Gulfport Energy, an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (“driller”) that is a “top 5” driller in the Ohio Utica Shale, released their fourth quarter 2016 and full year 2016 operational update in mid-January (see Gulfport Energy 2016 Operational Update – Production Up 31%). Gulfport is part of the growing trend to drop one shoe first, then the other. The first shoe is almost always production and operational information (the good news). That doesn’t mean that the financial information is bad news–but sometimes that’s the case. Gulfport dropped the second shoe yesterday, issuing a full report for fourth quarter and full year 2016–operational and financial. On the financial front, Gulfport lost $980 million in 2016, versus losing $1.2 billion in 2015. So the loss was less, but not by much. In addition to looking back, Gulfport issued some forecasts for 2017, including a drilling budget of $1-$1.1 billion…
