Key questions and answers from the fourth quarter fiscal 2007 earnings call conducted by EOG Resources Inc on February 8, 2008.
David Kistler (Simmons & Company International): Looking at the Barnett infrastructure issues versus the growing liquids production, what are the possible areas of operational concern?
Mark G Papa: We are currently in good shape. As far as getting the gas out of the Barnett area, we have firm transportation. The fields run across the central and south Gulf area and this allows us to move the bulk of our production for sale at our locations like Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Getting the gas out of the area and avoiding the depressed prices in the local areas is not a challenge.
As far as getting the pipeline infrastructure out in the western counties, we are doing well and our infrastructure is in good shape as well. Concerning the processing plants, we only started putting through a lot of our gas in the fourth quarter hence the jump in the quarter NGOs. At the moment, I don’t anticipate bottlenecks in the processing plants and our Barnett downstream infrastructure is in good shape.
Joseph Allman (J P Morgan): What is the specific data concerning the recent Bakken wells?
Mark G Papa: The total number of wells is 10. The deliveries are in line with our expectations. Going forward, we expect that total company crude oil production will grow at a disproportionately higher rate in 2009 and 2010 driven by the Bakken Plays.
Joseph Allman (J P Morgan): What is the highest expected initial production in the area?
Mark G Papa: A production of about 2,000 barrels a day is the best we have seen for the best wells in the Austin area. The Austin area, which is in the Northern part relative to most of our concentrated drilling, appears to be particularly attractive.
Joseph Allman (J P Morgan): What is the current cost environment with regards to drilling?
Mark G Papa: We are seeing a bit of decline in the Rig rates and stimulation costs. This is a result of added rigs and additional competition in the stimulation market. I can say the cost for 2008 may be about 5% to 10% less than 2007.
Ellen Hannan (Bear Stearns): Are you retaining any deep rights in the Appalachian properties targeted for sale?
Mark G Papa: We are retaining the deep rights in all the shallow gas production areas including the minerals that we own.
Gil Yang (Citigroup): You mentioned the company will be putting capital in midstream plants and assets. How will you bring capital into those assets that affect your returns on a long-term basis?
Mark G Papa: Our returns are commensurate with our drilling and production related investments. I have been surprised at how high the reinvestment rate of return on these midstream assets has been. It may be that we are picking certain areas or that the midstream is a very strong return area.
Gil Yang (Citigroup): Your rate of return highlights for Barnett and Bakken are spread from 40% to 100%. Are you getting incremental rates of return?
Mark G Papa: They are not approaching 100%, but 40% is more realistic.
Brian Singer (Goldman Sachs): Looking at the Western extension county, is the liquid production in line with your growing production or it has exceeded initial expectation?
Mark G Papa: The significance of the NGO impact has been a surprise to us in the past year with the net result of a higher NGO having improved the economics in the Western Counties. NGO prices generally track the oil process and last year was characterized by a considerable increase in oil prices, which had the effect of pushing the NGO prices up to higher levels than previously expected. Comparing with the last two years, we know where we will be extracting NGOs though the differential in relative value of the NGOs against the residue gas was not significant. Currently, the relative value of the NGO is considerably higher than the residue gas.
The residue gas is trading at around 50% to the equivalent of crude oil and the impact of stripping out hose liquids has given us an indirect oil price increase through the NGO, which has boosted the economics of Western Johnson County and all the western counties given that they knew the gas was very rich.
Brian Singer (Goldman Sachs): What were your major contributors to the better than expected performance in the Barnett over the last year? |