During a call today Antero Resources said it plans to keep long-term growth at 20%-25% and slowly move infrastructure out on its recently acquired acreage
During a conference call today following the company’s acquisition of 55,000 acres in the Marcellus, Antero Resources (ticker: AR) said that it plans to have infrastructure follow its rigs from its Tyler Country properties up to Wetzel County.
Questions: You mentioned in the release that $500 million of capital will be spent over five years for gathering, compression process in water, was just hoping to get a sense of any limitations in terms number of rigs that you could operate on the Wetzel County acreage over the next couple of years as its infrastructure is built out?
Glen Warren: That will be a slow step function. I think you can assume that the initial drilling on this acreage will be Tyler County, where it integrates with our current system and drilling and will slowly move up into Wetzel. So, not playing itself out of the middle of Wetzel right away. We want the infrastructure to follow the rigs there and it seem to be a logical build out where the capital is very much just in time with the drilling as we’ve done in the past.
When asked about the growth of inventories following the acquisition, Antero’s management said the deal was very much about expanding its core.
Question: My first question is you were a bit long inventory before. You’re longer now. Should we think of that 25% growth rate as sort of the long-term target or does that need to adjust?
Paul Rady: I think that’s fair. It certainly is always dependent on commodity prices and such, but 20% to 25% is a good longer range forecast, I think, for now based on what we know. So, of course, as we grow our footprint, we also expect to have a commensurate growth and activity on that footprint. We’re not looking to add inventory for year 2015 or 2020 here. It just very much integrates with our existing platform.
