extract of interest FROM
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/359...s-liquids-ngls-coal-offshore-drilling-gom.htm
according to Stansberry & Associates Investment Research Founder Porter Stansberry. Porter, who built his reputation on finding safe-value investments poised to give his followers years of exceptional returns, also has a reputation as an independent thinker with a penchant for "out-of-consensus" viewpoints. He shares some of his contrarian opinions in this exclusive interview with The Energy Report.
TER: Meanwhile, in the wake of this spill, many people are talking more about alternative ways of getting oil. For instance, I've seen oil shale discussions on morning TV. How realistic is it to expect more production out of tar sands, etc.?
PS: Well, the Eagle Ford shale has a lot of condensate in it, which isn't necessarily oil, but actually in some cases is more valuable than oil because it's easier to crack it into gasoline. There's already a lot of natural gas liquid production today in various shales across the country, and I expect big increases in that.
I have an out-of-consensus view here, but my sources-all practicing oilmen in Texas who own land in the Eagle Ford and have drilled wells there themselves-tell me that they believe the Eagle Ford will be the largest single oilfield in the history of the United States. And they said oil, not natural gas.
They're talking about natural gas liquids, which are just as good as oil-or as I indicated, even better in a lot of cases.
TER: That sounds like good news.
PS: Depending on your outlook, I'm afraid it means that natural gas prices will stay depressed for a very long time, but it's definitely going to be a big game-changer for domestic, onshore production. Just last month, Reliance Industries Ltd. (BSE:RIL), the biggest conglomerate in India, paid around $1.3 billion for 40% of Pioneer Natural Resources Co.'s (NYSE
XD) Eagle Ford property. China hasn't bought anything in the Eagle Ford, but they will. I personally think they're likely to buy Petrohawk Energy Corporation (NYSE:HK). I have no evidence of that, just an instinct.
Petrohawk has some of the best properties, but China is probably the only one willing to pay the very high price they're demanding. So that's the next deal I expect.
You're definitely going to see a lot more deals.
TER: What stands out about Petrohawk?
PS: I think its first year's drilling campaign was in 2009, and they drilled something like 28 different holes without a single dry one. When you have no dry holes, the return on your capital from your drilling program is vastly higher. It's a whole new ballgame. It's just vastly more efficient and therefore the eventual profit margins from production will be even higher than they already are.
In my mind, horizontal drilling and the existence of liquids in these shales is the game-changer for the energy business, and I really don't think people appreciate how big a change it's going to be or how large the production from these fields is going to be. But there is one big hiccup in all of this.
TER: What's that?
PS: There are a lot of environmental concerns about the fracking process, and I don't think that they're going to go away. Thus, I
anticipate much tighter controls going forward on the horizontal drilling technologies that these companies have been using, which will make drilling progressively more expensive. Right now a single well costs them about $5 million to drill, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the price increase significantly to $10 million or $15 million per well just because of the costs of using these chemicals and making sure they get cleaned up.
TER: Does this provide an investment opportunity-looking at the drilling companies as opposed to the oil producers?
PS: That's a tough question. When you can buy a drilling company at a 50% discount to the value of its rigs, it's a good buy, but drilling isn't a high-margin business, so they inevitable trade at a huge discount to book as soon as the price of the commodity falls. In my mind, that makes them really speculative for the average investor. I
think it makes more sense just to buy the companies with the best acreage in the field, and sooner or later you're going to make a lot of money. Even if it takes a long time to get all the holes drilled, the resource is there.
I don't think most investors appreciate that there aren't any dry holes in these fields because they use seismic technology to look before they drill. They know the exact depth of the shale and once they know they're in it, they just drill sideways.
TER: You talked about how massive Eagle Ford is. Are other fields in the U.S. exciting much discussion?
PS: Absolutely. And they're pretty much all over the place. I think they have shale gas production now in 30 different states. The big ones are the Marcellus, Haynesville, Barnett and the Bakken. I think the difficulty is trying to produce these wells in a way that isn't very destructive to the environment, because horizontal drilling and the fracking process are very disruptive to groundwater supplies. They have to be really careful where they do this kind of drilling to avoid the risk of contaminating a large reservoir.