Re: $50/barrel line in the sand
in response to
by
posted on
Nov 15, 2008 12:30PM
Connacher is a growing exploration, development and production company with a focus on producing bitumen and expanding its in-situ oil sands projects located near Fort McMurray, Alberta
Rex, I believe you have it backwards. I think the break-even would be slightly higher than $50 until Algar is running.
The reason for this would be that certain overhead costs right now are spread out over just 13,000 bpd production, including both GD & conventional. Once Algar gets online, those same overhead costs will be apportioned over a greater number of barrels.
For instance, let's use this example:
13,000 bpd = 4,745,000 bpy
23,000 bpd = 8,395,000 bpy
To simplify, let's say that some of CLL's fixed overhead expenses are um, picking a number out of a hat for simplicity, $47,450,000 per year. Things like executive compensation, marketing, office supplies, website maintenance, etc. - things that don't change appreciably, no matter how many pods are running.
In the example above, the fixed costs would be $10 per barrel produced per year at 13,000 bpd, and only $5.65 per barrel produced per year at 23,000 bpd. Therefore, in this ficticious example, our fixed costs that need to be covered before breakeven are actually $4.35 per barrel higher under our current lower production rate.
Someone with more time could probably come up with accurate and compelling numbers for the board.