RE:GIGOGarbage in Garbage out, couldn't agree more. That's why these dicussions are important to reveal where we as investors may have blindspots. For instance I wasn't that aware of the Topaz deal.
1. On % NGL's not all being the same, Condensate NGL is of course worth more than Butane NGL. However I would expect the reserve evaluators of each company to also know this and to reflect into their reserve analysis. Using report reserve numbers is still a valid approach as this would capture NGL % and the value of each companies respective NGL mix. What the reserve report approach won't capture is the change in NGL% from last year to this year. With that said TOU has $10.2 Billion in assets, and they have spent $759 Million in capex thus far this year, for a 7.5% addition to assets pre depretion (which is $643 Million). So maybe one way to think of it is that 7.5% of their assets are worth 10-20% more than their previous reserve report?
2. On the Topaz front, I see a November 14th news release from TOU. TOU recieved $194.5 Million Cash and 59.1 Million Topaz common shares. So perhaps an approriate way to think of this is TOU can reduce their debt by $194.5 million? However they should probably reduce their reserve report PDP by the % interest of the field they sold as well? Probably still a net gain for TOU but certainly not a $1 B reduction in debt.
As has been pointed out a number of times TOU has more liquids, however if your betting on Natural Gas prices PEY has more exposure at a cheaper $ per PDP10 reserve.