Chesapeake -- Drilling Cheaper WIth Own RIgs -- Others Noticing? -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

From today's (July 29, 2011) conference call with Chesapeake:

Jeffrey Robertson - Barclays Capital
And then secondly, on the rig increases that you outlined, Aubrey. Can you talk about how much of that is or would be supplied by redirecting gas rigs you all currently own, or do you all need to build new rigs? Or do you have enough with Bronco to meet most of your needs in -- or -- over the next several years?
Aubrey McClendon
Yes, good question, Jeff. We typically set out to be able to meet about 2/3 of our drilling needs by our own fleet. So today -- Steve, we have 115? So we are at 115 and we're drilling with 168 rigs, 167, whatever the number is. So we're probably a little short of the 67% mark. So over time, we'll continue to add rigs as we have in the past, and I think we'll probably end up doing those organically. I think since we bought Bronco, the Rowan wet rigs went through much more than what we paid for the Bronco rigs, and we think probably, organically, it's the best way to do that. So we'll continue to add, but I don't think it's anything spectacular. But we do -- I would move you back to Nick's comment that on a recent analysis of our wells in the Eagle Ford, we can drill about 20% cheaper than others in the industry when we integrate our services. One other thing we haven't talked about this morning, but just to alert everybody, we will roll out, on October 1, the first parts of our initial 250,000-horsepower fracture pressure pumping fleet, and so we'll be pumping our first wells in the first couple of weeks of October. So another way we are addressing oilfield inflation, and we'll do that through additional rigs, we'll do it through more horsepower. Remember, we need about probably 1 million horsepower a day. And so that would give us the opportunity to build a pretty significant pressure pumping fleet over time.

That Q&A reminded me of this posting back in April, 2011, in which CHK announced that it had bought Bronco Drilling as part of its program noted above in the Q&A.

I normally wouldn't think much about that except for the fact that there are dots to connect with regard to Pride Energy -- Cyclone  -- Continental Resources.

When CHK says they drill about 20% cheaper than others in the industry when they integrate their services, Harold Hamm has to be listening. As well as other big producers in the Bakken.