Major Natural Gas producers fall short - good news for TSRG, should keep NG prices up
1/29/2001 Key US producers have disappointing results in the last quarter of 2000
By Thomas Driscoll, Analyst, Lehman Brothers
US natural gas production volumes for 12 companies that have reported Q4 results have been disappointing. This group accounts for about 25-30% of US production. For this group of 12 companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Burlington Resources, Texaco, Unocal, Conoco, Occidental Petroleum, Kerr McGee, Amerada Hess, Murphy Oil, and Pogo Producing):
Q4 net gas production totaled 10,958 mmcf/d
This is down 815 million cf/d (6.9%) from last year's production of 11,773 million cf/d
This is down 246 million cf/d (2.2%) from Q3
This is 1.6% below our estimate (for these 12 companies).
Prior to the beginning of reporting season, we had expected Q4 production for a 41-company universe that we cover to increase 2.3% from Q3-00 to Q4-00 from 25.7 to 26.3 bcf/d, and to fall 0.3% from Q4-99 to Q4-00.
If all of the rest of the companies in our universe meet expectations, Q4 volumes will be 1.5% above Q3 levels and 1.1% below Q4-99 levels.
If the companies that have not yet reported miss our estimates by the same percentage as the first 12 companies have, Q4 volumes will be 0.7% above Q3 levels and 1.9% below Q4-99 levels.
Over the last 12 quarters, we have tracked US gas production data for 41 companies. This sample is responsible for about two thirds of the total gas production in the US.
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