Noble Energy Loses $2.4B in 2015; Marcellus Scale-Back in 2016
Noble Energy, a driller with a significant presence in the Marcellus but with a bigger presence in other shale plays, (and operations in other countries and offshore), announced in January the company was cutting its stock dividend and 2016 capital budget (see Noble Energy Cuts Stock Dividend 44%, Lowers 2016 Capex 50%). Yesterday Noble released its fourth quarter and full year 2015 update, along with details about their plans for 2016. What do we learn? Noble lost $2.4 billion in 2015, with $2 billion of the loss coming in 4Q15. Ouch. Of the four shale plays they operate in onshore in the U.S.–the DJ Basin, Eagle Ford, Delaware and Marcellus–in 2016 Noble plans to focus on the first three and scale back in the Marcellus, limiting their Marcellus activity to completing previously drilled wells (they have 85 DUCs–drilled but uncompleted wells). Here’s an update on Noble’s performance last year, and plans for this year…
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Last Friday MDN brought you the news about a professor who devised a clever formula for evaluating the overall environmental impact of 20 Marcellus drillers (see 
This is something you don’t see often these days: The Pennsylvania Game Commission is getting $15.5 million of revenue from new Marcellus leases with Chief Oil & Gas and EQT. The bulk of the money will come from a deal with Chief to lease 5,870 acres in Bradford and Sullivan counties. Terms of the lease? Chief is paying $2,500 per acre as a signing bonus and 20.55% in royalties when/if they drill and the gas and oil begin to flow. It just about floored us to see this deal! We though all deals were done until the price of gas goes up again. We’d not heard of any new deals being cut. As for EQT, they are paying the Game Commission $917,000 for the right to drill under a 306-acre parcel in Washington County, PA. Details on the per acre bonus and royalty for the EQT deal below…
Last August MDN told you that Alpha Natural Resources, one of the largest metallurgical coal producers in the world, had filed for bankruptcy. We also told you that Alpha is a driller in the Marcellus Shale–drilling on its own land and as part of a joint venture with Rice Energy (see 
Chesapeake Energy’s stock plunged on Monday after a report in Debtwire said the company has retained a restructuring firm to help the company cope with $9.8 billion in debt. “Restructuring” is typically a nice way of saying “bankruptcy protection.” When the market caught wind of “restructuring” that’s just what they thought–and started selling like crazy. A year ago Chesapeake’s stock stood at $22 per share. Yesterday end of day it closed at $2.05 per share–down 33% from Friday and down over 90% in the last year. Chesapeake, in an attempt to get out in front of this latest turn of events, issued a statement yesterday saying the firm they’re using is nothing new–the firm was hired in 2010 and continues to advise the company. (Reuters reported that the firm was recently asked to evaluate restructuring for the company.) Chesapeake, with debt eight times the market value of the company, said in yesterday’s statement: “Chesapeake currently has no plans to pursue bankruptcy and is aggressively seeking to maximize value for all shareholders.” Saying you have no plans to do something is also saying at some point you may well do that thing. Publicly traded companies have to be careful with their statements because shareholders may come back to sue them later if they somehow feel mislead. So perhaps we should read Chessy’s statement like this: “We don’t want to declare bankruptcy, we have no intention of doing so, but if that’s the only option left, we will.” Here’s a recap of this still developing story…