Re: $50/barrel line in the sand/rebel
in response to
by
posted on
Nov 16, 2008 01:33PM
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
Rebels, I own to you the explanation to my statement. So here it is.
To draw the "temporary line on the sand" you need to know the total cost of production (Bitumen) including the Upstream, transportation and marketing cost, interest charges on the accrued debt ,Royalties, taxes and so on.
In your post you referred only to the historical prices of oil since 2002 , completely ignoring the change in the cost structure in this period of time. Just check some resent posts on the board (including Brian, Den, Mark, Bill).
So call line on the sand is not the straight horizontal line. It has been moved by management few times in last few years (from $30 to $50).
The operational cost has moved from the promise $10/bbl to steady $25/bbl in last 6 months (despite to NG price drop by 23% from Q2 to Q3).
The transportation cost unexpectedly moved to $10/bbl of bitumen in Q3 ($6.25 M on about 630,000bbl of bitumen).
I can go on but I do not want to confuse the message.
There is no "straight line on the sand". This line fluctuate and it should not be attached to the WTI oil but to the Bitumen price because there is no linear correlation between both of them.
If you take to consideration resent CLL reports the operational and transportation cost are about $35/bbl of bitumen.
If you assume 10,000 POD1 production the interest expenses ($63 M paid annually) are $18/bbl of bitumen (interest income is it not relevant). With two POD producing interest expenses will drop to $9/bbl.
The cost as we speak is $35 + $18= $53/bbl of bitumen and with Algar production in 2010 will drop to $44/bbl. This may drop by 10 to 15% in time plus more if we have the pipeline.
$53/bbl of Bitumen translate to $67/bbl of Dil-Bit.
$44/bbl wit give you about $56/bbl of Dil-Bit.
This is not the WTI price in US$ it is the Dil-Bit in $CAN.
You can only speculate of how much higher the WTI price will be in comparison to Dil-Bit.
Last thing. I am not the Grate One. Just the average Joe like most of us here. It you ask my wife she will tell you that I am much, much below average and I like to stay this way.