Antero Resources

Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources Stands Above the Rest – Nets $941M in 2015
February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

There’s at least one driller that’s figured out how to continue making money in one of the worst down markets in two generations: Antero Resources. Antero released their “good news” operational update back in January (see Antero Resources 4Q15 Update: NatGas Sales Averaged $4.40/Mcf). Earlier this month the company issued an update for 2016 that they will cut back spending by 23% (far less than others) with plans to drill 110 wells this year in the Marcellus/Utica (see Antero Resources 2016: Spending 23% Less, Drilling 110 Wells). We thought for sure when they finally got around to sharing their financial numbers it would be red as far as the eye can see. Nope! Yesterday Antero, one of the biggest and best drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, released their fourth quarter and full year 2015 financial update. And guess what? They made more money last year than the year before! Three years ago Antero lost $18.9 million. Two years ago, after expenses, Antero made $674 million. Last year, in 2015, Antero made, after expenses, $941 million. That’s nearly $1 billion in profit! Other drillers need to study Antero closely to see what they’re doing right…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources 2016: Spending 23% Less, Drilling 110 Wells
February 18, 2016February 18, 2016

In January Antero Resources, one of the biggest and best drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, released their fourth quarter and full year operational (not financial) update for 2015 (see Antero Resources 4Q15 Update: NatGas Sales Averaged $4.40/Mcf). Antero still hasn’t released their 4Q15 and full 2015 financial update, but yesterday the company did release their 2016 capital budget and guidance. Lots of interesting details, like this: Antero will spend $1.4 billion in 2016 on drilling, down 23% from the $1.8 billion they spent in 2015; they plan to complete a staggering 110 wells in 2016 and by the end of the year they will have 70 wells drilled but not completed (DUCs); of the $1.4 billion they’re spending in 2016, $1.3 is for drilling and completions, and $100 million is for new or renewed lease deals. Here’s the full 2016 looking forward update from Antero…
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Antero Resources | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Landfills | Wastewater | West Virginia

Antero Plans Salt Landfill Next to Proposed Wastewater Recycling Plant
February 16, 2016February 16, 2016

In August of last year, MDN told you that one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, Antero Resources, floated the idea of building a $275 million state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant in Doddridge County, WV (see Antero Building New 60K Bbl Wastewater Recycling Facility in WV). The new plant, which will process 60,000 barrels of wastewater per day, will save Antero $150,000 per well in completion costs once it’s up and running. Antero tapped French company Veolia to engineer and build the plant (see French Company Confirms Building $275M Wastewater Plant for Antero). The plant will go online in late 2017. The new news is that last week Antero filed for a permit to build a landfill next to the wastewater plant. The wastewater plant will separate water, salt and radioactive particles. The salt can be sold to municipalities for use as road salt–but frankly there’s not enough of a market to sell it all. And not all of it will be of sufficient quality to be sold that way. So Antero needs a place to dispose of it–hence the $20 million landfill proposal…
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Antero Resources | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Senate Bill Stops Frivolous Nuisance Lawsuits Against Drillers
February 16, 2016February 16, 2016

There’s been an interesting twist in pack of so-called “nuisance” lawsuits filed against Antero Resources in West Virginia (see Scores of “Nuisance” Lawsuits Against WV Drillers Combined). As we reported, more than 200 residents in WV (likely those who don’t own the mineral rights under their land) began filing “scores” of “nuisance” lawsuits over the past couple of years against Antero Resources and Hall Drilling, in places like Doddridge County. The lawsuits claim excessive traffic, odors and noise from nearby drilling make it “impossible” for them to enjoy their homes. The individual lawsuits were rolled up into one mega lawsuit that, at the time, sat before the WV Mass Litigation Panel. More recently it seems the mass lawsuit was transferred to Ohio Circuit Court (see More People Pile on Antero, Seek to Join Mass “Nuisance” Lawsuit). The strategy by anti-drillers is to form a piranha-like school of fish to attack a large mammal and kill it with thousands of tiny bites. But a problem has appeared for the antis. A bill was just introduced in the WV Senate on Feb. 4, Senate Bill (SB 508) that defines what, exactly, a nuisance is for the purposes of such lawsuits. In other words, legislators are about to plug a hole being exploited by antis–and the antis are squealing like stuck pigs…
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Antero Resources | Crestwood Midstream | Energy Companies | Energy Services

Is Crestwood Exploring Sale of Marcellus Assets to Antero?
February 4, 2016February 4, 2016

The following is highly speculative and the equivalent of rumor, but sometimes it’s fun to engage in a bit of rumor-mongering. We spotted a post on the investor website Seeking Alpha that posits the following theory: Crestwood Equity Partners (i.e. Crestwood Midstream), owner of major pipelines and other facilities in the northeast and in other locales, “may” be looking to sell their Marcellus operations to Antero Resources and their Bakken Shale operations to Tesoro Logistic Partners. It must be said up front the person authoring the article owns units (i.e. shares) of Crestwood (CEQP) and is in no way objective. Articles on Seeking Alpha attempt to persuade investors to buy or sell securities. However, the rationale laid out in the article intrigues us and we think it’s worth pondering whether or not Crestwood is about to shed large parts of the company, and what that might mean for our region…
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Antero Resources | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Kanawha County | Litigation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

More People Pile on Antero, Seek to Join Mass “Nuisance” Lawsuit
February 2, 2016February 2, 2016

Last September MDN told you about the troubling news that more than 200 residents in WV (likely those who don’t own the mineral rights under their land) began filing “scores” of “nuisance” lawsuits over the past couple of years against Antero Resources and Hall Drilling, in places like Doddridge County (see Scores of “Nuisance” Lawsuits Against WV Drillers Combined). The lawsuits claim excessive traffic, odors and noise from nearby drilling make it “impossible” for them to enjoy their homes. The troubling development was that all of these lawsuits (dozens? hundreds?) had been rolled up into one mega lawsuit that sits before the WV Mass Litigation Panel. In other words a class action lawsuit. Since then we’d not heard anything, until we read about two more such lawsuits filed in Kanawha County. The lawyers want to add the two to the existing mass litigation case…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Reserves (Proved and Unproved)

Antero’s Proved Resources Up 4% to 13.2 Tcfe, 3P Hits 37.1 Tcfe
January 28, 2016January 28, 2016

Antero Resources, with 569,000 under lease, is one of the biggest leaseholders and one of biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica. Every year, in order to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission rules, companies like Antero revisit and revise what they call “proved reserves.” That is, how much gas (and NGLs and oil) do they have in the ground? There’s different types of reserves, with proved having the highest confidence. There’s also the “3P” reserve number: proved, probable and possible. 3P has a lower standard to qualify. The news from Antero is that as of Dec. 31, 2015, the company has 13.2 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe) of natural gas sitting under their leased acreage. That’s a 4% increase over year-end 2014. Antero’s 3P reserves totaled 37.1 Tcfe at the end of 2015…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources 4Q15 Update: NatGas Sales Averaged $4.40/Mcf
January 14, 2016January 14, 2016

Yesterday Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, filed their fourth quarter 2015 operational update. As in the past they did not disclose their financials–they wait a few more weeks to disclose those numbers. However, as in the past, the operational update is full of great information. Of chief importance (for us) is how much they sell their natural gas for. Because they have such a great hedging program–locking in future sales at a given price–Antero sold their gas for an average of $4.40 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) during 4Q15–which is an average of $2.13 MORE than gas sold for at the benchmark Henry Hub! Astonishing. Companies can make money selling gas at those prices. Antero reports that although 4Q15 production volumes were 18% higher than 4Q14, the volume was down 1% from the previous quarter, 3Q15. Why? Antero is selectively shutting in production at some locations so they don’t have to sell it at depressed prices at the Dominion South and TETCO M2 trading points. Smart. During 4Q15 Antero drilled and brought online 14 Marcellus wells and 16 Utica wells. Below is the full update they released yesterday, along with a copy of their latest PowerPoint presentation…
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Antero Resources | Commodity Price | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues

How Antero Resources Converted an Ugly Duckling into a SWAN
January 5, 2016January 5, 2016

Antero Resources is perhaps the largest driller completely focused on the Marcellus/Utica (by acreage). They are certainly one of the most important drillers in the northeast. And bucking the trend of almost all of their competitors, they somehow manage to operate in the black (see Antero Resources 3Q15: Bucks the Trend, $237M in the Black!). What’s Antero’s secret to making money in arguably the worst time for our industry in a generation? In a word, it’s hedging. Somehow Antero crafts financial deals a year or more in advance to sell whatever gas they produce for prices much higher than others–at prices that mean the company continues to make a profit. Most energy companies these days are keeping the people who run those companies, AND their investors, up at night. A company like Antero comes as close to any as a SWAN–a “Sleep Well At Night” energy company. An interesting article on the Seeking Alpha website gives us background and clues as to how Antero has been able to convert itself from an ugly duckling into a SWAN…
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Antero Resources | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Eclipse Resources | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Noble Energy | Research | Rice Energy

DUC DUC Goose! The Growing Backlog of Uncompleted Shale Wells
December 1, 2015December 1, 2015

Ever hear of a DUC? No, we didn’t forget the “K” on the end of DUC. It stands for Drilled but UnCompleted (DUC) wells. Completing a well means taking the final step of fracking the well and hooking it up to production. Lately there’s been a lot of talk about DUCs–a large inventory of wells drilled (holes in the ground) not yet completed. Completing a well takes a lot of sand, water and money. There’s little incentive to complete wells when commodity prices for oil and gas are so low. In some cases drillers will drill the borehole and not complete a well as a way of holding their acreage before a lease expires. In other cases, they’d love to finish the job–but the price they will get is too darned low, so they put completion on hold. Sometimes a driller has contracted for a rig and crew to operate it–instead of canceling and owing that money anyway, they go ahead and drill. How many DUCs are there in general, and in the Marcellus/Utica specifically? The honest answer is, no one knows for sure. But smart analysts can make some pretty good guesses, based on company reports and their own industry knowledge. Below we bring you the latest we can find on DUCs–specifically how many DUCs there are in the Marcellus/Utica…
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American Energy Partners | Antero Resources | Ascent Resources | Chesapeake Energy | Chevron | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Range Resources Corp | Rice Energy | Seneca Resources | Southwestern Energy

Top 10 Marcellus/Utica Drillers by Number of Permits May-Aug 2015
November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

MDN recently published Volume 2 of our 2015 Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook–a research book that chronicles who’s drilling and where in the Marcellus/Utica region. We thought it would be interesting to bring you some of the results from this latest volume. Below is a list of the top 10 Marcellus/Utica drillers based on the number of permits they were issued from May through August 2015. The numbers of permits shown are for discrete, individual wells. Each well drilled typically involves multiple permits–one to begin drilling, another to frack, etc. We toss out all of the multiples and show the numbers for discrete, individual wells. The top driller ranked by number of permits received may just surprise you–it did us. In addition to the list, we’ve included stock charts for each company to show you just how badly the industry has been hit over the past year. Stock prices for most of the top 10 have plunged…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources 3Q15: Bucks the Trend, $237M in the Black!
October 29, 2015October 29, 2015

Antero Resources, perhaps the largest driller completely focused on the Marcellus/Utica (by acreage), is also one of the few drillers that separates their operational updates from financial updates. Two weeks ago Antero published their third quarter 2015 operational update–the “good news” if you will (see Antero 3Q15 Operational Update: Production Up 39%, Gets $3.99/Mcf). There was, justifiably, plenty to crow about in their operational update. With yesterday’s financial update, this is normally where you might expect to the see “the bad news.” So far every driller we’ve covered lost money in 3Q15. But not, it seems, Antero! They made money in 3Q15. If we’re reading the financials correctly, it looks to us like Antero’s net revenue was $237 million in 3Q15. While net revenue is down slightly from 3Q14, Antero stayed in the black, which is no small feat. How did they do it? Some of it may be accounting maneuvers–selling their water business to their midstream subsidiary for $794 million. However, it appears Antero’s ace in the hole was their ability to hedge and get more money for their gas than others (an average of $3.99/Mcf). Antero’s production increased dramatically in 3Q15 over the previous year–up 39%. And they got more money for their gas. And they didn’t spend as much money in 3Q15, scaling back on their drilling budget. Combine it all together and it’s big news indeed that Antero did well financially in 3Q15. Perhaps the only dark cloud (a seriously dark cloud) is that the company continues to swim in debt. Antero’s debt increased from $4 billion to $4.5 billion in 3Q15 (the company’s stock is only worth $5.7 billion)…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources Nov 2015 Investor Slide Presentation, Our Favs
October 29, 2015October 29, 2015

Along with releasing their third quarter financial update yesterday, Antero Resources also released an updated investor PowerPoint presentation. There’s a lot of interesting slides in the deck, and we didn’t want it to get lost with the other (big) Antero news in their update, so we’re bringing you this second, separate post. Below we have the presentation embedded, along with a listing of our favorite slides and brief description of what they show/why the slides are notable…
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Antero Resources | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Wastewater | West Virginia

French Company Confirms Building $275M Wastewater Plant for Antero
October 22, 2015October 22, 2015

In August MDN brought you the news that Antero Resources has decided to build a new state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant in Doddridge County, WV for $275 million (see Antero Building New 60K Bbl Wastewater Recycling Facility in WV). The plant will process up to 60,000 barrels per day of flowback and brine (or “produced water”). We also told you there is a bit of controversy about the project. Antero selected French-based Veolia to build and operate the plant instead of using WV-based Fairmont Brine Processing (see Did Antero Pull the Rug Out from Under Fairmont Brine Processing?). Land clearing was already underway at the Antero site, and permits already applied for, when the news broke in August. Which makes it kind of strange when we saw a press release issued this morning from the Paris, France-based Veolia touting that Antero has selected them to build the plant. Was there ever any doubt? Why did Veolia wait two months to issue their own press release that essentially repeats the details in the earlier Antero press release? Here’s the Veolia press release, fwiw…
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Antero Resources | Commodity Price | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues

Antero 3Q15 Operational Update: Production Up 39%, Gets $3.99/Mcf
October 13, 2015October 29, 2015

Today Antero Resources became the first major Marcellus/Utica driller to issue their third quarter 2015 update. The company reports a 39% increase in production over the same quarter last year, and a 1% increase from 2Q15. They must have some sharp financial types at Antero because the average price they received for their natural gas was $3.99 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) in 3Q15, which is $1.22 higher than gas sold for in the NYMEX futures market. What that means is that they’re really good at hedging and using complicated financial instruments called derivatives in order to get a higher price for their gas than many others get. Good for them! However, not part of the update released today are Antero’s income statement and balance sheet–which will show the true financial condition of the company. They’re holding that back until the quarterly analyst phone call on Oct. 28. Here’s the operational report they filed today, with details about their Marcellus and Utica operations. We also spotted a new 10-year agreement to LNG to Chubu Electric via the Freeport (TX) LNG terminal…
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Antero Resources | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Antero Resources Spending $1B, Employing 2,000 in WV in 2015
October 13, 2015October 13, 2015

Antero Resources’ chief administrative officer, Al Schopp, shared an update on Antero’s activity in WV at the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association’s annual meeting two weeks ago at Oglebay Resort. Schoop’s update was enlightening. Although Antero has cut back from running 15 drilling rigs in WV last year to only 6 this year (due to the low price of natural gas), they remain active and employ 2,000 people in the state–that’s LOCAL people. Since 2009 Antero has spent nearly $5 billion (!) in WV. Some of that money–$500 million–was spent to create a pipeline system to deliver water to drill pads so they don’t have to clog narrow mountain roads with thousands of truck trips. The company spends $20 million a year to employ safety consultants at every major Antero construction, drilling and fracking operation 24/7/365. How long does Antero plan to be a major presence in the Mountain State, and what’s ahead in the near-term? Read on…
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