Side Show - Bad Shalers

and the oil sector rout claims its first (?) higher profile over leverage shale victim

"Whiting Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: WLL) and certain subsidiaries (collectively, “Whiting” or the “Company”) today announced that they had commenced voluntary Chapter 11 cases under the United States Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Bankruptcy Court”). The Company has more than $585 million of cash on its balance sheet and will continue to operate its business in the normal course without material disruption to its vendors, partners or employees. Whiting currently expects to have sufficient liquidity to meet its financial obligations during the restructuring without the need for additional financing."

So voluntary Ch 11 .... wipe out existing shareholders, swap debt to equity and rebalance the balance sheet with manageable debt .... but how much production will be taken off the market - that remains to be seen.

For "amusement purposes" their annual report was filed with SEC on Feb 27,2020 ... about 5 weeks ago ... remember that as you browse the snippits

"Since our inception, we have built a strong asset base through a combination of property acquisitions, development of proved reserves and exploration activities. Our current operations and capital programs are focused on organic drilling opportunities and on the development of previously acquired properties, specifically on projects that we believe provide the greatest potential for repeatable success and production growth, while selectively pursuing acquisitions that complement our existing core properties, such as the acquisition discussed below under “Acquisitions and Divestitures,” and exploring other basins where we can apply our existing knowledge and expertise to build production and add proved reserves."





A quick description of the asset value (?)


The above 1P Proved is about 73% PDP and 55% oil.

Production (oil only) average about 80,000 bopd based on 2019 totals

And a quick snapshot of some financials .... the only thing to look at is the "equity" on balance sheet ... WLL has clearly not properly impaired their total assets ($7.6B) since in Ch 11, $4B in equity (shareholder contributes) has been erased.



1 (medium) down, another 100 or so small ones to go