GRMR new drilling applications, page-9

You might remember in one of the announcements back in January there was a mention of a US company, Sandridge Energy, who had just purchased 136,000 net acres not too far distant from Entek's Niobrara position.

As noted in the below article, Sandridge filed for bankruptcy early last week:

Sandridge Energy Inc., an early player in the American shale boom and onetime Wall Street darling, became the latest oil and gas company to file for bankruptcy Monday in what is becoming the largest wave of corporate restructurings since the financial crisis.

The Oklahoma City-based driller is the fifth energy company to file for bankruptcy in five days, part of an accelerating parade of defaults in a sector that has been struggling with low oil prices for more than 18 months.

Some 77 North American energy companies have now declared bankruptcy since the start of 2015, soon after oil prices collapsed from a peak of more than $100 a barrel and began weighing on balance sheets, according to Houston law firm Haynes & Boone LLP.

This year, 175 oil-and-gas producers around the world are in danger of declaring bankruptcy, and the situation is nearly as dire for another 160 companies, many in the U.S., according to a report from Deloitte’s energy consultants.

Casualties of the bust will continue even though the price of crude has rebounded to more than $47 Monday since hitting a 13-year low of around $26 a barrel in mid-February. For many American oil companies, the oil market’s revival is too little, too late.

Sandridge Energy files for bankruptcy protection

I wonder if this might explain why GRMR are so keen to drill... with so many US oil companies falling over, they might have taken a view that the oil price is going to strengthen more rapidly than has been generally expected.

While Entek's share price is embarrassingly low, when you consider the above it does seem clear that this company is still in a far better position than many other US oil and gas companies.