Inside Brigham’s reported earnings loss

Posted by bakkenexpert

 The following article was contributed by one of our readers, M. Klotz.  

Be careful with what you hear as the press notes Brigham’s 2009 annual report on 2/25/2010. Net income before income tax for 2009 is being reported as a loss of $123.2 million. However if you dial back to Q1 ‘09, you will remember that accounting rules required a write down of $114.8 million because the discounted present value of “Proved Reserves” was less than the capitalized cost of oil and gas properties at that time. This calculation is required to be based on the realizable price of Oil/Gas at the end of Q1 ‘09. The realizable price at that date was substantially less than today. Additionally, since Q1 ‘09, Brigham’s proved reserves have increased substantially as Bakken has de-risked substantial acreage. Unfortunately, rules do not permit reinstatement of an impairment such as this once made. While this accounting rule substantially reduces 2009 net income, there is a positive carry forward impact of this write-down. The foot-notes report that this write down reduced the rate of depletion by $18.2 million ($.18 per share) for 2009. In future years this would imply similar gifts to reported net income because the expense has already been absorbed. Other oil and gas players likely have similar stories, although they may not be as extreme as Brigham. As Washington focuses on places to create new revenue sources, they are bound to look soon to oil and gas net income and return to some form of Jimmy Carter’s Windfall Profits taxes. This $.18 per share is not in fact income but recovery of premature losses caused by write-down of assets due in large part to a temporary low commodity price.

A sixth month chart of BEXP is below,  the stock has support at its 50 day MA of 14.28.  In pre market, BEXP was up over 3% but is down in early market trading with the rest of market due to poor uemployment data that came out before the trading session.

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Saint Marys Land & Exploration (SM) – Buying opportunity?

Posted by bakkenexpert

Today one of the 2nd (or possibly 3rd Tier) Analysts, Stanford Research downgraded Saint Mary’s Land & Exploration sending the stock down 3-5% in morning trading. The shaky rationale was as follows: Stanford Research downgrades SM to Hold from Buy on valuation saying that the co has not yet established an internal production growth outlook comparable to the 10% or so offered by several companies in the E&P peer group

This is somewhat embarrassing to use as an excuse to downgrade. In my humble opinion, this basically translates as “Stanford is not smart enough to project SM earnings and growth based on recent developments and needs and abundance of data points so that they don’t have to do any work” I think the next quarter will be solid for Saint Mary’s due to the following: 1) Oil and gas prices are over 20% higher than the previous quarter 2) SM has around 5 active wells in Bakken region and are evaluating up to 40 more sites (see confidential well list below) 3) Hedging comprises about 50% of their 2008 production but is expected to drop off in 2009 and even moreso in 2010. This can only impact their EPS positively as long as oil stays around $115-120 per bbl. 4) SM bought back over 2 million shares in Q1 and more is expected this quarter If some of the upcoming Bakken wells are decent producers and there is growth in other regions such as Rocky Mountain and ArkLaTex, there is no reason 2009 earnings are not north of $6.50 – 7 per share yielding a forward PE below 10.

ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	LINDVIG 1-11HR	SESE 11-T153N-R101W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	BEAR DEN FEDERAL 10-25HR	NWSE 25-T149N-R96W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	WRRMU 21-33HR	NENW 33-T145N-R101W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	ELLETSON 33-1HR	NWSE 1-T150N-R104W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	JOSODEN 11-15HR	NWNW 15-T142N-R97W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	GRESZ 11-33HR	NWNW 33-T143N-R98W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	RYSTEDT 4-11H	NWNW 11-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	CLARK 16-27H	SESE 27-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	S.M. CLARK 4-6H	LOT 4 6-T158N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	NICKOLS TRUST 16-28H	SESE 28-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	LEDENE 4-9H	NWNW 9-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	LEDENE 16-3H	SESE 3-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	HOLSTROM 16-4H	SESE 4-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	LUCY 4-12H	NWNW 12-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	MESKER 4-18H	LOT 1 18-T158N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	ANDERSON 4-35H	NWNW 35-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	CLARK 16-15H	SESE 15-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	HEGSTAD 4-34H	NWNW 34-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	NICKOLS TRUST 4-19H	NWNW 19-T159N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	LEDENE 16-22H	SESE 22-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	NICKOLS TRUST 16-24H	SESE 24-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	MESKER 4-7H	LOT 1 7-T158N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	D. CLARK 4-23H	NWNW 23-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	KAPUSTA 16-30H	SESE 30-T158N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	EDWARDS 4-15H	NWNW 15-T159N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	DOUTS 4-7H	NWNW 7-T159N-R93W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	S. M. CLARK 4-31H	LOT 1 31-T159N-R91W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	FOOTH 4-13H	NWNW 13-T158N-R92W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	RYSTEDT 16-13H	SESE 13-T159N-R94W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	HOIBY 16-19H	SESE 19-T159N-R93W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	BLOMQUIST 4-12H	NWNW 12-T159N-R94W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	JENSEN 16-17H	SESE 17-T159N-R93W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	ABRUZZI TRUST 16-5H	SESE 5-T159N-R93W
ST MARY LAND & EXPLORATION COMPANY	MOODY 16-1H	SESE 1-T159N-R94W

Current Operations Map of Saint Marys Land & Exploration (SM)

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