing infrastructure by 2016.

1 more MLP?
Western Refining is the latest company to announce that it may pursue a midstream spinoff of its oil and logistics assets. The company is currently evaluating its prospects, and if management decides to pursue this option, Western would file a registration statement with the SEC sometime this year.

The market is ripe for MLP spinoffs, and they’re proving particularly popular with refiners. Marathon Petroleum has succeeded in its spinoff of MPLX, and Phillips 66 isn’t far behind. Western has said its extensive retail network won’t be included in the potential MLP. Instead, potential assets for spinoff include four refined products terminals, four asphalt terminals, and crude oil and products pipelines.

Foolish takeaway
These deals are important for the companies involved, but the big picture matters, too. This week alone we’re reminded that Mexico needs our gas, and if any U.S. E&P ever gets in there it will make …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Inside Kinder Morgan: Natural Gas Pipelines

By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool

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Based on combined enterprise value, Kinder Morgan is the third largest energy company in North America. We tend to associate the giant with its 75,000 miles of pipelines, but in reality, its operations are incredibly diverse. Over the next few days, I’ll take a closer look at each of the midstream company’s five distinct business units. I’ve already tackled the terminals segment, and today we’ll break down the partnership’s natural gas pipeline business.

Background on the assets
Kinder Morgan, together with its master limited partnerships Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and El Paso Pipeline Partners , operates an impressive 62,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, making it the largest natural gas transporter in the United States. The pipelines reach natural gas plays and serve major consuming markets from coast to coast but are concentrated heavily along the southern border of the U.S., from Arizona to Florida. Texas is the epicenter of the partnership’s footprint, yet it’s the company’s East region that’s expected to generate the largest percentage of earnings for the segment in 2013.

Source: Kinder Morgan.

The East segment includes roughly all of Kinder Morgan‘s pipes east of the Mississippi River, from Florida to New Hampshire, while the midstream segment designates the Texas intrastate system. West denotes everything west and north of El Paso, while Central includes everything west of the Mississippi and north of the Texas/Oklahoma border. You can check out the whole map here.

Overall, the segment grew 64% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2012 and $474 million in earnings. Much of that growth can be attributed to the booming Eagle Ford Shale play, and the increase of natural gas used for power generation. Kinder Morgan hopes to continue to drive success here and is in the midst of investing $2.7 billion in its natural gas pipeline assets.

A look ahead
A big part of that investment capital is headed straight for two shale plays: the Marcellus and the Eagle Ford. We’ll get to Texas in a minute, but first let’s tackle the Marcellus, where Kinder Morgan has two of similar looping projects on the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system coming online by the end of November.

The first project is the Marcellus Pooling Point project, an $86 million pipeline expansion that will loop a line in northwest Pennsylvania with 7.9 miles of 30-inch pipe. (Looping means that new pipe will be installed adjacent to the existing line.) It will also feature upgrades to four pumping stations. The new capacity comes in around 240,000 dekatherms per day, which is roughly equal to 2.3 million cubic feet of gas, and it will feed utilities and other connecting pipelines.

The second looping project is the Northeast Upgrade, and it is much more expensive at $450 million. This project will add about 40 miles of 30-inch looped line on the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system and will have a capacity of about 640,000 dekatherms per day, which …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

How ConocoPhillips Is Stopping its Decline in the U.S.

By Matt DiLallo, The Motley Fool

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Recently, I took a look at international projects that ConocoPhillip is developing in order to mitigate the natural decline of its base assets. Despite spending $9 billion to add 170,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, it is not enough to offset the decline of those assets. The good news is that Conoco’s development projects in the U.S. not only offset declines here in the states, but also offset the declines at its international operations. Let’s drill down into these projects and see how this is possible.

Alaska
Even with spending $2.5 billion in its five-year plan, ConocoPhillips can only mitigate its base decline by 3% per year. That’s actually not a bad decline rate, but it is something that the company will need to make up elsewhere if it plans on growing. Overall, the capital invested will offset about 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production by 2017. The good news is that the rest of its U.S. development capital is being invested to grow production above its decline rates.

Permian Basin
Over the five-year development plan, Conoco will spend about $3 billion on its million net acres in the Permian. By adding 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, Conoco will not only mitigate its base decline, but will see 7% compound annual production growth through 2017. Not only is production growing here, but its oil production will go from about 30% last year, to over 75% of production over the five-year plan. That’s a great showing, with the improvement in oil production the big key here.

The Bakken
With a five-year plan to spend about $4 billion, Conoco has big plans for the Bakken. This capital will drive tremendous production growth of 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and will result in a compound annual production growth rate of 18% through 2017. Again, like the Permian, the production mix will increasingly be oil, with the production mix jumping from 20% oil last year, to a five-year average of more than 80%.

The Bakken is one of the premier oil-levered plays in the U.S. With 2012 production of less than 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Conoco is a smaller player. For perspective, its production in the play is a bit more than Kodiak Oil and Gas , which should end this year at that rate. Even with all the growth, ConocoPhillips’ projected 2017 production of more than 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day will be well short of current top dog Continental Resources , which already sees production topping that mark. Still, the Bakken is a key resource to develop for the company, and this is money well spent.

Eagle Ford
The biggest capital spend will be on developing its position in the Eagle Ford Shale. Conoco’s plan calls for $8 billion to be spent over the course of its five-year development. That will add …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Is the U.S. Gulf Coast the New Cushing?

By Arjun Sreekumar, The Motley Fool

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As the Financial Times wrote last year, the crude oil trade is “in throes of an historic shift.” U.S. Gulf Coast refiners, which had relied on imports of light sweet crude oil from OPEC nations for years, have drastically reduced such imports, courtesy of rising domestic oil production.

A number of pipeline projects – some already in service and others expected to come on line this year – will provide Gulf Coast refiners with more oil than they ever dreamed of, flowing from major production centers like the Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian Basin.

According to some experts, this sharp increase in pipeline capacity to the Gulf could overwhelm local refineries, many of which are ill-equipped to process the lighter grades of crude oil flowing from the Eagle Ford and the Permian.

They argue that this coming deluge of crude to the Gulf will turn the region into the new Cushing, with major consequences for domestic crude oil prices. Let’s take a closer look.

Gulf Coast light oil imports fall
As the production of light oil has increased drastically over the past five years, led by increases in production from the Eagle Ford, the Bakken, and the Permian Basin, Gulf Coast refineries have become less reliant on foreign light crudes from places like Nigeria.

In fact, light crude imports processed in the U.S. Gulf Coast, or PADD 3, fell to less than 0.8 million barrels per day in the first half of 2012 from an average 1.2 million barrels per day in 2010. Tellingly, Phillips 66 recently announced that it expects to process 80% more domestic crude this year than it did in 2012.

And Marathon Petroleum also plans on using much greater quantities of North American crude, having recently boosted capacity at its Detroit refinery by 13%, to 120,000 barrels per day, in order to process Canadian heavy crude, which is even cheaper than Bakken and other grades of domestic crude. Both companies reported fourth-quarter earnings that blew Wall Street estimates out of the water, due largely to their increased access to heavily discounted inland crudes.

New pipeline capacity
Going forward, this trend is expected to continue as increasing pipeline capacity delivers vast quantities of light, sweet crude to Gulf Coast refiners. For instance, the expansion of the West Texas Gulf Pipeline, the Longhorn reversal project, and the first and second phases of the Sunoco Logistics Permian Express Pipeline – all slated for completion this year or the next – are expected to provide a substantial boost to takeaway capacity from the Permian Basin.

Similarly, new projects serving the Eagle Ford region are also expected to go on line this year, though several major ones have already been completed. For instance, one of the biggest pipelines serving this play, the Eagle Ford Enterprise pipeline, went into service last year.

The 147-mile pipeline runs from Lyssy, Texas, to Sealy, Texas, with a targeted capacity of 350,000 barrels per day. At Sealy, the pipeline connects …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

1 Energy Stock to Avoid

By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool

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Shares of midstream company NuStar Energy fell after an analyst at Credit Suisse downgraded NuStar from neutral to underperform. Is now the time to bail? Or did the 7% drop in price create a buying opportunity? Let’s take a closer look at NuStar and the reasons behind the downgrade.

A quick look at NuStar
The San Antonio-based master limited partnership has operations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but unlike almost all other midstream companies, also offers investors international exposure with assets in the Netherlands, the U.K., the Caribbean, and Turkey.

The company’s assets include 87 terminals with about 96 million barrels of storage capacity, and 8,634 miles of crude oil and refined products pipelines. Its best performing business unit is its transportation segment, which generated $47.95 million in operating income for the fourth quarter of 2012.

By most accounts, NuStar did not have a great fourth quarter. In an effort to move more toward fee-based revenue — which is reliable and correlates to a reliable distribution — the partnership is going through a bit of a restructuring. It sold its asphalt and fuels refinery in San Antonio and is refocusing on storage and transportation business, specifically targeting the Eagle Ford Shale for acquisition and organic growth opportunities.

The drop
The Credit Suisse downgrade comes on the heels of a NuStar SEC filing that intimates TexStar wants out of the second half of its $100 million deal to sell assets to NuStar. After successfully acquiring a crude oil pipeline, gathering, and storage assets, the pending acquisition of a natural gas liquids pipeline is now up in the air, and NuStar is evaluating its legal options. According to Bloomberg, Credit Suisse analyst Brett Reilly fears a failure to acquire these TexStar assets will force NuStar to cut its distribution.

Right now, NuStar sports an 8.7% yield and an annualized distribution of $4.38 per unit, which is one of the higher yields going in an industry known for its payouts. However, NuStar’s distribution coverage for the fourth quarter was not ideal, coming in at 0.67 times, slightly better than its full year coverage of 0.63 times. Compare that to the full-year or fourth-quarter distribution coverage for other midstream players:

  • Plains All American , full year 1.51 times 
  • Kinder Morgan Energy Partners , fourth quarter 1.16 times 
  • Enterprise Products Partners , full year 1.3 times

Anything over 1.0 is a strong coverage ratio, anything below it calls into question a partnerships ability to continue to pay its distribution, so the downgrade from Credit Suisse does not seem that unwarranted.

Foolish takeaway
This may be rock bottom for NuStar, and while I certainly wouldn’t advocate buying it right now, I do think the focus on fee-based revenue and building out its Eagle Ford assets bode well for the future. The first-quarter earnings call should give investors some more insight about the future of NuStar, regardless of what happens with the TexStar NGL pipe.

Enterprise Products Partners had a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance