Rice Energy Positive on 2nd Quarter Earnings Call; Investor Sues to Block Merger with EQT
From Seeking Alpha's transcript of Rice Energy's second quarter earnings call:
To summarize the quarter, we turned all of our planned operated Marcellus and Utica wells to sales on or ahead of schedule and under budget. We reduced our operating costs and we've managed to lower our well costs in an inflationary service cost environment.
Starting with our Ohio Utica position in Belmont, during the quarter, we turned to sales 11 gross operated Utica wells with an average lateral length of 10,500 feet and average development cost of $1,105 per foot, which is 11% better than budget. Our Utica team has proven they are not done driving down cost.
Of note, in the first half of the year, we modified our drilling assembly, which resulted in a step-change improvement in cycle times. This new bottomhole assembly included a newly designed PDC bit and a larger, more powerful motor used in conjunction with the rotary steerable system. Using this new BHA, we established a new Rice Utica drilling record in the quarter by drilling a 13,700-foot lateral, our longest lateral to-date, which took only five days from kickoff point to total depth.Click here to read the whole transcript.
In other Rice Energy news, there is this from the Delaware Business Court Insider:
An investor in Rice Energy Inc. on Wednesday sued in Delaware federal court to halt the oil and gas driller's planned $6.7 billion sale to EQT Corp., saying shareholders do not have enough information to vote on a deal that would create one of the top shale energy producers in Western Pennsylvania.
In the proposed class action, Patrick Gordon accused Rice of misleading stockholders last month in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to the stock-and-cash merger. The filing, he said, lacked important details regarding the company’s financial projections and the valuation analyses its financial adviser, Barclays Capital Inc., used in crafting its fairness opinion.
The deal, announced June 19, would expand EQT’s acreage in Pennsylvania’s Washington and Greene counties, where the companies have vied for drilling dominance. In exchange, Rice investors would receive $27.04 in cash and stock for each share they held in the Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based producer.Read more about that by clicking here.
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