Friday, October 24, 2014

Penn West: Putting Its House In Order

This article was originally published by Seeking Alpha on Sep. 28

Summary: Penn West is recovering after it was hit with a major accounting scandal. The company has recently released its impressive second quarter results. The company has set its eyes on its long-term future. Is it worth investing?


Penn West Exploration (NYSE:PWE), one of the leading Canadian exploration and production companies, has been eyeing a turnaround under the new leadership but the company's efforts received a major setback earlier this year due to an accounting scandal. However, the Calgary-based oil producer seems to have put most of its problems behind it.

Penn West operates primarily in Western Canada and focuses on production of light oils from its reserves spread over five million acres. The company is focusing on producing from three core plays, Cardium, Viking and Slave Point.

Penn West holds 625 million barrels of proved and probable (2P) reserves, of which 67% are proved, valued at $8.9 billion. These assets consist of 50% light and medium oil, 30% natural gas, 13% heavy oils and 7% natural gas liquids, or NGLs. At Cardium, where Penn West is eyeing its long term future, the company has booked 161 million barrels of oil equivalents of 2P reserves while Viking and Slave Point could have 31 million and 40 million barrels of 2P reserves respectively.

Accounting Scandal


Earlier in July, Penn West made headlines when its new CFO discovered accounting irregularities related to misclassification of some of the operating expenses dating back to 2007. Since then, the company's shares have plummeted by23 %, … read full article at Seeking Alpha.