Baker Hughes (BHI) at Howard Weil

Baker Hughes

First quarter earnings call coming April 22 so will not comment during presentation or break out session on quarter. Baker Hughes spent much of its time discussing its investment in research to handle the increasingly complex drilling that is needed today. They company went into great detail on it new technology center and how it would help expand its capabilities. Maybe Baker Hughes felt it had to justify the cost to investors.

Long term growth strategy – People -added 1200 people in 2007, difficult to find people with technical skills – invested much more in training.

Long-term growth strategy – technology

Long-term growth strategy – Infrastructure $300 million to expand international infrastructure. Opened new campus in Dubai which is regional headquarters for Baker Hughes. Phase 2 to have manufacturing center focusing mainly on sand control product line.

Center for Technical Innovation (CTI) is second major facility being opened. Will expand capability to 40,000 psi and 700 degree Fahrenheit.

Completion applications becoming more sophisticated as drilling gets more technically complex. That is one of the purposes of the CTI.

Production optimization is key to any oil service company – increased recovery factor is needed to produce energy for world.

Saudi Arabia is a key market the last few years – Saudis using Auto-Trak in offshore field, and has a joint development project on MRI to help drilling.

Apache Corp (APA) at Howard Weil

Apache Corp

Apache is first up on Tuesday morning and it must have been a rough night at the Bourbon House last night as the room is shockingly empty.

Management is focusing on its three growth areas – Egypt, Australia and Canada.

Egypt – Increased gas threefold since 2001 – 50% up on oil production. Very active here – 282 wells planned – 40 exploration.

Australia – 47 wells to be drilled, also 4 development projects will add 80K BOE/D by year end 2011.- 14% of total production. Revenue to go up much more than gas production in Australia.

Canada – Ootla Shale Play in British Columbia – 44,000 gross acres in play. Recovery is 9-16 TCF of gas at 20% recovery. Two challenges – only winter drilling – lack of infrastructure to support major drilling.

Unbooked resource potential – 120 k barrels a day of production coming on line through 2011.

Tremendous exploration program going on this year at Apache.

Howard Weil Conference

On Monday, I am heading off to the annual Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans. Howard Weil is a boutique energy brokerage firm. Its annual Energy Conference is legendary in the Oil patch and draws the top Executives from every Energy firm out there. There are also hundreds of institutional investors from all over the world. I will try to do some blogging from the conference on some of the bigger names.