The pipelines in their area deliver oil the East, not to the West.
Posted on 11/21/2014 5:39:47 AM PST by thackney
Apache will cut its North American capital budget from $5.4 billion to $4 billion, the company told analysts at a presentation in New York, but said it will be able to spend that money more efficiently.
The forecast comes at a time when oil prices continue to fall. Amid pressure from investors, Apache is working to shrink its portfolio to focus on North American liquids production.
Still, company officials said despite the sliding oil prices, they believe they can be successful.
“We’re very excited about what we can do at $80,” said Gary Clark, Apache’s vice president for investor relations. “The corporation is also very comfortable… even all the way down to $70.”
West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, was trading at $75.11 per barrel Thursday morning.
Apache chief executive G. Steven Farris said the company will take a disciplined approach to spending, with capital expenditures within 10 percent of the company’s cash flow.
Generally, U.S.-focused exploration and production companies’ budgets are more susceptible to oil price volatility than those of major integrated companies.
Despite declining crude prices, Farris was undeterred. “We want to be the premiere North American, unconventional player,” Farris said. “This is not a pipe dream. We’ve done this before.”
The company is in the midst of a major effort to sell off assets, shedding more than $10 billion of them in recent years.
Farris said it would be “a hell of a lot easier if we got $100 oil” and acknowledged that crude’s price declines would limit the number of rigs it will run.
Despite the capital budget cut in North America, the company plans to spend its money more effectively, said John Christmann, the company’s chief operating officer for North America. Instead of allocating money to various regional divisions than then decide how to spend it in individual plays, the company has a new policy of viewing all of its North American plays as part of a single portfolio and funding them accordingly.
“Today we’re taking all the plays and looking at them as one big portfolio,” Christmann said. “There’s a lot fo plays that got capital that won’t get capital now.”
The company plans to steer 55 percent of its capital budget to the Permian — up from 47 percent in its 2014 budget . On the lower end, it’s steering 10 percent of its capital to Canada, which got 11 percent in the 2014 budget.
"conspiracy theory", for sure. Research "Apache and western Egyptian oil".
Benghazi is in Libya, not Egypt. Apache does not have operations in Libya.
With the Fed’s blocking so much of the Federally owned land and waters in the US, most larger oil company also produce outside the US.
Nearly 60% of their production comes from North America.
http://www.apachecorp.com/Resources/Upload/file/investors/Apache_AR_2013.pdf
Also, Apache has been in Egypt for 20 years. Not a recent development.
http://www.apachecorp.com/Operations/Egypt/Region_overview/index.aspx
Apache to Sell $1.4B in Non-Core US Assets
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/136014/Apache_to_Sell_14B_in_NonCore_US_Assets
Apache Corp. will sell non-core oil and gas assets in southern Louisiana and the Anadarko Basin in two transactions valued at approximately $1.4 billion as the company focuses on growing its North American onshore liquids production.
The Houston-based company will sell its working interest in approximately 90,000 net acres of mature fields in southern Louisiana. Production from these fields, which have high decline rates and short reserve lives, produced around 21,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day – of which 62 percent was natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) – net to Apache during this year’s third quarter. Apache will retain its 275,000 mineral acres in southern Louisiana.
In the Anadarko Basin, Apache will sell approximately 115,000 net acres in part of its Stiles Ranch field in Wheeler County, Texas, and in its Mocane-Laverne and Verden fields in western Oklahoma. Net production from these properties averaged 26,000 boepd in the third quarter of 2014; 83 percent of this production was gas and NGLs. -
A lot of folks around here are nervous.
I know Benghazi’s in Libya, and it’s the most convenient port for oil from western Egypt. Apache stood to benefit from regime change in both countries.
Oh that must make them a terrible entity then. They were producing in the area long before that.
Just did a quick online check, yet again. In January 2014 Apache announced that it had discovered huge new oil reserves in western Egypt.
The pipelines in their area deliver oil the East, not to the West.
Where is the outcry for Apache to change their name? After all isn’t their name more important than anything else in the world? It’s an affront to Apaches world wide!
Business and oil production mean nothing! Only the feelings of a minority matter.
As if I even need to....SARC!
It isn’t possible to build a pipeline over the desert? I’d think this would’ve put huge amount of money in independent-minded Libyan and Egyptian government coffers.
Everyone loves lower oil prices, but the Saudis are the ones who are desperate to hurt American oil and gas producers financially. They want the US to continue to be dependent on their oil. Yes, the same Saudis we rescued from Saddam, who then gave us the 9/11 terrorists. With friends like that....
Possibly someone can explain something to me.
People keep talking about cutting back on gas and oil exploration based on this week’s prices.
As I understand it, developing a new field takes several years at least. So it seems more than a little idiotic to base decisions on whether to move ahead or not primarily on the present spot price of a product they won’t be producing for several years anyway.
Is there anybody out there who seriously believes oil prices will stay below much below $100 for long? Sure, Saudi is presently flooding the market to drive prices down, for various political and commercial reasons, but their rapidly expanding population means they will inevitably have to focus fairly soon on bringing their income back up.
So what’s up with this?
I have to assume growth, though. I know Apache has been looking to ramp up in the Permian Basin.
The thing is building track is temporary... when the cycle busts the rail, ties, and other track material can be salvaged and relaid elsewhere... a pipeline is going to stay in the ground and go idle or be abandoned.
So much of what goes on is being able to be flexible based on the market.
I understand that. But it just seems silly to me to base decisions that are by definition multiple years out on prices this week or this year.
Kind of like starting to build a factory to produce chips that will compete with Intel’s present production. The factory will take five years to build, and when it’s ready to start production the chips it produces will be antiques.
I understand that. But it just seems silly to me to base decisions that are by definition multiple years out on prices this week or this year.
Kind of like starting to build a factory to produce chips that will compete with Intel’s present production. The factory will take five years to build, and when it’s ready to start production the chips it produces will be antiques.
I quite agree.
However, it seems silly to me to make five or ten year decisions based on this week’s price. But quite possibly I just don’t understand the business.
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