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Sunday, January 16, 2011

Recycling Waste Water to Potable Water

I have not heard of any talk about recycling waste water into potable water instead of disposing it down salt water disposal wells, but I said I would post the question, just in case I'm missing something.

Has anyone heard of any talk about recycling waste water following fracking?

For Investors Only: Newfield Update

[For newbies: a reminder that there were reasons why the Bakken was developed so quickly; why it is a "boom." One should not expect similar "boom" activity in Alberta Bakken or Texas' Eagle Ford, though I could be wrong.]

ORIGINAL POSTING

I've mentioned several times on this blog, as an investor, I missed opportunities in Newfield. I assume it's because I had not heard of Newfield while growing up in the Williston Basin. Of course, I had not heard of CLR or BEXP either but there has been a lot written in the North Dakota press about those two companies in the past couple of year; not so for NFX.

In addition, I don't recall seeing Newfield when I did my first extensive review of what was happening in the Bakken when I read a year or two-years worth of back issues of the Rocky Mountain Oil Journal (RMOJ) when I was in Williston back in 2008.

Maybe there's a reason I didn't see them in the RMOJ in 2008. If you look at the history of Newfield, you will see they entered the Rocky Mountain area in 2007, but that might not have caught my eye in the RMOJ in the summer of 2008. If I was looking at cumulative producing by company ranking, Newfield would have been very, very low on the list. (I seem to recall that BR was at the top of the rankings for production at that time; I could be wrong.)

In addition, in that history, Newfield says it exited 2008 with total proved reserves of 2.95 Tcfe. Nearly 90% of these reserves were located onshore U.S. These reserves were 72% natural gas and approximately 62% proved developed. Although volumes were improving in oil, they still stressed that volumes were improving in Woodford Shale, in Oklahoma, which I believe is a natural gas field. Thus, even if I  had seen it, I would have seen Newfield as a natural gas company. I was not interested in natural gas companies.  I was interested in the Bakken, which is oil. Sweet oil.

Three things excite me about Newfield:
  • First, they have 271,000 net acres in the Bakken, and it's all "good" acreage;
  • Second, they are headquartered in Houston, Texas, and, as such, probably know a thing about the next big oil field, the Eagle Rock, south of San Antonio, which they are now in; and,
  • Third, like EOG and other natural gas companies, they have put the brakes on natural gas exploration and production and are focused on oil (see slide 12 of current presentation)
These are my unknowns:
  • To what extent natural gas will impact their bottom line as they transition to oil
  • To what extent do their holdings in the Bakken impact their bottom line
Most exciting:
  • It's possible that Eagle Ford is where the Bakken was in 2006. Opportunities like this don't often strike twice.
Take a look at Newfield's most recent corporate presentation. Here are some takeaways (this is from the BMO Capital Markets, January 11, 2011, slide presentation; I am posting this on January 16, 2011, so currency could not be better).

Corporate Presentation, January 11, 2011

Slide 2: Maverick Basin in Eagle Ford -- it practically screams out at you what their focus is

Slide 3: 335,000 net acres for $209 million ($600/acre) -- someone check my math
  • This is what acreage was selling for in the ND Bakken in 2007; now it's $5,000 or more/acre
  • Acquired in February, 2010
  • Confirmed hydrocarbon presence throughout the field
  • API is 30 - 50 (I believe this will be defined as sweet oil, comparable to Bakken oil)
Slide 5: Geology of the Maverick Basin in the Eagle Ford
  • Total depth: 3,000 to 7,000 feet
  • EUR/well: 200 - 400 thousand bbls of oil equivalent (significantly less than core Bakken wells)
  • Cost per well completion: $5.5 million (slide 6)
Slide 6: IPs and plans for 2 - 3 rigs in 2011 (not a very big program; just starting); 20 - 25 Eagle wells
  • They do  have a hydraulic fracture service contract in place for 2011-12 (lessons learned from the Bakken)
Slide 10: Williston Basin -- 271,000 net acres; prospects -- includes Montana's Elm Coulee
  • Big Valley: Divide County, north of Williston, 48K net acres (19%) [February, 2012: ~ 35,000 acres sold to CLR?]
  • Catwalk: Williams County, northeast of Williston, 29K net acres (11%)
  • Westberg Prospect: Nesson Anticline, 10K net acres (4%)
  • Aquarium/Watford: Watford area, just west of Nesson anticline; 22K net acres (8%)
  • Lost Bear: Fort Berthold Indian Reservation; 7K net acres (3%)
  • Elm Coulee: Montana, where it all started; 55K net acres (20%)
  • Other, exploratory: all inside Bakken; 100K net acres (37%)
  • IPs: range between 2,500 and 3,500 with occasional outliers of 1,200
Slide 13: Alberta Bakken (this is a new venture)
  • 260,000 net acres; acquired price not provided but I bet it was less than $600/acre
  • This includes 156,000 net acres, Blackfeet agreement, December, 2009
  • Just getting started
Slide 14: Hedging
  • Collars all the way to $170; fixed price of $87.74 for rest of 2010
  • 3-way collars starting in 2011, through 2013
I do not hold any shares in Newfield at the present time, but am seriously considering it. The purpose of the posting today is I feel I have done NFX a disservice, and certainly my readers a disservice, for missing Newfield. I have talked about it in the past, and  and have some blog postings, but not as many as it probably deserved.

Similarly, perhaps I could say the same about QEP. But now, I'm going to take a break, watch some football, and maybe come back to QEP sometime this 3-day weekend.

Update On the Alaska Pipeline, Currently Closed and Empty -- Not A Bakken Story

Regarding the status of the Alaska pipeline:

Update, January 16, 2011, Sunday a.m.: the pipeline was shut down just after midnight Saturday (that would be early morning Saturday, or early morning Sunday (unclear) -- to me, that would mean early morning Sunday) for repairs. It is expected to remain closed for 36 hours. If so, we should see news reports on/about Tuesday, January 18, 2011, that oil is flowing once again.]

Once Upon a Time North Dakota Was Number One in Transporting Planes to Canada -- No, This Has Nothing To Do With the Bakken

I don't have any idea how to categorize this posting, but it is too good to pass up.

Thank you to a reader for alerting me to it; I would have missed it. It comes from the Bismarck Tribune.

All I can say is this ranks alongside my posting that noted that North Dakota was #1 in the states with regard to Premarin production.

In this case the story still has to do with horses, but not with their waste product.

At one time in North Dakota's history, the state was number one in transporting airplanes to Canada.

You should read the article in its entirety to get the whole story, but without spoiling the ending, here's a 30-second soundbite:
Due to US laws at the outbreak of what would become World War II, it was illegal to fly war material into Canada. As the ending of the article states, a "little Yankee ingenuity and a stout rope" solved that problem.

For Investors Only: Profit Margins for Selected Bakken E&P Companies (2010) -- North Dakota, USA

For background why I am posting this information, you should read the previous post. I am posting this information, not so much to compare company with company, but to hold as a baseline in preparation for future numbers.

When the fourth quarter (calendar) earnings come out this month, it might be (and then again it might not be) enlightening to compare those numbers with past numbers.

The profit margins below were taken from Yahoo!Financial on January 16, 2011. (Market cap in billions in parentheses.) All figures rounded.

CLR ($11): 29
BEXP ($3): 23
WLL ($7): 19
QEP ($7): 15

OAS ($3): -35
KOG ($1): 6

NOG ($1): 23

DNR ($8): 16

NFX ($10): 34
EOG ($26): 9
HES ($27): 7

COP ($100): 6
CVX ($187): 9
XOM ($393): 8

OXY ($79): 22


Comments: 

Oasis is a "new" company, and is two to three years behind "profit margin" statistics compared to the rest. KOG might be one to two years behind the "profit margin" statistics compared to the rest. Their efforts were delayed by bureaucratic issues associated with Fort Berthold Indian Reservation where most of their holdings are.

DNR is focused on enhanced oil recovery, and most of their holdings are outside of North Dakota.

NFX (Newfield) is one I  have overlooked during the entire boom. Shame on me. I will be posting more on Newfield later. For those who are interested, and don't want to wait, you can go to their website. I suggest looking at their history first, and then their current presentation. I don't know to what extent NFX will be affected by the events in the Gulf of Mexico. NFX is a relative newcomer to North Dakota. [NFX has nothing to do with the movie rental business; that would be NFLX. Make a one-letter mistake buying/selling shares on-line and you might be in for a surprise. Just saying.]

For the size of OXY (compare with COP),  I was impressed with OXY's profit margins. Maybe that's why OXY commands the market cap that it does.

It's hard to say how CLR, BEXP, and WLL will do with the next report. BEXP's expenses, I would think, have remained fairly stable, but CLR's expenses, due to increased number of rigs, may affect their profit margins going forward. If CLR's profit margins actually increase, that should speak volumes to a non-business-educated layman like me.

The Importance of Profit Margins in the Bakken

Once in awhile it helps to step back and look at the big picture. The current boom in the North Dakota Bakken began in the 2006 - 2007 time frame.

It is now 2011.

Even the least productive Bakken wells drilled in 2008 and before have now paid for themselves (with some exceptions, I suppose -- more on that later).

Despite the horrendous decline early on, production tends to level off after a time, although continuing to decline at a slower rate. Most experts have opined that Bakken wells could produce for 20 to 30 years.

In addition, even the less productive wells hold the lease simply by continuing to produce. At some point more wells will be drilled in the same spacing unit and/or the original well will be re-fracked.

When I view corporate presentations, I often skip over the bar graphs showing past production and future production. I guess over the years, I have become numb to bar graphs, having seen so many. In addition, these bar graphs don't tell me anything I didn't already know.

What those bar graphs don't show is that a fair amount of that production no longer costs "anything" to produce.

So, what should an investor in the Bakken pay attention to among the larger, more established companies going forward (CLR, BEXP, WLL, OAS, KOG, NOG)? Profit margins.

As more and more of their wells get paid off but continue to produce, all things being equal, profit margins should increase.

Two things, of course, won't remain equal. One is the price of oil and the other is the rate of change in drilling.

CLR says they would like to double the number of rigs over the next 3 - 5 years. Significant increases in rigs will lower the profit margins. Most other Bakken companies plan to increase the number of their rigs but not to the same extent. BEXP said they would bring in one more rig in 2011. KOG will bring in a third rig. NOG has a unique business plan and it's profit margins should be more closely tied to the price of oil.

But wouldn't all companies benefit equally with increase in oil prices, or conversely, suffer equally with decline in prices? No. At the end of the day, it's how well these companies hedge their bets when drawing up contracts for future delivery. Did the Bakken companies see $90 oil a year ago when drawing up contracts for oil to be delivered six months later? For more on hedging see the FAQ tab above; when you get there, search "collars."

Oh, one other thing is not equal. Fracking. The smaller companies are at a disadvantage when it comes to scheduling fracturing or completing the well. But again, that discussion will have to wait another day.

For now, I need to go back and start looking at some profit margin statistics to be ready to compare them with the new numbers that will come out during earnings season. Here those numbers are.