A total of 117 companies from global industry leaders including Royal Dutch Shell (ticker: RBS.A), Halliburton (ticker: HAL) and Petrobras (ticker: PBR), to dozens of E&Ps including Range Resources (ticker: RRC), WPX Energy (ticker: WPX), Cabot Oil & Gas (ticker: COG) and Oasis Petroleum (ticker: OAS), to a select group of privately-held companies like D-J Resources and Fifth Creek Energy, presented their stories to packed rooms and breakout sessions at the EnerCom Oil & Gas Conference 19® at the Denver Downtown Westin this week. On the public company side, market capitalizations ranged from $30 million to $263 billion. More than 2,000 buyside and sellside institutional investors, financial analysts and oil and gas company executives from five continents attended the conference.
Numerous independent exploration and production companies that are focused on drilling and producing oil and gas from the U.S. shale basins presented at the conference. Most of the discussion centered around completions, enhancing recoveries, testing and adjusting new completion technologies to boost production. Shale basins where presenters are operating broke down as follows:
- 22 are operating in the Bakken/Three Forks
- 11 are operating in the Eagle Ford
- 15 are operating in the Marcellus/Utica
- 11 are operating in the Niobrara
- 16 are operating in the Permian
- 3 are operating in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale
- 18 are operating in the Woodford and other Mid-continent
- 5 Enhanced Oil Recovery operators
Other areas of operations for presenting companies included the following:
- 11 Gulf of Mexico/Offshore
- 14 Canada
- 11 International E&Ps
- 3 Other U.S.
Oilfield service and related specialties included the following companies:
- 2 Seismic
- 10 Drilling/Production/Completion/Reservoir Technology and Services
- 2 Water and Fluids Management
To review the webcast presentations for this year’s presenting companies, click here.
Several security analysts published notes during the conference. The following is complements of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey:
“The EnerCom conference in Denver attracted droves of investors packing in to hear the latest details from numerous energy companies. Unlike past years when there seemed by be euphoria across much of the space, investors showed trepidation over various upcoming plays, companies, and wells, mostly due to natural gas price concerns though also showing some oil price and oilfield services cost concerns. Delaware Basin and the TMS seemed to garner the most attention of any plays this year at EnerCom, while the Eagle Ford, Utica and others received less attention due to lack of near term catalysts.
“Searching for any gas bull. During our numerous investor conversations during the first three days of Enercom, we spoke to only one investor that seemed relatively positive over natural gas for the remainder of this year and next. Nearly all investors listed a number of reasons they see natural gas levered stocks continue to be pressured with one investor asking a company about the potential of $2.00/Mcf gas. The lone positive natural gas investor suggested that upcoming seasonal pressure along with limited infrastructure for the commodity could not only cause price spikes, but could cause overall natural gas prices to turn positive in the coming month and remain the same well into next year. However, with the material amount of incremental gas being generated out east, it’s tough for us to see any big move up in prices, cold weather or not.
“No rush to buy oil stocks. Investors focused on oil plays in the western US appeared generally cautious/selective, with a view that macro/service concerns were more immediate than many individual company catalysts. In the DJ and Williston Basins, questions centered on new completion designs and the potential productivity uplift, with investors exhibiting a healthy degree of skepticism. In the Permian, differentials and the broader service environment were front and center, with the days of well watching seemingly fading quickly. Acreage acquisition strategy was also a key topic given the number of $25,000+/acre deals seen in the basin recently.
“Production and infrastructure making various basis differentials noteworthy. The recent success of big new oil wells in the Permian and sizable new gas wells in the Utica/Marcellus have led to a mismatch between the amount of oil or gas being produced and the ability to move it. This has led to big price differentials between various region plays and the key benchmark plays. The price of oil was $73.48 per barrel in Midland on Tuesday versus the benchmark pricing point for U.S. crude contracts in Cushing OK at $94.48 per barrel. The $21 Permian discount was the widest since at least 1991, when regular tracking of the price differential began. And natural gas in the Dominion south market in SW PA currently trades at $2.40/Mcf versus the Henry hub LA price of $3.86/mcf.
“One word: sand. In almost every meeting, the word “sand” was mentioned, whether it was using more sand for completions, the merits of sand versus resin-coated sand or ceramic proppant, sand logistics and potential tightness, etc. It appears sand was tight a few weeks ago owing to logistics but much of those problems seem to have faded with costs relatively unchanged for the time being. We will be watching sand costs and logistics as frack intensity increases but for now our general thought is that the issue seems pretty minor.”
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