jtrain,I agree, Campbell sounds a bit taken aback, as we all...

jtrain,

I agree, Campbell sounds a bit taken aback, as we all were I think

I'm pleased that you and other AUT holders have made a motza on this. nothing reluctant about my post.

But a big deal like this is still not necessarily reflective of the underlying economics. There are plenty of large O&G deals that didn't reflect the underlying realities - remember when Sinopec bought AED's Puffin field for $560+ million? The field never produced again

Campbell is right though - it's all about free cashflow, of which AUT have still yet to prove they can make any. Let's see what the 4Q 2013 quarterly results bring. It's still a long term risk, especially if the oil price falls.

There are plenty of recent examples of very large write downs in the shale sector due to sub-economic operations (BG, Shell, Pioneer, BP). These guys are not stupid and they would certainyl know how to operate, and I'm sure they orignially purchased their assets hoping they would make money, but also acknowledging the risks they were taking.

nearly all the major US shale oil & gas producers have a substantial history of making no free cashflow - check out Continental, Halcon, Devon, Cabot, EOG. None of these guys have yet shown consistent free cashflow from operations, despite the collosal production rates and reserves. You can check out the numbers here.

http://csimarket.com/stocks/single_growth_rates.php?code=EOG&cfw