The Crystal Ball and Newfield Exploration

All,

Down goes Frazier and Linn Energy, Sandridge Energy, and Chaparral Energy. All in bankruptcy within a month of each other. American Energy Partners are shutting the doors Newfield Exploration is leaving Tulsa. The patch has seen better days.

The Newfield exit is a bit baffling. It's not surprising that the management teams of publicly traded companies are notoriously selfish, but to close down the office that deploys 80% of the company's capital budget in order for them to maintain their faux bourgeois existence in the Woodlands is a stretch. Despite a top position in the STACK (Sooner Trend Anadarko Basin Canadian and Kingfisher Counties), it is going to be more difficult for them to compete with locally based companies from their perch in Houston. There is something to be said for a company landman to know the local competition and to be able to drive to El Reno if need be to gather intel at the courthouse. Just as Apache's position is unraveling in the Mid-Continent after their retreat to the swamp that is Houston, Newfield could very well fall in their footsteps. It would be quite a treat to see one of the Oklahoma companies force pool Newfield out of everyone of their 42,000 new acres they recently acquired from Chesapeake.

More to follow,

Berlin