Another Metric To Track Performance Of Bakken-Focused Companies

When the earnings reports start coming out next month, we will be inundated with data points. I have great difficulty tracking all the data points.

I guess if I had only two metrics for Bakken-focused companies the second metric would be related to their daily rate of production, such as  "year-over-year percent growth in production."

Even if I had the data I wouldn't know what to make of it. I don't know what industry standards are.

So, this throw-away Motley Fool article was incredibly useful to me. This data is nothing new; it's easily found at every corporate presentation, but I guess the data was just too overwhelming for me. But now I have a data point that puts things in perspective.

According to Motley Fool,

EOG is expected to deliver best-in-class crude oil growth through 2017. This year the company is expected to grow its oil production by 35%, which is the minimum rate it has delivered since 2010. That's well above Devon for example which is expected to grow its oil production by 16%-19% this year and Occidental which will only grow its oil production by 8% this year. With investors putting such a premium on companies that can grow oil production these days, this is an important consideration.

Note: there are two important data points in the "production-growth metric." Obviously KOG should increase production on a percentage basis at a greater rate than XOM.

KOG, OAS, CLR, and WLL would be in a different class than XOM, CVX, and COP. But if you are a "splitter" and not a "lumper," then even KOG and OAS would be in a different class than WLL and CLR.

This earnings season I'm going to try tracking "production-growth-year-over-year" for the various Bakken-focused operators.

Here's a start, for me.

CLR:

Continental Resources, Inc. expects to increase total crude oil and natural gas production in a range of 26% to 32% in 2014, based on non-acquisition capital expenditures of $4.05 billion.  Continental expects average daily production in 2014 will be in a range of 170,000 to 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent (Boe) per day, with an exit rate for December 2014 of approximately 200,000 Boe per day.

EOG: 

From the Motley Fool article linked above, the company expects a 35% growth rate.

HK:

• 3Q13: 37,707 boed/d (an increase of 237% yoy; guiding >40% production growth in 2014

KOG: 

• 3Q13: 35,400 boepd; 125% production increase year-over-year (3Q12 - 3Q13)
• 2Q13: 23,500 boepd -- an 88% increase in production  year-over-year; (if I did the math correctly and read the corporate graphic correctly -- big "ifs")
• 2Q12: 12,500 boe/d

OAS:

Increased average daily production to 30,171 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a 48% increase over the second quarter of 2012