Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Betting The Farm? September 22, 2021

COP's acqusition of Concho and Shell assets in the Permian in 2021 will be followed here.

Updates

September 26, 2021: break-even, $13-WTI / bbl.

September 23, 2021: COP looking to sell some of its conventional oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin.

Original Post 

I track COP indirectly here. Dividend history here. PSX, a spioff back in 2012, has had a spectacular dividend history until recently.

All of a sudden, COP is making headline news. 

Reuters provides a nice synopsis. Data points and comments from the article:

  • ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Ryan Lance on Monday doubled down on U.S. shale and the world's continued demand for oil with his second blockbuster acquisition in less than a year.
  • His $9.5 billion purchase of Royal Dutch Shell's West Texas properties, nine months after closing a $13.3 billion deal for Concho Resources, puts the company's future squarely in shale after exiting Canada's oil sands, U.S. offshore and British North Sea fields.
  • With Shell's assets, Conoco gets more than 10 years of output and rewards shareholders willing to stick with fossil fuels, said Lance.
  • Lance, who became CEO in 2012, joins Chevron and Exxon Mobil in rejecting the shift to solar, wind and batteries embraced by European oil majors. Shareholders want the company to focus on its strengths, he said.

It's going to be very, very interesting to see the free cash flow for oil and gas companies 3Q21 and 4Q21. I think the headlines are going to be incredible. 

Of the 515 permits announced so far in 2021 in North Dakota, BR has only fifteen of those permits. There is nothing to suggest BR will be stepping up activity in the Bakken this year or next year with regard to more permitting. Simply too much to do in the Permian and the Bakken seems to be pretty much on auto-pilot.

For 2020, there were 758 oil and gas permits announced in North Dakota. BR accounted for 110 of them. Pretty respectable. Of the first 51 BR permits/wells I checked for 2020, sixteen of them were DUCs. I'll complete the list later. But 16 / 51 = 32%.

2 comments:

  1. BR plans to add 2 rigs in the Bakken in January 2022.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, much appreciated. With the backlog of DUCs in the Bakken and all the new work in the Permian, this really surprises me, but it certainly suggests to me, that like Oasis, BR is finding that return on investment in the Bakken is really quite rewarding. Thank you.

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