more exploration coming this yearBeach has laid out initial capex plans for this year... year 2017 is into q1 now at Beach.
Beach has stated they are drilling to find new reserves and to maintain production while adding reserves for future exploitation.
The drilling we are interested in is on pel91 and pel106. Oviously the best asset they own is the Bauer Field on pel 91 that has 25 wells drilled into it and has a three year production of 12000 bopd and that production is holding flat.
We are looking forward to a 10 well program for FY2017... of that we have seen 3 wells drilled with 3 sucessful wells. 2 were development wells, one at Hanson the second at Stunsail... the Stunsail was surprising in that it found a deep oil column in the Birkhead formation... that has proven up a new oil pool while looking to simply extend the Namur oil pool within that field. The third well drilled was the first pure exploration well of this years program, that was kangaroo 1 which found a strat trapped oil pool in the Birkhead... this was a great find and perhaps larger than expected... it goes a long way toward de-risking other Birkhead wells to be drilled and has also indicated a few follow up locations that would have a much higher success potential. Once a new oil trap is found, usually the next targets have a 90% success rate vs. maybe a 30% on pure wildcat drills.
now we have 7 more wells planned. The plans will now change as Beach has stated the kangaroo success will mean they will alter spending plans to take advantage of this new oil find and to follow up this success with multiple additional drills.
so, original plans were for 10 wells... 7 on pel91, 2 development wells (done) and 5 exploration wells (kanagroo already drilled) with 4 remaining..
plans will change some what as Beach will decide if additional capex will be spent on follow ups to kangarooo. Perhaps at the expense of drilling for gas at pel106, Oil has much better net backs than gas does
this is goning to be a good year for NWX and next year will be better, more oil is being found and more oil will be flowing soon.
Further, I have not even mentioned expansion plans to grow production capability. The Bauer expansion will leave room for a 40% increase in fluid handling, de-bottle necking that fields production profile. New compression is being added at the Middleton facilty, on pel106, will increase gas production there, which is already set to double this year based solely on standing wells being piped into the complex. both these projects are currently under way with both having commisioning scheduled for q3... which is about 6 months out.
so why own an oil play... one reason is for a pop in crude prices which we are seeing, crude is up from $30 in Feb to over $50, only 8 months later. second is for production growth and Beach is doing that for us... from a standing start in 2011, Beach has grown this asset to over 12000 bopd and new oil and gas finds are occuring almost monthly now!
nwx has paid out 20 cents in dividends in under 2 years! while all other oil companies have slashed dividends and eliminated them in most cases... NWX has paid out an astouding 20 cents on stock that has averaged about 20 cents a share in those 2 years!
yes the stock is up to 25 cents now... but it is up on new discoveries and higher crude prices... but it is not up to what it should be... NWX is a screaming buy again based on new discoveries and a higher crude price.
a screaming buy... you heard it here... LOL