For Investors Only: DNR, OKE, SD, SRE All Report Earnings Today; SD Has Great Report; Samson Oil & Gas Provides Operational Update In The Bakken; Transcripts And More

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you may have read here.

These three companies were among many that traded at new highs today: WFT (Weatherford), MSFT (Microsoft), and FSLR (First Solar).

Seven companies announced increased dividends/distributions today.

Conference calls:

• Halcon
• DNR

Earnings:

• DNR: net income, 28 cents; adjusted net income, 45 cents; share price rising
• OKE: beats by 5 cents; see below
• SD: beats by 5 cents; see below
• SRE: "solid" -- see below
• TRP: beats by 10 cents; misses on revenue (think Keystone)

More on OKE:

ONEOK beats by $0.05; narrows FY13 net income guidance: Reports  3Q13 adj. earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30. 

More on SD:

SandRidge Energy beats by $0.05, beats on revs: Reports 3Q13 earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.02; revenues fell 7.4% year/year to $493.6 mln vs the $481.71 mln consensus. 

More on DNR:

CEO: Rocky Mountain operations reached a significant milestone in the third quarter with our first Rocky Mountain tertiary oil production sales. We anticipate the planned expansion of our carbon dioxide flood at Bell Creek Field to drive tertiary oil production growth from that field for many years to come. 

More on SRE:

SRE reported third-quarter 2013 earnings of $296 million, or $1.19 per diluted share, up from $268 million, or $1.09 per diluted share in the third quarter 2012.

Sempra Energy's third-quarter 2012 earnings included a charge of $60 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, related to a write-down on Sempra U.S. Gas & Power's minority stake in the Rockies Express Pipeline.  On an adjusted basis, third-quarter 2012 earnings were $328 million, or $1.33 per diluted share.

For the first nine months of 2013, Sempra Energy's earnings were $719 million, or $2.89 per diluted share, compared with $566 million, or $2.31 per diluted share, in the first nine months of 2012.

Over at Yahoo!In-Play:

Samson Oil & Gas provides operations update on its North Dakota Project: Co provides the following update: North Stockyard Project, Williams County, North Dakota

Little Creature 1-15-14H (SSN WI 27.7%):
As previously reported the 7 inch casing string was set and cemented at 11,855 feet, and the lateral portion of Little Creature 1-15-14H well has now been drilled to the planned total depth of 19,430 feet. The lateral portion was drilled wholly within the target zone in the middle Bakken Formation. Currently the well is being prepared to run the production liner.

Blackdog 3-13-14H (SSN WI 25.03%)
Following the setting of the production liner in the Little Creature well, the Frontier 24 rig will move back to the Tofte 1 pad and begin drilling operations on Blackdog 3-13-14H. This well will be a middle Bakken lateral and is expected to follow the previously planned Swan trajectory that is the infill location between the Rodney 1-14H well (SSN WI 27.18%) and the Sail and Anchor 1-13-14HBK well (SSN WI 25.03%).

Frac operations Tofte 2 pad
Following the completion of running the production liner on Little Creature, the Tofte 2 pad will be turned over to fracture stimulation operations associated with the three wells on that pad. This will include Coopers (SSN WI 27.7%), Tooheys (SSN WI 27.7%), and Little Creature (SSN WI 27.7%). Operations are currently expected to commence on November 18th and to be completed by early December.

Bluff #1-11 (SSN WI 66%)
Construction of the access road to the Bluff #1-11 well site has commenced. A concrete slab has been constructed across an existing pipeline to allow for access to the drill site. After the concrete has cured, the balance of the road and drill pad will be built. Drilling operations are expected to commence towards the end of November.

Tuesday -- The Genie Cannot Be Put Back Into The Bottle

Active rigs: 181

The Wall Street Journal

Blackberry has abandoned its plan to sell itself. And that was the top story, front page of the WSJ. That tells me that all is right with the world, if that's the lead story.

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This, of course, was predictable. I was blogging about this from the beginning. If folks understand how insurance works, they understand that ObamaCare will implode unless the program is significantly changed. At this point, about the only thing I see working is for the government to become the single payer, as in National Health Insurance, modeled on Great Britain's great success story. The genie cannot be placed back in the bottle.

Here's the WSJ story: the young are avoiding signing up for health care plans. 

Insurers say the early buyers of health coverage on the nation's troubled new websites are older than expected so far, raising early concerns about the economics of the insurance marketplaces. [The experience in Wisconsin: the median age has risen from 41 to 51. Not trivial.]

If the trend continues, an older, more expensive set of customers could drive up prices for everyone, the insurers say, by forcing them to spread their costs around. "We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we're not seeing that right now," said Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual of Ohio, the state's largest insurer by individual customers. "We're seeing the population skewing older."

And this, of course:

The law bars insurers from charging sicker customers higher rates, and limits the amount they can charge older people compared with younger ones. It offers new subsidies to help cover premiums available to many lower-income applicants. Insurers are relying on a steady stream of younger, healthier enrollees to offset medical bills of older, sicker customers.

One of the "fun" things about ObamaCare is exactly what Nancy Pelosi said: we really won't know what is in the bill until it is passed and goes into effect. I knew that the law barred insurers from charging sicker customers higher rates, but I did not know there was actually a "delta limiter" on charges based on age, sort of like restrictor plates on NASCAR stock cars. LOL. 

A companion article which we could see as early as tomorrow is this: the healthy are avoiding signing up for health care plans.

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By the way, again for the date-time stamp bragging rights: not signing up for ObamaCare will be the largest act of social disobedience ever seen in this country. Even my wife, a strong supporter of Mr Obama some years ago, says she would not sign up for ObamaCare. She says this is not an "act of civil disobedience," it's just common sense (not to sign up). She, apparently, does not understand ObamaCare is the law of the land and not signing up for it is an act of civil disobedience. Okay, I've made my point. Let's see if anyone picks up on this a year from now.

By the way, the largest act of civil disobedience in this country is driving over the speed limit on the federal interstate highway system. Probably in second place is failure to pay taxes on profits made from selling illicit drugs. 

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There were no stories on Syria in the front page of the on-line edition of the WSJ.

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Wow, this is interesting. I was not aware of this story: Weatherford International CEO Bernard Duroc-Danner is trying to save the company, and making an unusually forthright mea culpa. So far, the results of his reinvention have been mixed.

On Monday, the company reported relatively flat third-quarter revenue of $3.82 billion as earnings fell 69% to $22 million, or three cents a share, from $70 million, or nine cents a share, a year earlier. The company also said it hired a chief financial officer.

But investors are still smarting from the company's earlier missteps, which slashed the company's stock-market valuation by $7 billion in less than two years, to $12.6 billion.
Bill Herbert, an analyst at investment bank Simmons & Co., said Weatherford is emerging from "the crisis management bunker."

"I don't think there's any question as to their survivability now," he said. "Last year they had cancer. Now the cancer's gone into remission."

Cobbled together from more than 100 acquisitions over two decades, Weatherford became a smaller rival to oil-field services behemoths such as Schlumberger Ltd.  and Halliburton Co., with an expertise in wringing more fossil fuels from aging fields.

Weatherford has a huge footprint in the Bakken. Huge. 

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Not citing ObamaCare, Kellogg announced it will cut 7% of its workforce by 2017.

WSJ: "don't be shocked if Tesla beats forecasts."

KOG's Earnings Transcript Over At SeekingAlpha; Chevrolet Volt Sales Drop 32% September, 2013, Over September, 2012

Transcript here.

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On another note:

Sales of the Chevrolet Volt in September, 2013, experienced a 31.7% decrease, over similar period in 2012 (September, 2012)

Overall, 2013 total sales stand at 18,782, as compared to 19,309 – down more than 500 units or 2.7%.

I maintain the all-EV niche is for the upper middle class or the simply rich with at least two non-EVs who can show a need for an all-EV for daily commutes of less than 50 miles round trip. The simply rich (Bakken millionaires), the mega-rich (Jay Leno), and the hyper-rich (Warren Buffett) will tend toward the Tesla. 

Really Cool: Rig Productivity -- A New Metric

A few weeks ago I noted in a post that there was either a typo or a new metric. It turned out to be a new metric: rig productivity.

I was particularly happy to see this because I had blogged about this two years ago on one or two occasions. I was trying to find the right word. There was a discussion over at the "old" Bakken Shale Discussion Group about "efficiency" of drilling by different operators in the Bakken. I didn't care for the word "efficient." An operator could be really efficient drilling dry wells. LOL.

So, I went with "effectiveness." I noted that the new H&P flex rigs would be much more effective than the standard, conventional rigs previously used in the Williston Basin.

Then a week or so ago, the US EIA actually talked about the very same phenomenon. If the spirit moves me, I will link my original post. But again, I think I was the first person outside the oil and gas industry to note the need for a new metric: rig effectiveness.

So, today, RBN Energy has a long discussion of this very subject. Again, very, very impressive. Anyone seriously interested in the shale revolution in the US, should be reading RBN Energy daily.

Last month the Energy Information Administration (EIA) debuted a new monthly report detailing oil and gas drilling productivity in six of the largest US production basins. Rather than just being an “after the fact” report telling us what happened in the past, the new report provides a forecast of oil and gas production for the current and next month out in each of the six basins. The initial report indicates that oil production will increase by roughly 60 Mb/d in these basins during November with gas production increasing by 0.4 Bcf/d. The report also highlights continued improvement in rig productivity. Today we begin a series interpreting the new drilling rig productivity data.

Random Look At Some Wells That Were Re-Entered Or Re-Fracked

I track re-entry wells here.

I also track re-completion wells.

I definitely miss many re-entry / re-completion wells. And I probably mix some of them up, calling some re-entry when they are really re-ecompletion, and vice versa. I'm not even sure how important the distinction is, if any.

BR has permits for two new re-entry wells in yesterday's daily activity report.

Here are three examples of re-entry wells, with the change in production during the appropriate period.

First:

• 21513, 23, KOG, Smokey 3-6-7-14HS, t2/12; cum 55K 9/13:

BAKKEN	4-2013	30	11413	11443	15372	20171	19911	170
BAKKEN	3-2013	20	11362	10894	20838	18067	10427	7581
BAKKEN	2-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2012	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2012	1	14	158	30	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2012	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2012	1	35	0	3	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2012	20	265	440	234	137	0	77
BAKKEN	7-2012	2	38	0	87	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2012	1	144	0	40	2	0

Second:

• 18987, 223, KOG, Two Shields Butte 14-21-16-2HS, t4/11; cum 211K 9/13:

BAKKEN	4-2013	30	29922	29870	11756	19524	6877	12557
BAKKEN	3-2013	30	39986	39636	33530	22340	0	22251
BAKKEN	2-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2012	1	1	75	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2012	20	1478	1731	30	1118	0	1058
BAKKEN	10-2012	31	2354	2081	20	1760	0	1668
BAKKEN	9-2012	30	2050	2359	28	1596	0

Third:

• 17602, 215, CLR, Charlie Bob Creek 1-25TH, Ranch Coulee, t12/08, cum 62K 9/13:

BAKKEN	2-2013	28	5377	5440	3185	4792	4792	0
BAKKEN	1-2013	11	3469	3118	2521	2779	2779	0
BAKKEN	12-2012	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2012	6	45	367	92	29	29	0
BAKKEN	10-2012	31	310	225	437	122	122	0
BAKKEN	9-2012	21	250	225	337	111	111	0