Southwestern Cuts 2016 Spending 80%, Idles Marcellus Rigs (for Now)

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As we highlighted last Friday, Southwestern Energy reported a large paper loss of $4.6 billion for 2015, but also reported an increase in production of 27% over 2014 (see Southwestern Energy 2015: Record Production, Big Paper Loss). As part of the quarterly dog and pony show, Southwestern (like every other driller) hosted an analyst phone call to accompany the release of their numbers. As sometimes happens, further details came out on the phone call that weren’t evident in the official update. For example, in 2016 Southwestern currently does not plan to drill any new wells in the Marcellus/Utica. They have “idled” all of their drilling rigs. Southwestern CEO Bill Way said he specifically used the word idled because they are waiting to restart them when/if prices pick up again. The current plan is to complete 20-30 wells in the northeast, in the southwest and northeast Marcellus–and then wait and see what happens with prices…

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