Random Soundbites From Ten Companies Operating in Oklahoma; Some Interest to Those In the Bakken

NewsOK.com provides short sound bites from ten companies attending recent luncheon talking about regional plans (in Oklahoma City. They spoke to a packed house at Quail Creek Country Club):

• Chesapeake: most active driller in the US; 161 active rigs last year; ramp up to 165 this year; going through "massive reallocation effort" to shift its focus to oil and liquids rich resource plays; "soon" CHK will have just 23 rigs drilling for gas
• SandRidge Energy: has completed its switch to oil and liquids; 23 rigs and ramping up to 33 rigs; southern Kansas is in play; will drill 384 horizontal wells in the Mississippian oil play (northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas)
• Devon Energy: almost all wells being drilled are horizontal; "oil is king"
• Apache Corp: will also ramp up operations in Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle; doubled its acreage with acquisition of Cordillera Energy Partners; will also keep promoting natural gas
• Linn Energy, Unit Corp, SM Energy, and QEP Resources complete the ten that attended the luncheon, updating their activity in Oklahoma

Without question, CHK is the one to watch.  I believe CHK has one rig in North Dakota (it owns a subsidiary with additional rigs in North Dakota, so I have to be careful how I write that); it plans to ramp up to 165 rigs (almost all will be drilling for oil); CHK has 100's of thousands of acreage in North Dakota; there are not a whole lot of oily plays in the US right now: Bakken, Utica, Eagle Ford, Niobrara?