“Short Selling” – An Important Signal for Marcellus-Related Companies
Welcome to Friday. It’s time for a brief tutorial on “short selling” or “going short” in the stock market. Even if you don’t participate in the stock market, you need to pay attention if you work for a Marcellus driller or other publicly traded company that sells to or is part of the industry. You also need to pay attention if you are leased with a Marcellus driller. A company’s stock price is key to the value of the company–something called its market capitalization. The more a company is worth (the more “market cap” it has) the more it can borrow when it needs to for things like drilling new wells. A bigger market cap also means a company can borrow money at a lower interest rate (more collateral/value, less risk). Let’s take a look at the recent market gyrations and how those gyrations have encouraged something called short selling of Marcellus-related stocks…
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There is no doubt the current stock market crash (what else can you call it?) has affected everyone and everything–including the Marcellus/Utica industry. Yesterday the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil closed the trading day at $38.24 per barrel–the lowest price since 2009 during the dark days of “the Great Recession”. Natural gas trading at the benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana, often used as a proxy for all natural gas, closed at $2.64 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). The Dow Jones Industrial average sunk another 588 points to close down more than 1,000 points in two trading sessions–last Friday and yesterday. At the beginning of trading yesterday, the DJIA experienced its biggest intraday (within a single day) loss ever–plunging more than 1,000 points as trading began. Thankfully it regained nearly half of that–but still, it was scary on many levels. All of that fear has affected all stocks, including the stock price for some of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers, who saw losses averaging 7-10% in a single day–yesterday…
Antero Resources announced yesterday it is stepping up its recycling efforts in the Marcellus/Utica by hiring Veolia Water Technologies Inc. to build a new shale wastewater recycling facility in Doddridge County, West Virginia. The new facility, which will take two years to build and cost Antero $275 million, will process 60,000 barrels of wastewater per day. Is Antero building the new facility to prove what good “green” citizens they are? Nope. They’re building it for the best of reasons: capitalism. Once the new wastewater treatment plant is up and running, Antero will save $150,000 per well on completions costs. Veolia will not only build the facility but also operate it under a 10-year contract…
A slide we spotted in a Gastar presentation got us to thinking: What are the top 10 Utica Shale wells? Who drilled them? And how much was their initial production (IP) rates? So we went searching and came up with the handy list below. This list is current as of August 2015. A few caveats: First, some of the wells in the list produced not only methane (“dry gas”) but also oil, condensate and natural gas liquids–i.e. other hydrocarbons. However, the numbers in the list below are for the methane/dry gas only portion of what the well flowed during an initial period of time (typically the first 24 hours). So keep that in mind. These are not necessary dry gas only wells, but the numbers are for the dry gas portion coming from the well. Second, we scoured the MDN archives and other sources to compile the list. If you believe we’ve overlooked a well–let us know! We would be happy to correct the list. As it is, we believe it to be accurate. It tells a pretty incredible story. Below the Top 10 list is another list–of MDN stories covering the details for the wells in the Top 10 list…
Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, wants cash and they want it bad. Two days ago we told you that Antero is in the market floating IOUs (or “notes”) looking to raise a huge $1.25 billion (see 
David Fessler is energy and infrastructure strategist (i.e. stock analyst/researcher) with The Oxford Club–a publisher based in Baltimore, Maryland that publishes the Oxford Resource Explorer, among other financial publications. Fessler spends his days immersed in the energy industry and in the stocks of companies in that industry. Fessler and The Oxford Club have produced a special report called “The Oil Company Death List” which is a list of 19 publicly-traded oil and gas companies that, according to a formula worked out by Fessler, will “die soon.” That is, they’ll go bankrupt if they don’t sell themselves or otherwise sell off major assets. Why? They’re “swimming in debt” and way over leveraged with “ugly balance sheets.” Fessler’s simple formula is all about a company’s debt ratio. When a company’s debts reach 4 times or higher its earnings (EBITDA), that’s a huge red flag. Below we have the list of 19 on the “death list” along with a copy of Fessler’s full report (describing his methodology). The interesting/troubling aspect is that 8 of the 19 are Marcellus/Utica operators–one of which is #1 for highest debt-to-earnings ratios. Some companies in the list surprised us–others did not. Is your favorite Marcellus/Utica driller in the list?…